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Novel writing is a tough business, but it is good to know that even legends in the field sometimes write themselves into a corner. Stephen King, who has written more bestsellers than many of us can imagine, still relies on one person to keep his novels on track – his wife Tabitha King. In fact, she was so harsh on King’s upcoming book, Never Flinch, that he went back and rewrote the whole thing from scratch.

That might seem extreme, but Tabitha (or Tabby as she is often called) has long been a guiding force behind Stephen King’s impressive career. In a recent episode of The Kingcast, the author confirmed that his wife is likely the reason he is still alive today. “I might’ve died of an OD at 38 or 39,” he said. But it isn’t just her stabilizing presence that helps him as a writer – Tabitha King is often the first person to read her husband’s drafts and offers valuable insight into their quality.

“The fact is, Tabby takes no s*** from anybody, least of all me, so I get an honest opinion from her a lot of times,” Stephen King explained on the podcast. “She doesn’t try to blow smoke. She’ll say, ‘Oh, I like this, this is good.’ Or she’ll say, ‘You should fix this, and you should fix that.’ Usually, she’s right. In other words, if she really likes it she’ll say, ‘Yeah, it’s good.’ In other words, there are no superlatives involved.”

While we might expect the wife of an author to approach their partner’s books with a certain amount of tact and sugarcoating, that doesn’t seem to be the case for Tabitha King, who was so harsh on Never Flinch that Stephen King had to scrap the whole first draft and rewrite it from scratch.

“When I did the first draft of this book… my wife read that book in the manuscript and she said, ‘This really isn’t very good. It’s derivative and it feels like it’s straining to make various connections within the story.’ I took that very hard, but I also took it to heart and I rewrote the book from the jump.”

The version of the book, which eventually became Never Flinch, is set to go on sale on May 27, 2025 thanks to a little tough love from Stephen King’s wife, Tabitha. 

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