There was a time when girls were kind of punished for expressing their emotions. And I thought, if you gave somebody like that this kind of power, God knows what would happen. And one of the things that came through very clearly at that time was that Naomi could get very angry, because she didn't have good control of her emotions. But it was a chance to observe their behaviors, and their emotional makeup. I mean, I sort of strip-mined my kids-not in terms of their actual lives, I never did that kind of literary fiction thing where you have a thinly disguised character who's actually in your life. You know, that's a mean way to put it, but there's some truth to it.

She's not Charlie, but she helped me to help Charlie be herself.” You've told me before having kids was kind of like having an ant farm that you could study. In the author's note at the end of Firestarter you say, “to my daughter Naomi, who brightens up everything and helped me to understand-as much as any man can-what it is to be a young, intelligent girl approaching the age of 10. Your own three kids helped inspire some of your child characters. It stars Ryan Kiera Armstrong as young Charlie McGee and Zac Efron as her protective father, whose own telepathic ability to “push” people into doing things is gradually killing him. With a new Firestarter debuting in theaters and on the Peacock streaming service, the author is weighing in with his thoughts. (Or, at least, to roast those who have it coming.) That 1980 novel about an extraordinary little girl on the run from government agents who want to weaponize her, combined some of King’s favorite themes: a child learning to manage hidden strengths, a defiant mistrust of authority, and a twisted yearning to see the world burn. King gets much more flamboyant in his fiction, with characters who channel fear, anger, or sorrow into all-consuming infernos in everything from Carrie to The Stand to his most iconic tale of pyrokinesis: Firestarter. If lost in the woods, like a Jack London character craving light and heat, all the author could do to ignite a blaze is reach into his pockets and hope for the best.

Stephen King can’t tell you how to actually start a fire.

Firestarter stephen king novel