A style of writing made popular by
Stephen King. He describes it in
On Writing as
placing a character or characters in some predicament, dangerous or otherwise, and writing them either to death or to to life at the expense of their sanity and the deaths of many other characters.
For the most part, King's writings have embodied this style.
Cujo, for example, places a mother and her son in a broken down car which is under attack by a
rabid dog.
Rage puts a high school in the hands of a mad,
gun-toting student.
Gerald's Game is about a woman trapped, tied to a bed after she has killed her abusive husband in a
bizarre sex act.
Misery tells the story of a
popular fiction writer who, after a horrible car accident, is held hostage by a
crazed fan. The list goes on and on.
There are a few exceptions of course, predominantly in his most recent works.
Bag of Bones is a good example of the exception. This book relies more on
back-story than situation. The epic series
The Dark Tower is another. This series, perhaps King's most anticipated work, is in a
genre all its own.
Other writers have adopted situational fiction with success, notably
Dean Koontz,
Tom Clancy and
John Grisham.