A couple years back I got to visit the Stanley hotel in Estes Park Colorado. The Stanley is where Stephen King got his idea for The Shining – A classic novel, and later movie, about a writer and his family becoming caretakers of an old hotel during the winter season.

In 1974, Stephen King and his wife, Tabitha, were living for a short time in Boulder, Colorado. They did not intend on staying in Estes Park, but the heavy snow prevented them from diving on so they decided to spend the night. The hotel was closing for the winter, but, after some negotiation, allowed them to stay as the only guests in the entire place.

That eerie setup gave King the perfect atmosphere for a horror writer: long empty hallways, a quiet dining room with chairs stacked on tables, canned orchestral music echoing through the building, and a bartender named Grady serving drinks in the hotel bar. At one point, King wandered into the bathroom, saw the old claw-foot tub behind a pink curtain, and had the thought: What if someone died here? According to King, that was one of the moments when the idea for The Shining began to take shape.

The night also gave him a nightmare that helped seal the story. He later described dreaming about his young son running down the hotel corridors, terrified, while being chased by a fire hose. King woke up sweating, sat by the window looking out at the Rocky Mountains, smoked a cigarette, and by the time he was done, he said he had the basic structure of The Shining in his head.

It should be noted that the movie is very different than the book. King did not like what Kubric did with the story and eventually filmed his own version at the Stanley hotel. I did enjoy Kubric’s vision for the movie but, to me, the book is definitely better.

The Stanley is also where part of Dumb And Dumber was filmed. Supposedly actor Jim Carrey was staying at the hotel (in room 217 – the same room the King’s stayed in) with the rest of the crew but he got so freaked out by something in his room he left in the middle of the night. He stayed elsewhere in town for the rest of the shoot. He has never publicly talked about this experience.

I loved hearing how the location and creepy old hotel gave King the idea for his book. We never know where story ideas will come from. It was thrilling for me to walk through the buildings and think about how that place in Estes Park triggered his imagination so many years ago.

What has been the most unexpected trigger for your story ideas?

-James