In Stephen King’s novel The Dark Half, writer Thad Beaumont uses the name George Stark for his violent pseudonym.
Thad has written commercially successful crime novels under the Stark name while keeping the pseudonym secret. When the truth is exposed, he stages a mock burial for George Stark as a publicity event and announces that the pen name is dead. The story turns supernatural when a physical killer resembling Stark appears and begins murdering people connected with the revelation.
George Stark is not another author’s identity in this novel; he is a fictional literary persona created by Beaumont. The book explores the tension between respectable literary success and the darker material that can make a writer famous.
The Dark Half was published in 1989. Readers sometimes confuse George Stark with Richard Bachman, the pseudonym King used for several novels, but Bachman was King’s real-world publishing identity, whereas Stark is a character’s invented name.