Claim: The Dark Half is an adaptation of a novel.

The Dark Half is a horror novel by Stephen King , published in 1989 . Publishers Weekly listed The Dark Half as the second best-selling book of 1989 behind Tom Clancy 's Clear and Present Danger . The novel was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 1993 .   Stephen King wrote several books under a pseudonym , Richard Bachman , during the 1970s and 1980s . Most of the Bachman novels were darker and more cynical in nature , featuring a far more visceral sense of horror than the psychological , gothic style common to many of King 's most famous works . When King was identified as Bachman , he wrote The Dark Half -- about an author with a sinister parasitic twin -- in response to his outing .