Stephen King Threw the First Three Pages of Carrie in the Trash, and Tabitha King Pulled Them Back Out

Instagram Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter Amazon TikTok TikTok Thought Catalog Diamond Mark Camera Collective World FlagLink Loading Arrow Pointing Down Skip to content Stephen King wrote the first three pages of what became Carrie, felt he’d “landed on Planet Female,” and threw them in the trash. His wife, Tabitha King, pulled them back out: “You’ve got something here. I really think you do.”

When he asked whether tampon machines took quarters, she laughed. “They’re free, Steve!”

The scene those pages became hangs over every version of the story, because it keeps happening to real girls.

Because her mother had never explained what menstruation is, 16-year-old Carrie White believes she’s dying when she gets her first period in the gym showers, in Stephen King’s 1974 novel. Pelting her with tampons and sanitary napkins, the other girls chant “Plug it up!”

King got the image from a summer job as a janitor scrubbing the girls’ showers at Brunswick High. He pictured a girl having her first period with no idea what it was, “and the other girls – grossed out, horrified, amused – start pelting her with sanitary napkins.”

Nancy Allen, who played the ringleader in Brian De Palma’s 1976 film, called it “maybe the most disturbing thing I have ever shot because it’s like a gang, it’s like a tribe.”

On Prime Video, Mike Flanagan’s version has the girls film the scene on their phones, keeping the chant and the tampons while shifting it to the end of the first episode. Carrie is played by Summer H. Howell, who says “the phones really amplify how tragic it is.”

The cruelty is real. Back in 2019, Plan International UK found that 20% of girls aged 14 to 21 had been teased or bullied over their periods, with two-thirds of that happening at school. By 2025, 28% reported being teased by peers, and 9% said a teacher had done so.

Thanks for spending time with Thought Catalog. Connect with us on Facebook and browse the rest of our website.

Devon Sawa Once Refused to Talk About Casper. Before He Made Peace with It, His Agents Told Him to Quit Acting and Go Back to Canada

Bridget Jones Panicked Over 129 Pounds, and 25 Years Later Renée Zellweger Says There Was Nothing to Fix

HBO Is Bringing Back Girls for 5 Episodes with Lena Dunham and All 4 Original Leads

Jax Taylor Asks to Become Legally Single Before Settling the Rest of His Divorce from Brittany Cartwright

4 Birth Months Who Never Let A Good Thing Go

Click what appliesand take what you need.

Books connect our company’s digital roots with our love of traditional book publishing. Our books are designed as beloved art pieces. We publish work we love.