Perhaps more than in any of his other works, the dramatic effectiveness of Stephen King's prose style is evident in Pet Sematary. The use of italics and other typographical devices — a practice he occasionally overworks in other novels — here functions especially well as a means of gauging characters' inner states, and all of the stylistic touches familiar to King readers, from the prevalence of brand name products to the most wrenchingly visceral of images (e.g., Gage Creed's baseball cap lying in the highway, filled with blood), seem here harnessed directly to the novel's unrelenting force of statement.

As in The Shining, King makes effective use of multiple point of view and of a structure which establishes a sense of comforting, leisurely normalcy in its early stages, to be counterbalanced by an ever intensifying aura of horror as the novel proceeds inexorably to its conclusion.