Kring was born in El Dorado County, California. He is Jewish. He has two brothers. He graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 1983. Discussing his beginnings, Kring said: "I never even thought about scripts when I got out of film school. I pulled cables and shot documentaries. I finally got a gig with commercial house where I would come on with a camera crew as second assistant shooting Japanese cigarette commercials. I had an opportunist to get into the camera crew and decided I did not really want to do that with my life. So I sat down and wrote a script and went back to all the people I had met, got an agent out of it and started going out on a gazillion pitch meetings, and pitched anything I could."
Kring's first job as a screenwriter was for the television show Knight Rider. Other early projects included co-writing an episode of Misfits of Science and Teen Wolf Too with Jeph Loeb. Kring and Loeb would collaborate again when producing Heroes. Kring also co-wrote the 2010 book Shift: A Novel (Gates of Orpheus Trilogy) with Dale Peck.
