Transcripts For KCSM Overheard With Evan Smith 20170108

Are you gonna run for president . I think i just got an f from you actually. audience applauding r. L. Stine, welcome. Thank you. Very nice to meet you. So nice to be here. I seem to remember the actual Christmas Carol being scary. Why is it necessary to write a scary version of this . I know, and nothing like stealing from the best, right . Right, well, but you understand its like when i hear that were gonna do a scary version of a Christmas Carol, thats like a musical version of rent. I thought it was a musical. No, youre totally right. Why this now . I had never written a christmas book before. [evan] oh is that right . Yeah. [evan] in all the books youre written, hundreds of books. I thought no, this is inappropriate for christmas i thought, and then i realized the most popular christmas story ever was a ghost story. Thats true. Yeah. Multiple ghosts. Then i had this idea, well what if there was a 12yearold scrooge, or what was scrooge like when he was 12 . [evan] right. And i wrote this book about this kid whos the meanest kid in school. Right, and in fact thats one of the things i found most remarkable about this book is not the point at which the ghosts materialize, but the character of this kid at a time when we talk about bullying in this world. I hope that people understand this is fiction, right . Well i love writing bullies. You do . Yeah. Youre probully . Yeah, i think i was a bully. Do you . Yeah, especially to my brother, my kid brother. I always knew how to make him cry. Are there elements in this book of your own experience . Well you cant help but do that i think when you write. Not intentionally. I just like writing bullies. I think hes a very funny character. He does horrible things to all the other kids and he thinks its funny. He says they have no sense of humor. [evan] right, its all on them, its their problem. Theyre losers. [evan] right. Hes just a horrible kid. My favorite scene in the book, if you want to talk about the book. I wish you would, please. Is the principal calls him in and shows him a film about a Horrible School bully, and then says to him, his names rick scroogeman. [evan] rick scroogeman. Yes. He says, what do you think of that guy in the film . He said, hes awesome. Right, he loves him. Its a role model. Yeah, and hes awesome. Right. So i love that part. You write things, there are parts you like. Its a great book, and let me offer you a backhanded compliment, for somebody who produces so many books over a period of years, just churns them out, they dont read like youre just checking a box. They dont read as some authors who produce a lot do, that theyre just basically formulaic, or that no thought went into it. Every one of your books individually feels like, and i know this is your process, that you actually line out the characters, and you know the ending always when you sit down and write a book. I outline every book. Youre very explicit about your intentions before you sit down. Every book feels like time and preparation went into it, which shouldnt be surprising. What a nice compliment, thank you. But im not sure that most people appreciate that. Well i think every author, when you sit down to write, you dont say, well im going to write a mediocre book today. No. Im going to knock one out, ive got another one, let me knock it out. Right. I dont think any author ever does that. Wheres my paycheck . I try to write every book and make it as good as i can, whatever my talent is. At the same time though, i think one difference is, while nobody sets out to write a mediocre book, not everybody sits down knowing the fullness of the story in advance. Well i always tell kids this, and kids hate this advice. Everyone hates to outline, and i think most kids think if you write a book, you sit down, you start writing. [evan] and it will come out of you, right . Yeah, and a lot of kids say, i get bogged down in the middle, what do i do . I never quite get to the end. Then i say well i figure out the end first. I can always get to the end. Isnt that right . You do, you know the ending first. Yes. Right, and you in some ways work backwards. Then i know how to fool the kids and keep them from guessing the ending. The hardest part of a book to write is the middle. Its impossible, middles. [evan] its where all books die, or many books die. So if you have an outline, if its all planned, you dont have to worry about it. Kids hate this advice. audience laughing they hate it, no they just hate it. Kids hate a lot of advice, right . Well yeah. Newsflash, right . Right. This is not as far as it goes, no disrespect, a scary story, but in fact its in the same vein as many of your books, and in fact almost all your books. It has that sort of scary horror edge to it. I added the scary. Its basically a funny book. Why horror . I know that you started out actually as a humor writer. Writing joke books. You eventually moved into doing this. Im interested in why horror is so interesting to you and how over time your notion of what is horror, and how horror itself is effective and not effective, has changed. Because we live in a different world than when you started. Yeah, to answer that part first. Yeah, sure. But our fears dont change. Only the technology has changed. Hows that . Well for one thing, cell phones have ruined every story. [evan] because . Theyve ruined every plot i have. A girl is getting frightening phone calls. Whos calling me, whos doing this . Now she looks down, oh thats who it is. Right. Storys ruined, its over. Called i. D. Has ruined everything. Trapped in a cabin and theres a killer there. What do we do . Oh, pick up the phone, call for help, storys over. audience laughing you have to get rid of the cell phones. What im thinking though is that kids today, i have a 16 year old, my youngest is 16. So if i think about my 16 year old and how he reacts to scary things, hell say im going with my friends to see the purge, or were going to see saw, or Something Like that, right . Saw. These movies, and theyre totally desensitized. Kids that age are desensitized to this stuff. Its harder to scare kids of that age today than it was say 25 or 30 years ago. I wonder if thats because technology has sped up things to the point that 16 is the new 25. They see more. Right. They see more sooner. Yeah. Doesnt that make it harder on you, as youre trying to craft . My stuff is all the same, its the same. Were all afraid, afraid of the dark, afraid of being in a strange place, afraid of finding yourself somewhere you dont know where it is, afraid that something is under your bed and is gonna grab your ankles, thats all the same. I was a kid in the 50s, and my brother and i used to go to horror movies, scary movies every saturday. What do you remember . What horror movies scared you . Oh creature from the black lagoon. It came from outer space. The brain that wouldnt die. We saw them all, and i think, like goosebumps, thats what goosebumps is, theyre 50s horror stories. Just updated, or presented in a more modern way. Not even updated that much. audience laughing its basically the same thing. It could have been written when i was a kid. But no one did it. But people who do horror as entertainment today feel the need most definitely, unlike what youre saying, to come up with all these well they want to go farther and farther but i dont do that because i dont really want to terrify kids. See i like books like young scrooge that are basically funny. My main goal, to be serious, is to get kids to read. And this just happens to be the magnet. Its the plots, the narratives happen to be the magnet. Its really motivation. The books are very easy to read, the chapters are short, the reading level is fourth or fifth grade. I learned all about reading level and how to write to different levels, and i keep it simple, and the idea, they like scary stuff, so i do scary stuff, but the main idea is to get them to read. When people say to me, i learned to read on your books, my kid learned to read, thats just thrilling to me. Happiest moment for you. It is, its wonderful, and never get tired of hearing it. I guess it occurs to me that the people who are doing horror as entertainment today, when they say they feel the need to change it up, they make it more gross, graphic, disgusting. The more gross, and the more graphic, the better, and that actually might be a disincentive. If a kid encounters a book that is ostensibly for them but its got the kind of stuff that legitimately keeps them up at night, then they might not come back and read the next book. Right. Right . Right. I think one reason kids like my books is they know how far theyre going to go, they know theyre not going to go too far, and theyre all going to have happy endings, which is really important. Once i wrote a fear street book with an unhappy ending, just for fun, just for me, and in the end, the murderer gets off scotfree, and an innocent girl is taken off to prison, and thats the end of the book. Thats the only unhappy ending i ever wrote, and the kids turned on me immediately. [evan] did they really . audience laughing yeah, and i got letters, immediately. Dear r. L. Stine, you moron. audience laughing how could you write that . R. L. Stine, you idiot. Are you going to write a sequel to finish the story . They couldnt believe that was the ending . They couldnt take it. I had to write a sequel. Is that right . Finish the story, yes. It seems like any possible plot that exists out there, im not ending your career as we sit here. Its pretty much over. Youre getting close . audience laughing yeah. laughing the number, i think its more than 300 books. I know, thats why i look like this, 300 books. Im 35 years old, look at me, look at me. Speaking of horror. Yeah. Youve written how many goosebumps books alone with various permutations . Next year is the 25th anniversary of goosebumps. Thats a lot of scary stories. Over 100. But its well over 100, right . Oh yeah. Have you run out of plots . Yes. Are you exhausted . Oh years ago. You have . Look at me, im stealing from dickens. Right, exactly. audience laughing im weighed, yeah i know. Young hamlet. Young hamlet. That, by the way, is my Favorite Movie title, for real, of all the movie titles in history, this movie title is my favorite, hamlet two. audience laughing did you see that . I did not, no i was not aware of that. Steve coogan. Thats very funny. Hamlet two, a great title. So i want to know how you originally decided i havent run out of plots. Somehow not. Im real lucky, but you know what . People always say, every question, if we ask for questions, someone will say, where do you get your inspiration . Where do you get your ideas . I never try to think of ideas now. I only think of titles, i dont try to think of ideas. I was walking my dog in the park and these words popped into my head, little shop of hamsters. audience laughing [evan] thats a book . Thats it, great title, great title. How do i make hamsters scary . So im thinking, do i do a giant hamster . Do i do 1,000 hamsters . So its literally as simple as something pops in your head, its a book . Yeah. Well come on, you know, they dont all lead to books. Sometimes ill get an idea, and i cant think of a good title, and i throw out the idea. Give me an example of a title youve come up with that youve not been able to do a book, or has that never happened . [r. L. ] i wont remember. Right, but its rare though . Its the rare time that thats happened . Yeah. Because i pretty much know if a title is a good title. Why did you make the transition from humor, to horror . Evan this is an embarrassing story. Tell it. I shouldnt tell it. Its pbs, we have all the time in the world, go ahead. audience laughing being scary wasnt my idea. Thats embarrassing. I didnt think of it. [evan] thats okay. I did a humor magazine. Called bananas, i remember this growing up. That was my lifes dream, to have my own humor magazine. It was kind of in the same vein as mad magazine, cracked magazine, it was in that era of those humor magazines. I wrote the whole thing, i had a great time, for 10 years. [evan] in fact you wrote under a different name, you were like jolly bob stine . I was jovial. Jovial bob stine, right, i remember that. Not a good name for a horror writer. I had to change that. The jovial was a problem. Yeah, that was bad. So im writing all this funny stuff and i was writing all kinds of things. I was writing bazooka joe bubble gum jokes, and mighty mouse coloring books, and writing all this stuff. I had lunch with an editor, my friend from scholastic. She was the editorial director. She came in to lunch angry, she just had a fight with another young adult horror writer. She said im Never Working with him again. You could write a good horror novel. Go home, write a book called blind date for teenagers, and i wrote this book blind date. It came out, it was the numberone best seller. [evan] what was the plot . Do you remember the plot . Yeah it was this boy josh who was getting mysterious phone calls from a girl. He doesnt know who it is and she keeps saying, im your blind date, josh. And because theres no cell phones, he cant look at the caller i. D. Thats right. Im your blind date, it was 1986. Im your blind date, josh. Then he tries to track her down, and he finds that shes been dead for five years. Oh wow. Good one. That was the original plot. Im scared now just listening. I know. Ive done that plot about 10 times. You have. laughing numberone best seller. I thought wait a minute, whats going on . Then i wrote a second one, numberone best seller. Blind third date . laughing yeah, hamlet two. [evan] what was that called . It was called twisted. [evan] twisted, yeah. And i said forget the funny stuff. [evan] i can do this, and i can make money at it probably too, right . Kids like to be scared, they liked it much better. You said as a kid, you and your brother used to go to horror movies. I want to go a step to the side of that and ask how you decided you wanted to write . Because even if it was humor writing, the lore is there was a typewriter up in your attic . Its pretty much true. Tell the story. Its pretty much true. That you discovered. I dragged a typewriter into my room. I have no idea why i liked it so much. I was a weird kid, i would just stay in my room. Hard to imagine. audience laughing im in columbus, ohio, in a nice suburb, quiet. I had a very nice childhood. But im in my room typing stories, typing jokes, making little joke books, typing, typing. And your parents were not in the business, as they say . No my dad was a blue collar worker, we were very poor. They didnt understand at all. My mother would be outside my door, and i later realized this was the worst advice anyone ever gave me in my life. She would say, stop typing, go outside and play. audience laughing horrible advice, right . Honestly, she was doing her part. Yeah. She would say go outside, and i would say its boring out there, type, type, type. Type, type, type. Except i only type with one finger. I never learned how to type. Still . Yeah. I never learned how. You still type all these years later with one finger . Ill show you the finger. audience laughing which . No, ive written 300 books with this finger, but look at it, look, its totally bent. Its ruined. Thats a pretty successful finger, honestly. laughing this is what i sacrificed for my art. audience laughing the finger is wrecked. [evan] is that it . Any way, i dont know, i just knew when i was nine years old that i wanted to write. Thats all ive ever done. Isnt that amazing . It is amazing. Im very lucky. Do you read other peoples horror writing . Yeah i do. Yayoung adult or kids . There isnt that much ya horror, there is some. And goosebumps, just so were clear on the delineation here, goosebumps is for a younger subset, right . Its middle grade, its seven to 12. And fear street was . Its like 10 to 15, really, 12 to 15. Is there a difference in writing for those two . Oh yeah. Talk about that. Well one is i get to kill off teenagers. audience laughing fear street, i get to kill. [evan] couldnt kill off teenagers in goosebumps . No one dies in goosebumps. No one ever dies in goosebumps. [evan] that was a decision you made in the beginning . If you were a ghost, you were a ghost like 100 years ago. Did you consciously make that decision . Yeah. [evan] because that would be too much . Yeah. I keep all reality out of goosebumps. Parents dont get divorced. Am i correct that fear street preceded goosebumps sequentially, right . Yeah it did. So fear street came first . Fear street came first, and it was teens in terror. It was doing really well. My editors came to me and said, why dont we try a younger series . Why dont we try a scary series for seven to 12 year olds . I said no. You said no . Yeah, thats the kind of businessman i am. audience laughing i didnt want to do goosebumps. Well you didnt know if it would work. I thought it would mess up fear street, the younger audience, and they kept after me, and kept after me, and finally i said all right we can try two or three, lets try, if i can think of a good name for the series. Who came up with goosebumps, you did . Yeah i did. Im reading tv guide, and in those days, they had all the tv listings in the middle. In the old days, right. And im reading through, and theres a little ad on the bottom, im in new york, and it says, its goosebumps week on channel 11. Goosebumps week . Yeah. And you went, thats it . I just started at it. Its perfect. You knew it . Its perfect. Its funny and its scary. What i love about how youre describing your work and the journey youve been on, which doesnt seem to have taken you to a ton of different, i mean youve sort of been on one path, is that you dont get too complicated or caught up in all, oh im agonizing about this or that. You just basically do it. Sometimes the simplest approach is the right approach. Yeah, thats the only thing im good at. You can ask my wife. audience laughing really, its the only thing that im competent at. Im always confident when i sit down to write. I know i can do it. But if Jonathan Franzen were here, or a novelist who writes fewer books, and writes them at greater length, with more complexity in the narratives, they might say its the only thing im good at also. But the difference between a Jonathan Franzen and r. L. Stine, is that r. L. Stine doesnt make it more complicated than it needs to be. He knows what the task in front of him is, he sits down, and he does it. Doesnt mean that the product is any less valuable or less embraceable. Im a good commercial writer. Relatively straightforward, but not commercial in the sense, i come back to what i said in the beginning, these are not books that youre just churning out of the assembly line. Most writers, im on panels all the time with authors, and most writers talk about how hard it is to write. [evan] yes, they do, right. 90 percent of them. Thats how you know im a writer, the hardest thing in the world there is for me to do is write. Its so hard, i tell the kids to stay out of the room, i go up in a tower and i write in the dark with a candle, and its so hard. I always said thats ridiculous. What scares you after all these years . I have no good answer to that question. [evan] nothing scares you . I have normal human scares, but something because when i read a scary stephen king, terrifying novel or go to a scary movie, i always laugh. audience laughing you think its funny . I think horror is funny. Yeah i dont understand that. When i write these books its with punch lines. Let me ask the question in a different way. So theres a hierarchy of things that might be interesting or scary to you. So there is audio fear, things that you hear. Like i actually have a memory when i was a kid of the first, is it John Carpenter that did the halloween movies . Yes. The music in that movie, i remember for years and years just absolutely scaring the stuffing out of me. Just the sound of it, i didnt have to see anything. Then theres the visual scaring, and then theres actually scaring that is neither audio, oral nor visual where its just a sense, the anticipation of something. Like so if you go to one of these like disneyland or one of these amusement parks, and theyve got these things where the person is going to jump out at you, in some ways the anticipation, not actually seeing it or hearing it, but just worrying. So there are different ways that you can be scared as a grown up, let alone as a kid. When you write, you try to use all of those. Which of those is more problematic for you . Heres the scariest moment of my life. A magazine invited me and another guy to tour the haunted houses that pop up at halloween time in new york. I showed up and there were three different haunted houses they wanted us to comment on and go through. The other guy turned out to be the head of the Satanist Church. audience laughing [evan] the other guy with you . Yeah. Didnt tell you this beforehand . He looked just like the devil. He had his eyebrows curled like this, and he had a little goatee, and i thought here im a childrens author, this is not a good thing here. [evan] right. It was the Satanist Church, and we went through this haunted house, and they had an area where you push through, and you find yourself in total blackness. Total darkness. And you dont know how big the room is, you dont know whats ahead of you on the floor, its being blind. I was scared to death. Well thats anticipation in some ways, right . Scared me to death, but also i didnt know what to do. Could i walk straight, could i keep going . And this has never happened to you before . No, this was the scariest moment of my life. The head of the Satanist Church reached out and took my hand, and guided me through. [evan] wow. He was such a nice guy. audience laughing he was so nice. A kumbaya moment between you and the satanist, isnt that great . Right, and that was terrifying to me. Okay well everybody has their thing. So im wondering, your books have been translated into i dont know how many languages and theyve been available, all the goosebumps books in all kinds of countries. Do you think culturally that what is scary works country to country, or culture to culture . It seems to. Theres also a great interest, like goosebumps is hugely popular in china now, is the new mandarin translation. [evan] why do you think that is . Because theres real interest in our country. Yeah. I mean its as simple as that. Yeah. They just have a real interest, what is it like there . What are the kids like there . Whats scary in china, is the same as whats scary here, and does it ever cause you to change the way that you approach the writing of these books . No. Knowing that its going to be read elsewhere. I never think about that. It seems to work cause they like it. When i was there, i did a fivecity book tour in china which was wonderful. Oh i had the best time. The chinese kids, they were great. But they all said, why dont you do a story about dragons . Dragons are actually good in china. Theyre good. Yeah. I didnt know that. So are you going to a dragon book . Maybe. I havent thought of one yet. We have about a minute left. I want to ask you about why these books, its not that they havent been at all, but why they havent been more prevalent or more pervasive across other entertainment platforms . Why am i unable to see goosebumps the television show, or goosebumps the movie . Its all on netflix. They did four years of goosebumps tv. But youve been doing these books for a lot longer than four years and there are many more books. I would have assumed that this was going to be the franchise to end all franchises. laughing well we had the goosebumps movie last year. [evan] jack black was in that, right . Jack black was me. [evan] you were in it. Yeah, jack and i are like twins, right . Yes. audience laughing indeed. No but it took them 20 years to do the movie. We had movie deals for 20 years. Finally 20 years later, the movie came out. [evan] what do you think it was that took so long . They didnt have a script that they liked. No one could figure out what to do. They should approach it like you approach it. Just sit down and write it. Yes, i have been very lucky though. Ive had i think four tv series. Ive had the haunting hour was on for four years. Youre satisfied that theres been enough of an extension of these books . Well i would like to see more movies. I havent had much luck there. Ive had a lot of luck, i just feel im very lucky. How many childrens authors have had four tv series and a movie thats about them . Yeah. laughing and how many childrens authors have sold as many books quite candidly as you have . Maybe none. No. Thats just luck. It really is. Well you say its luck, i say you got into something that you did exceptionally well, better than anybody else, and youve made something of it. Thank you. You should get the credit for that. Congratulations on this book, good luck with it, and Everything Else you do. I suspect were going to be seeing a lot more. I hope so. Good, r. L. Stine, thank you very much, sir. audience applause [announcer] we would love to have you join us in the studio, visit our website at klru. Org overheard to find invitations to interviews, q as with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes. Parents in goosebumps are useless. audience laughing the parents never believe the kids, ever. They never believe whats going on. Theyre usually totally absent. The idea of a goosebumps book is that the kids have these horrible, terrifying problems and they have to solve them on their own. [announcer] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation and hillco partners, a texas Government Affairs consultancy, and by klrus producers circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas, community