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Worlds of Wonder with Miss Peregrine's Ransom Riggs · WriterCon

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This week on the writer con podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: My number one piece of advice for aspiring writers is
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: to as much as you can silence your inner critic,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: that little devil on your shoulder who tries to edit
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: your work as you're writing it.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to writer Kon, a gathering place for writers to
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: The Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: winning author of the want LNN Files book series.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining us.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: I'm in kind of a movie mood today, unlike most
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: of our podcasts, probably inspired by the guests we're going
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: to be interviewing. You know, I'm an author, so of
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: course I believe books are vastly more impactful than movies,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: and if people just read more books, there'd be a
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: lot less anxiety and unhappiness in the world. But that's
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: just me. But when you're at the theater, what do
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: people always say? They always say the book was better
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: than the movie, and I think, well, of course it was,
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  Speaker 3: but maybe there are some exceptions. I don't know. Jesse
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  Speaker 3: can you think of a movie that you actually liked
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: better than the book.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: There, I do. I'm trying to remember now, but there was.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: You read a lot. There must do something.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I think A common example people uses Fight Club.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Ah really yeah, well, I mean I guess like.
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  Speaker 1: It's one of those things where if you take a
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: book that's very out there and weird, using movies have
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: to simplify it a little bit, and that actually helps
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the story in some ways. I'm trying to think, Uh,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: did do.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Well? Well, he thinks, Laura, how about you? Have you
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: got one?
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: I actually do have one, the Notebook.
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  Speaker 3: Oh really you like the I have not read that book,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: but you liked the movie better?
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: No?
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, what are you saying? Sorry?
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: Yes, I like it.
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  Speaker 3: You're confusing me, Laura.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Misunderstood the assignment.
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  Speaker 4: There No, I saw the movie first. I thought to myself,
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: that was so good, but the book is always better.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: So I had to go get the book, and I
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: is this is it a hot take? I don't know.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: I thought, well, that's a different I mean, if you've
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: already got one image in your mind. I remember I
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: loved Forrest Gump and thought, I just I want to
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: live in that world longer. So I got the book,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: but the book opinions very I get, but it is
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: very different from the movie. So it was not at
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: all like continuing the same thing well the book.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: And I don't mean to offend any Nicholas Sparks fans.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I'm a fan, but come for a spark, Sparky, they're
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: not called Sparks. You should be calling a spark.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: He's gonna team up with James Patterson and they're both
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: gonna come bring it.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: But I'm ready.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Oh no, I most of his books are more successful
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: reads for me, but I found that one just much
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: less impactful for me.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, I've got a hot take. Movies better than the
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: book The Two Towers really, yes?
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  Speaker 3: Oh that was like heresy for you, isn't it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there's some things that are just there's some
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: things those movies do better than the books, like the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: way er Gorn plays his character and whatnot. But just
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the fact that elves show up to help humans in
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the movie, there's always something I felt was missing from
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the book. I'm like, there's still elves here they could help.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: He's having them show up was just it's it's small
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: changes like that. I'm like, that is nice.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: I like to see that.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Also, like for a book that is fifty battle visually
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: seeing that is incredible and they did such a great
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: job at it.
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  Speaker 3: So true.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, the Return of the King movie not as good
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: as the book due to them completely cutting out my
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: favorite ending, so the scouraging.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: I'm still still mad, so mad the what do they
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: call it? The shire Shire? Yes, I knew something, but
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: I couldn't quite come up with it. Instead of having
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: five endings, you wanted to have six.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well they could. They could have cut out two
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of those endings. Give themselves time.
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  Speaker 4: But I absolutely love in that movie where he raises
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: the Army of the Dead. That was visually beautiful. I thought,
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  Speaker 4: I love that, and.
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  Speaker 1: Which is fine because Peter Jackson was like, I don't
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: like this part of the story. It seems you know,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: days X Makina out of it. He's like, but god
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: do it. It's there?
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  Speaker 3: So well. Okay, Well, getting back to our topic. Sorry,
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: as I have already hinted, Today, we're interviewing a super
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: successful author who's also had adapted to film. Ransom Rigs
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: is the number one New York Times bestselling author of
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. That whole series of novels, which
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: have sold over ten million copies, and of course led
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: to Tim Burton's adaptation of the first book in the series,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: which was the number one movie and it's opening weekend
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: at the box office. I think I saw it twice.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: I thought it was a great movie. And now he's
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  Speaker 3: got a new book which seems to me surely destined
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: for the movies at some point. It's a portal fantasy
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: called Sunderworld, planned as the first installment in this new series.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk to him about that and much
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: much more. But first, the news news story number one. Actually,
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: all the news stories today are going to be kind
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: of related because they have to do with how publishing
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: is still struggling to find the appropriate use for AI.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Except it's not just publishing. Now. We're going to have
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: AI podcasts. In fact, they're not just coming, as we
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  Speaker 3: may have hinted before, they have arrived thanks to Google.
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  Speaker 3: Google's got a new program it's called Notebook Notebook l M,
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: which can generate a conversation, like a realistic sounding conversation
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  Speaker 3: between co hosts like what we do here every week,
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: and they'll talk about whatever you want them to talk about.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: You upload materials like a book, and they'll sit there
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: talking about your book on this AI generated podcast. I
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: will put the links in the show notes. But I
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: saw example somebody did where they took this is really
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: scintillating Facebook's ninety nine page privacy policy and uploaded it
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: notebook LM and like a few minutes later out popped
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: this summary and a seven and a half minute podcast
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: about Facebook's data practices. There was one male host and
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: one female host, and they were talking to each other
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  Speaker 3: like real people, even saying kind of silly stuff, or
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: you could air there'd be pauses or slight stutters, little
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: you know, performative stutters or that kind of thing, like.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Why would they include that?
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Sorry, because that makes it sound real, right, That's the
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: way people really talk in real life. And at one
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: point they were talking about hiking boots, and the AI
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: generated host talked about how well, you know, I looked
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: at hiking boots on a website, and so suddenly all
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: this stuff about hiking book started showing up in my
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Facebook newsfeed. I thought I was going crazy, he's the
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: he it it's a fake person. But I mean, that's true,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: that really is what happens, right, you go to a
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: site and suddenly these ads start showing up on Facebook.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: I just thought, Wow, that was our only ace in
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: the hole. Is that Laura is so smart and you're
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: so funny, Jesse. I don't think they can duplicate that.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they can't. Here's the thing. You can't duplicate a following,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: like who's gonna be like, yep, I got to hear
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: what this AI thinks today about a topic. I give it.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: That's not why anyone listens to anything.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: You You wouldn't think like, I'm fine.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It making a podcast about a topic I'm interested in
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  Speaker 1: instead of like just reading a Wikipedia page. Right, this
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: is a fun learning tool, like learning via conversation, all
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  Speaker 1: for it. I don't think. I don't think these AI
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  Speaker 1: podcasts are going to get spot ships, right, I don't
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: think people are going to follow them on a weekly basis.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: You think if they get sponsorships? I quit, I will
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: say that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Look you know like, oh, Ai, Joe, did you get
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: your hiking boots?
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: God?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like this episode brought you by Casper. I'm like,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: all right, that's it. I'm out. I'm out.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Laura, what about you? Let's assume it was a topic
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: that's of interest to you. Would you listen to a
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: podcast that you knew were a couple of AI characters
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: talking to each other.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: No, No, that's right. It's just too it's just too weird.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: It's just too weird. What if you are trying to
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: learn something, you really want to learn something like Jesse said, what,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: it's just made up. It's just made up. It's all
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: made up. Every bit of it is made up. Oh,
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: I think I saw mister spot.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Yep, it's about just ran off and that wouldn't happen
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in a podcast the other a cats.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: No guest starring Cat. I'm glad to hear you say that, Laura,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: because I think this is about one step away from
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: having an AI companion who watches television with you at night,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: gets up with you in the morning, and pretty soon
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: I'd be gone. So this is.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was not AI.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: But yeah, for I mentioned that this is already out there,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: and that's true. If you want an example, there's a
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: podcast called Histories of Mysteries, and shouldn't be the other way.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Shouldn't it be Mystery of History or or whatever whatever?
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: It's Histories of mysteries, which is basically podcasts that have
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: been made from Wikipedia pages and and they you know,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: they have all kinds of things that they're talking about,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: and in fact, in some and at least one instance,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: the AI podcast hosts who are AI again had sort
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: of an existential meltdown because they suddenly realize they're not real.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: And on another one they argued about which words were
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say them, but what words were
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: vulgar or not. It's it's a true interesting let me
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: tell you. Okay, from there, we'll segue into news story
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: number two, which, as I hinted, is pretty closely related.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: This is about AI narration of audio books, which you
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: may remember we discussed in the past and people's concerns
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: about AI narration replacing human narration. Well, now ACX, which
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: of course is the place Audible, which is owned by Amazon,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: uses to let people upload their audio books, and they've
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: got this new program for narrators. Now I'm talking about humans,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: you know, people who actually record audio books and work
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: with various clients through ACX. They can now have their
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: voices replicated by AI tech so that they can audition
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: for jobs. As you know, when you're looking for an
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: AI narrator, not an AI for an audiobook narrator. You
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: ask people to submit samples. Well, this AI can submit
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: a sample based on your voice, and for that matter,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: it can narrate chapters or do the whole thing whenever
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: you're ready. Their announcement says, and I'm quoting here. Narrators
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: continue to maintain control of the projects they went to
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: audition for using voice replica or live performance, and will
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: remain central to the production process. Using production tools, narrators
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: can edit pronunciation and pacing, ensuring their voice replica productions
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: maintain high quality standards. And of course they are at
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: least asking for people's permission before they duplicate their voice. Laura,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: what you would you listen to one of these uh
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: semi human AI combo audio books.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: I think I'm still a little bit confused on how
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: this works.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: So they get an actual audiobook narrator. So you know,
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: there are people who do it all the time. You
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: got to ACX and people will audition for various terms
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: to UH record your books. So here they're having AI
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: like record your voice. I assume extensive enough that they
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: can then duplicate it. You know, syllabically, I suppose or something.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: So they can create an audiobook that's made of your voice,
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: but you haven't actually recorded it may creep out.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: I need a little I'm gonna I'm gonna have to
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: go look into this a little more on probably going
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: to have to listen to some samples and see what
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: I think.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: But Jesse, what do you think? Would you go for it?
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I mean again, I'm not. I'm also a little confused.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: But so in theory, if this is allowing narrators to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: sort of skip some of the more time consuming parts
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of narrating a story, I'm okay with it. If it's
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: their voice and they continue to have the rights to it,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: they're still going to have to go in and like
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: fixed pronunciations and pacing all that kind of stuff.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but do this sort of I mean they could,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: they can, but.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I mean the pronunciation part is the thing that takes
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: up most of the time of editing an audiobook is
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: getting names right places, right, all that sort of thing,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: especially like nonfiction audiobook narration. I just you know some
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I here's the thing. Some people are gonna be okay
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: with it, and some people are not gonna be okay.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: With it, and same thing with the A podcast. It's like,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: if you want your media to sound soulless, like not yourself,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: But is this a human being? Sort of?
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's a human being turned into a robot.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: So even weirder, you know, I have to say I've
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: had back in the day, I had audio books made
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: from my novels, but of course the publisher chose the narrator.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: I had zero input, and often they were riddled with mispronunciations,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: particularly of Southwest place names. You know, they talk about
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: the Outcheetah Mountains and that kind of thing. It just
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: made me, but you know that was still a human being. Yeah, okay,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: how about this Jesse. So it's an AI audio book.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Let's say it's a Star Trek book narrated by an
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: AI version of Majel Barrett, who you know very well
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: was the voice of the computers the Enterprise. Would you
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: listen to that?
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Well? I would, And the reason why I would is
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: because she, before passing away, actually like recorded herself saying
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: like every possible word imaginable using her in TV shows,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: and so she specifically wanted her voice to sort of
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: live beyond her in this case. Again, I'm still worried
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: about these companies and what they're going to do with
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: your voice once you give it to them. You know,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: they can say everything they want this little paragraph, but
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: like what's actually in the We'll have to have that
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Google LM thing read us the small print stuff of.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Ax AI become the voice for the next pull string
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: version of Lars and the real girl that has AI.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Again, like they should be focusing the use of AI
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: into making our lives easier, not taking away from things
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: that already exist.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Right right, Amen, All right, let's move on Today. In
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: craft Corner, we have a great piece on book marketing
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: by Desire Duffy, who, of course is the head of
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Black Chateau and Books That Made You. She's a longtime
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: friend and sponsor for writer Con. She's been on the
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: podcast before. No one knows more about book marketing than
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: she does, so let's hear what she has to say.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Craft Quarter.
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: When people ask me what is the number one thing
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: that I can do marketing wise to ensure the success
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: of my book, I tell them write a good one.
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: Here's the deal. The secret to your books marketing success
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: is crafting and engaging page turning well written captivating story
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: or idea, whether it be fiction or nonfiction. That's what
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: sets your book up for marketing success. I often say
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: I can lead a horse to water, but I can't
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: make them drink. Marketing can lead people to your book,
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: but if it doesn't grab them, nothing that I do
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: will make them buy it. Here are the key points
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: to making sure your book is engaging right from the beginning.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: First of all, that first chapter, heck, I actually like
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: to work it backward, the first page, the first paragraph,
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: all the way to that very first sentence needs to
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: make them want to keep reading on. If they don't,
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: why would they want to buy your book? The description,
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: what they read when they flip around to the back
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: cover or the Amazon description or any retail description. That's
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: also the key to making them want to grab that copy. Punchy,
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: poignant descriptions that answer the question what will I get
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: out of this book? That's what you're going for. We
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: are human beings, and as human beings, we are all
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: a little bit selfish. We always want to know what's
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: in it for me, and that's what you need to
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: convey to your potential reader. The other thing the cover,
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: the title adhering to genre expectations. The look and the
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: feel should promise the reader something as well. Don't go
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: against genre expectations, or if you do, do so at
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: your own risk. You don't want to confuse the reader.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: And above all else, please be professional in your cover design,
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: especially if you're an indie author or self publishing. Here's
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: what you can do. Assess your book, just like the
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: reader does. What happens when you hold up your book?
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: How does that title, the cover design, that back cover
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: description or maybe any blurbs the author bio? What does
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: that convey to the reader? What's to tell them about?
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: What is in it for them when they flip to
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: that first chapter and begin reading? What keeps them hooked
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: from beginning to end? To make them want to keep reading?
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: And therefore your book. I'm desire Duffy, founder of Black
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: chat Told the book Fast and Books that make You.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: Thank you to William Bernhardt and Writer Con for inviting
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: me to share this for you and for everything that
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: you do for the writing community.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Desiree Duffy, and remember her company
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: as Black Chateau. Now let's move on to the interview
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: and talk to Ransom Rigs. Ransom Rigs. Welcome to the podcast.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: We are pleased and honored to have you. Okay, traditional
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: first question. If you could offer writers one piece of advice,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: what would it be.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: My number one piece of advice for aspiring writers is
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: to as much as you can silence your interview critic,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: that little devil on your shoulder who tries to edit
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: your work as you're writing it. It will just stop
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: you cold and you'll never get anything past one chapter.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: And I'm sure you've heard this cliche before, but you
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: know you can't edit a blank page, and editing is really,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: you know, where the book comes to life. So you've
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: got to get to the stage of having a draft
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: before you've really got something you can work with.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, great advice. Certainly that's true of me. I don't
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: know if it's true for everybody, but I bet it is.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: How did you get started with writing? Was that always
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: your dream or did that come a little later in life.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: It was my dream when I was a young man,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: grew up writing my own stories and dreaming of being
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a writer one day, and I got sidetracked in high
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: school when I discovered in middle school and high school
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: when I discovered movies that became a huge movie buff
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and decided I want to be.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: A movie director.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: And I had already, you know, a love of photography,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: so the two just sort of came together. I ended
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: up going to film school, but I'd never lost my
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: passion for writing. So after film school, I was out
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: here in LA and I was working doing and anything
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I could that was you know, creative, to get by
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: making short films and advertisements and web shorts and writing
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: to a lot of freelance writing. And the freelance writing
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: gigs led me to writing for a magazine, and that
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: magazine occasionally published books, and so I wrote for one
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: of those books, and then that connected me with another publisher.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: It was kind of a longing, twisting path, but I
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: eventually was connected with a publisher who did really fun,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: sort of pop culture how to books, and one of
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: them was how to be a consulting detective like Sherlock
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Holmes was essentially the concept of the book. And they
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: asked me if I wanted to do this, and I said, definitely,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: that's right up my alide. So I wrote this book
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: for them. It's called the Sherlock Holmes handbook, and then
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: you know, the door was sort of open with this
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: non traditional publisher, and I had an idea for a
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: book that was illustrated with photographs, and that became Miss Peregrine.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah We're we are your big bands of Miss Peregrine's
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Home for Peculiar Children. And I wanted to ask you
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: where that idea first came from.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I had.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Had an idea about an island full of children with
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: abilities that weren't quite superpowers and weren't quite disabilities, but
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: what sort of ranged between those two polls for a
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: long time. And I had also had a love of strange,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: found antique photographs ever since I was a kid, and
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: my grandmother would take me to secondhand stores and swap
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: needs on Sunday mornings and I would find them in
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: shoe boxes and just sort of go crazy wondering who
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: these people were and what their stories were. And after
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: film school the two started to come together. I was
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: going to flea markets around LA looking for old furniture,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: and I started finding more photographs and really good ones,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Like it's like they were finding me, and so I
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: treated them kind of like maybe a director or a
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: casting director treats actor headshots and say, well, okay, this
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: boy covered in bees, perhaps he controls the bees and
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: they live inside of him.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Something.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: They started to populate that island of my imagination, and
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: I concocted a way to tell a story THROUGHO and
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: then mostly words, but illustrated with photographs.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: All those photographs are what lended the sort of weird authenticity.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: So were those all photographs you found yourself? I did.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I found many of them myself, and then I also
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: got connected with other photo collectors who were much more
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: serious than me and had been doing it for a
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: very long time and had deep connect collections. And when
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: I explained to the project of them, I'd say, well,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: do you have anything that's like this or like that?
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: And they and many of them were very kind, and
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: they just said, well, I don't know. Came look through
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: my collection. So in some cases, you know, they lived locally,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: and I'd go to their house and just dig through
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: mountains of cool stuff until I found, you know, things
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: that felt like they fit my story in my world.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: How fun? Okay, enough about misparagrine. You've got a new
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: book out which appears to me to be intended to
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: launch a new series called Sunderworld, right, that is, which
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: apparently takes readers through a previously unseen side of Los Angeles. Right,
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: tell us about this book.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Well, so, Miss Peregrine, these books all had time loops,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: and the peculiars would live in time loops, and there
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: were many books, and the second trilogy. They came to America,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: and I was always looking for new places in America
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: where peculiar things might happen and peculiar time loops might
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: be located. And I've lived in LA for many years,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: and I have always thought that this was like the
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: most peculiar of places, and that it would be natural
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: fit to have time loops full of peculiar people here
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: in LA. But something was stopping me from setting a
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: peculiar children book here. And I eventually realized that it's
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: It's like it was almost too obvious, Like the city
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: is so peculiar, it's almost self consciously peculiar. And it
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: didn't need, you know, Miss Peregrine, didn't need LA's weird
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: like faux magic, and it had enough of its own.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: And I saved La for a different story because I've
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: loved exploring the sort of strange gritty nooks and crannies
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: of this city ever since I moved here, and I've
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: always felt like it would be a great place to
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: set a secondary, secret, magical world and say that's what
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: I created with the Leopoldberry and Sunderworld, right, I.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Love it was it was it tricky to blend the
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: real world La these little nooks and crownies that you're
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: talking about with your Sunderworld extraordinary locations.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: It's not tricky exactly. I really prefer urban fantasy and
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: stories that have one foot in the real world and
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: one foot in fantasy. I like the feeling that you
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: could go find the wardrobe and go explore Narnia and
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: then come back. Yes, it grounds the stories in a
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: sense of reality that I feel like makes them more
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: tangible and present and relatable. So that's always my natural
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: instinct when concocting fantasy worlds.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: There's also a lot of real world La history in
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: the book too, Is that right? Yes?
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: To some degree.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I mean there's a lot of historical sort of locations
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: and strange places that I worked in. For instance, there
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: is when I moved here, I discovered this big, old, creaking,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: almost closed cafeteria called Clifton's that open to the nineteen
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: thirties and was apparently one of the inspirations for Walt
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Disney to create Disney World. It's redwood forest themed and
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: full of these animatronic animals that pop out of like
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: real flowing streams and pipe cleaner redwood trees and stuff.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: And by the time I discovered it many years later,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: it was, you know, just a fire trap and really know,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: atmospheric and broken, and I thought, there's definitely a portal
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: hiding somewhere in this place. Fully portal, right it is. Yeah,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: So that's one of the places that I worked in
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: to sunder as well as my red list. It was
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun marrying my my knowledge of like
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: real la to this very fantastical world that I created
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: inside of it.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Okay, now, the Miss Paragrine novels were of course about peculiar,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: extraordinary children. But in this book, you've deliberately chosen a protagonist,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Leopold Berry, who seems very normal. Was that a deliberate choice?
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: It was.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: A big feature. A prominent feature of fantasies and portal
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: fantasies is the chosen one, which is, you know, the
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: reason the story is about protagonist x is because they've
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: been chosen above all of the other people around them,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: makes sense, it powers the story, but I felt like
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: I'd already told that story with Miss park Or. Jacob
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: is absolutely sort of chosen one, and he has powers
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: he had no idea about that become extremely important to,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: you know, saving peculiar world. So in this story, I
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: thought it would be much more fun to have Leopold
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: believe for all the world that he's a chosen one.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: He grows up on with these videotapes of a show
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: called sunder World, which is about Sunder. It's like a
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: very bad, low budget nineties TV show about a chosen
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: one boy who gets brought into Sunder and saves it.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: And he starts seeing bits of Sunder in the real
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: world when he's young, after he's gone through the trauma
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: of his mother dying and having to go live with
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: his very overbearing father, and he comes to believe that
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: that's all they're just hallucinatory visions until he's seventeen and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: going through a new trauma, the difficult period in his life,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: and he starts seeing into Sunder again, and it turns
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: out that it's very real and finds a way in,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: and he naturally comes to believe that if Sunder is
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: real and he's going into it, then he must be
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: the chosen one eight chosen Channeler, as they say, which
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: is something Sunder desperately needs to bring back the fading
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: source of magic that they use and defeat the Noxom.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Which are these disgusting, horrible creatures of the night that
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: are threatening Sunder.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: And I'll name too for disgusting creatures. Let go ahead.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Inventing disgusting creatures is one of my favorite things to
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: do as an author. Find it very diverting, but he
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: quickly discovers that he's quickly, dramatically and humiliatingly discovers that
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: he is not the channeler and not a chosen one,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: and he has to pick himself up and figure out
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: what to do next afterward.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Anyway, cool, Well, you mentioned that you're a film buff
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: as am I, and of course at one point Leopol
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: becomes obsessed with Sunderland's like old VHS tapes, Right, Is
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: that your way of getting the film aspect into the book.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I definitely love movies and Hollywood history, and but
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: my personal you know, connection to movies that I fell
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: in love with them as a kid in the nineties,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: on you know, VHS tapes, I would tape them off
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: TV commercials and everything, and so I thought it would
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: be more fun for Leopold to discover this other world
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: through the medium of old VHS tapes, this obsolete technology.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Right then, you know, there was a physical media way
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: into the fantasy. And Miss Peregrine too was collection bold photographs.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: So this is sort of a twist and an update.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: On that.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: Nice sweet Now, when you were recording the on VHS
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: tape back then, did you ever try to like pause
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: the recording to get rid of the commercials and then
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: hit it again. It was always like a goal of
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: mind to try to avoid the commercials.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: I did try that a few times, but I would
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: just end up missing the show.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: The first couple of seconds.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I call it just wrong and miss some I
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: think I gave up to Yeah, but my.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Friends and I would also make videos with one another
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: on VHS tapes and camcorders in our backyards and stuff,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: really crazy, ridiculous.
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: You know, off the wall, that's so fun.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: What the characters in Leopoldan's Best Friend, and they do
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: the same thing in their lives. They realized there's only
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: one season of Maxi's Adventures in Sunderworld, and it seems
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: like there should be more. So they said about making
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: their own episodes and mauls. You know, we had to
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: did these things ourselves. When we were shooting them, I
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: had no there was no final cut, pro or a
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: premiere or anything or even nonline hating at all. So
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: to do a simple conversation where you cut from one
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: angle of someone speaking to another, you would have to
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: sit across from the person who was speaking, record from mint, cut,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: turn around, put the camera in the other direction, you know,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: and you were cutting in the camera. And I got
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: pretty We got pretty good at that, but you would
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: mess it up every once in a while.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: And now, what does a typical writing day look like
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: for you? What's your writing process?
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Well, we have a little kid, and so we have
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: we were behold into like schools, schedules and life obligations
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and family stuff. So my wife and I my wife's
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: also a writer, We get up very early in the
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: morning and we work for a few hours before our
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: daughter gets.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: Up, and.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Then we have a number of hours during the day
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: and then after school pickup time, you know, ideally we're
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: off the clock and it's family time.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: Right, excellent. Would you say that you are a pants
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: or a planner?
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Ah, the eternal question.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: I am a little, especially on this podcast.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I suppose I think, you know one, Pantsing a novel
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: is a great exercise in courage, and I've never quite
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: been able to do it. So what I do is
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I I plan, and I plot a bit, and I
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: generate a lot of ideas and notes, probably many more
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: than it's necessary, in a very inefficient manner, and then
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I dive in, knowing perhaps what my first act looks like,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: you know a little bit of I know what my
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: first act looks like, and I know where I want
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: the story to end up, and the middle is Hayes,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: and I find it as I go.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: You know, don't don't tell Bill, but this actually sounds
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: pretty similar to my process. I don't. I don't plan
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: quite as meticulously as he does. But on the other hand,
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: I don't write as fast as he does, either, so
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: there could be a correlation there.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I feel like my best ideas often come while I'm writing,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: so I end up.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: Throwing Agreed, absolutely, What are some of the craft or
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: skill tips that you've learned along the way, maybe that
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: you you didn't know when you started writing, but I
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: wish you had because now you understand very important they are.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I feel like I'm still learning. I hope I'm
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: better at this than I was when I started ten
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: twelve years ago. Every novel you write kind of feels
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: like you're first, a little bit like you're starting over.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: And one thing that I have learned is that it's
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: important to read a lot, a variety of different things
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: all the time. Those are your Those are your your tools.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: That keeps your tools sharp.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: Kay. I agree with that, So okay, one last question?
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: What are you working on or what should we expect
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: to see from you next?
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I am working on the sequel to U Sunderworld Sunderworld
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Volume two.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, I didn't want to be presumptuous. You were right.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is the joy and the privileged writing series.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: You usually know what you're doing next.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: Maybe next year then, and how do you have any
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: sense of how long this series could go?
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Well? I have three definite and we will see from there.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: That sounds good. I'll just tell you my first series,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: Ben Kincaid Thrillers. I started also with a three year
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: plan and ended up doing nineteen of them, but whatever, Ransome,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: thanks so much for being on the podcast. Appreciate it,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: my pleasure.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you both.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Just a few quick parting words. Two other ways to
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: stay informed on what's happening in the writing world in
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: between our podcasts. Remember, writer Con has its own newsletter
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: and magazine, but they're the same thing. The magazine comes
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: out about every quarter as part of the newsletter, but
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: we do shorter newsletters to keep up on a date
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: on things and let you know what's happening with literary
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: agents and publishers and whatnot. Plus there are articles included
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: in that and it does not cost a thing. This
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: is completely free. All you have to do is go
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: to substack substack dot com and search for writer Con
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: wr it E r co N and it'll bring it up. Subscribe.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: It'll come free to your email newsbox every time there's
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: a new issue. And even in between those newsletters, you
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: can join the writer Con Facebook group. I'm usually there
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: almost every day and a lot of other people do,
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: and this is the best way to keep up with
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: what's going on in the writing world on a day
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: to day basis. All right, okay, til next time, keep writing.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: Remember you cannot fail if you refuse to Quid. See
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: you next time.