#0030 - Orson Scott Card

Step into the creative mind of Orson Scott Card, the visionary behind one of science fiction's most influential novels, as he shares the rarely-told story of his journey from creek-exploring child to celebrated author.

Card reveals how his remarkably free-range childhood in 1950s California—riding bicycles across busy highways at age eight and exploring dry creek beds for hours—laid the foundation for his creative independence. With disarming candor, he discusses the family environment where writing wasn't considered special, just expected, and how his early comfort with public speaking contrasts sharply with his lifelong struggle with small talk.

The conversation takes fascinating turns as Card unpacks the evolution of Ender's Game from award-winning short story to beloved novel to disappointing film adaptation. His insider's perspective on Hollywood provides eye-opening revelations, including how Harrison Ford secretly functioned as an uncredited co-director on the Ender's Game film, demonstrating acting techniques that transformed scenes through subtle physical choices.

Card's analysis of adaptation challenges offers profound insights for storytellers across all media. Through thoughtful examination of works like Lord of the Rings and Pride and Prejudice, he illustrates why some adaptations soar while others falter, making a compelling case for the miniseries format as the ideal future for Ender's Game on screen.

Perhaps most valuable are Card's hard-earned lessons for creative professionals. His wisdom cuts through conventional advice with refreshing directness: "Remember you're a human first and an artist second." He dismisses formulaic approaches to storytelling, emphasizing instead that "story is everything" and that excellence, not trend-following, leads to success.

Whether you're a longtime fan of Card's work, an aspiring creator, or simply fascinated by the creative process, this conversation offers invaluable perspective on storytelling, adaptation, and maintaining humanity in creative pursuits. Listen now and discover why Card believes the most important question for any storyteller isn't about technique, but about belief: "If you're not all special, why are you writing?"

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Episode Transcript

Brian Triger (00:31):
Welcome to the Rotary Spark podcast.
Today, my guest is Orson ScottCard.
Thank you for joining us, mrCard.
How are you doing today?

Orson Scott Card (00:41):
I'm doing just fine.
One of the joys of being an oldman that sleep is a precious
thing that I hardly ever get,and I actually got a little bit
last night, so I may actuallyeven be coherent in our
conversation today well.

Brian Triger (00:55):
I'm glad that you got some rest, so I'm very
excited.
I got exposed to yourliterature when I was younger
and I've read several booksthroughout the years, so I
really appreciate thisopportunity to ask you some
questions.
I'd like to start out and maybeget into your shoes a little
bit, by finding out or askingyou this question what was your

(01:22):
childhood like?

Orson Scott Card (01:25):
Well, I was just thinking about that because
of course there are ups anddowns in everybody's childhood
and I've rather dwelt on some ofthe negatives recently, but I
finally realized that I actuallyhad kind of an idyllic
childhood I was thinking about.
I grew up in Santa Clara,california, and the hours that I

(01:47):
spent exploring the dry creekbeds the one behind our house
and the other one between myhouse and the elementary school
I attended.
I actually had a lot of time,both alone and with friends at
different times, just climbingaround in the creek beds and it

(02:07):
was, you know, as close tonature as I was going to be able
to come in that suburbanenvironment.
But my parents wereastonishingly open minded about
letting me go out and have achildhood and be free.
I remember at the age of eightrunning running errands to the
Lucky Supermarket on El Caminoriding my bicycle, and I'm glad

(02:33):
that they trusted me.
I never shortchanged them.
But it also was something kindof astonishing compared to the
way things are now.
Who sends their eight-year-oldkid on a bike to cross one of
the busiest highways in thestate in order to do some
grocery shopping and bring itback in the basket on his

(02:54):
bicycle.
As an eight-year-old I wasresponsible, but there were no
bike helmets then and my bikedidn't have any lights helmets
then and my bike didn't have anylights, didn't have a horn for
even beeping at anybody.
So that, and then just beingable to do what I wanted and go
where I wanted, even at thatyoung age.

(03:16):
And then when we moved toArizona, when I was how old was
I?
14, 13, I once again got on mybicycle and only this time I had
friends on bikes who would gowith me and we would be all over
the Mesa area on our bicycles,ranging from desert to orchard

(03:39):
to alfalfa fields and, of course, the town itself, and we really
had an amazing amount offreedom.
Maybe that's part of the reasonwhy I never minded the fact
that I didn't get a driver'slicense at 16.
Didn't get a driver's license.
So I was 23, or nearly 23, justa few weeks shy of that, and I

(04:02):
didn't feel hampered by it verymuch at all, not that I mean,
obviously I didn't do any dating.
You can't go dating on a bikeUsually.
Uh, it would take a veryspecial kind of female person to
want to date a guy who couldn'tdrive and who was on a bicycle,
but uh, I had a good, I had agood childhood.
Uh, no complaints a good.

Brian Triger (04:29):
I had a good childhood.
Uh, no complaints.
Did you?
Did you start writing when youwere younger?
Were there any moments likeduring your childhood or early
adolescence that really shaped apath tied to uh writing, uh
writing, cycling and any otherpassionate activities that you
had throughout the rest of yourlife?

Orson Scott Card (04:49):
Well, there were very few activities that I
was serious about except reading.
Okay, I would write, but that'sbecause everybody in our family
took it for granted that wecould write.
It wasn't like a competitionwith the rest of the world.
We didn't think we were thebest, but we just when stuff

(05:10):
needed writing.
We didn't think to delegate it,we just wrote it, and my
parents were that way.
I grew up knowing that my momhad written a play that had song
lyrics in it.
I think it was my grandmotherwho told the original story.

(05:30):
My mom was involved inproducing it and one of my
uncles had written a score to it.
So this musical comedy thatthey wrote was, I mean, it got
talked about often enough.
But I knew that I was from afamily where we wrote stuff and
performed it.
We were performers above all.

(05:54):
My dad was an absolutelymasterful speaker at church,
which is where we got most ofour experience.
That way.
I had fun doing it and I wasable to hold an audience.
And I got that feel by the timeI was eight or nine years old,
that sense of being at a pulpitor on a dais and speaking and

(06:16):
having the rapt attention of anaudience.
So I've been reading audiencessince I was kind of young and if
there was anything that Ithought would be in my future, I
was pretty sure I'd end upspeaking to people, and so I've
enjoyed that.
I always have.
I can't remember ever having amoment's stage fright about

(06:39):
speaking in front of an audience.
Of course, I have to say I doremember one time when I had
terrifying, soul-numbing stagefright, but it was not about
performing.
The first time I went to aScience Fiction Writers of
America function, it was theNebula Awards Banquet, the year

(07:01):
that my story Ender's Game wasnominated for a Hugo different
award.
I was not nominated for aNebula, but I was going to the
Nebula Awards banquet because myeditor, ben Bova, told me that
it would be really good if Icame.
So I did.
It was in Berkeley, california,and as I was walking out of my

(07:25):
hotel room to take the elevatordown to where the banquet was
going to be held, I couldn't doit.
I got to the elevator, turnedaround and went back to my room,
and I did that several timesbecause I had never been a
science fiction writer in apublic setting, been a science

(07:48):
fiction writer in a publicsetting and I was sure that
everybody would regard me as theRube that I was.
I was from Salt Lake City.
The only clothing that I knewhow to wear at a formal event
was my Sunday go-to-meeting suit, and I somehow felt that that
was probably all wrong for whereI was going and I was correct.
Everything that I feared I wascorrect about.

(08:09):
And the problem is, I mean, thegood thing was that none of it
mattered.
I had thought it mattered andthen I realized that it didn't,
because there was this epiphanythat finally got me into that
elevator and down, which was I'mon the Hugo ballot.
For Pete's sake, I'm a writer.

(08:29):
Whatever I do is correct.
I mean, I will be writing likea professional writer because
I'm a professional writer, andso if I go down there and I
don't know all of the rightsocial mores, it doesn't matter,
because whatever I do will bethe way this writer behaves.
And that sort of arrogantself-realization gave me the

(08:53):
courage to go ahead and go ondownstairs.
Nobody at my table had everheard of my work or me, and that
was fine.
It meant that nobody wasquizzing me about anything, uh,
and there was some enjoyableconversation, but mostly it was
the.
It was the year that, uh, harlanelson won uh nebula for jeff d

(09:14):
is five, a wonderful short story, and uh, so I got to see some
people that had really matteredto me as a young writer, who
were there present at theceremonies.
I didn't meet them because I'mnot a glad hander I don't walk
up to people and say hi, I'mScott Gard, and because, for one

(09:37):
thing, usually I would assumethat they would go, so what?
And so there's no reason to setmyself up for public
humiliation as far as I can see.
But I just.
I mean, I once shared anelevator with Gene Wolfe, one of
the writers I admired most onearth, and I didn't say a word

(09:58):
to him, just him and me in theelevator, and I just sat there
watching the numbers change onthe floors.
And later we did meet and hetook part in a writing workshop
session that I was doing at aWorldcon.
But I realized I had nothing tosay to him except for just
saying I really like your work,sir.
And then, beyond that, wheredoes the conversation go?

(10:22):
We're going to find that out, Ithink, during this half hour.
But I had no conversation, Ihad no small talk.
I still don't.
I have a terrible time justchatting because that's beyond
my skills, beyond my confidence.

(10:42):
Uh, skills beyond my confidence?
Um, it's one of the reasons whyI learned early on in my
marriage that, generallyspeaking, I had always had a
history of being much of havingmany more good friendships with
girls than with boys.
In school I had a couple ofvery, very close guy friends, uh

(11:03):
, but other than that, they'reall my close friends.
All the people I hung out withwere girls, girls who never,
ever thought of me as having anyromantic potential, which was
okay.
I didn't really think of myselfas having any romantic
potential potential, but, but,uh, I, I had this very clear

(11:30):
awareness of the fact that ifthere's a subject matter, I can
talk forever.
If there's no subject matter, Ihave nothing to say.
Well, right now, we, thesubject matter is me, and so, uh
, I obviously have a lot to saybecause I know that subject
matter quite well, better thananybody else, I would imagine.
But just chatting not something, I'm good at Interesting.

Brian Triger (11:52):
I mean you've shared so much.
So, just from the outsideperspective, knowing that or
finding that out about you is aninteresting tidbit tidbit.

Orson Scott Card (12:07):
Well it's, it's one.
It's one of those weird thingswhere, uh, I would have I never
have nightmares about being onstage not knowing my lines,
because I don't actually worryabout that.
Uh, of course, if it's in aplay that I would need to know
my lines, and I used to be ableto memorize very well.
Uh, though, I did have one timeever where I went up on a line
and I have not performed in anyplace since then because I don't

(12:31):
trust my memory anymore.
But the nightmare of standingthere on a stage with no subject
matter just doesn't bother me,because it's happened to me now
multiple times and I, you know,not even always a huge audience,
sometimes several thousandpeople, but sometimes just a

(12:56):
meeting room with 10 people.
But I have no problem withtaking over a meeting that isn't
mine.
You grow up as a Mormon kid bythe time you're 18 or 19, you
know how to stand up and start ameeting to make things get

(13:16):
going, even if you have noauthority whatsoever, and that's
what I've done more than once.
Remember, one time I went to ascience fiction convention in
Biloxi, Mississippi, and thefolks who were organizing it
really had never done it before.
It was their first con and theyhad no programming and so when I

(13:37):
arrived, I think that they justhad this vague idea that
programming just happens.
So the other pros who werethere with me, we sat down with
one of the guys from theconvention and we decided on the
programming for the day,organized it and set it up and
basically this is one of thevery first conventions I ever

(14:00):
went to, but it was myconvention.
I programmed it.
Obviously, therefore, I wasinterested in all the panel
topics and it was kind of fun.
But it just comes naturally nowto be able to get a meeting
started or to just stand up at amicrophone or without the
microphone and talk and beridiculous usually, but

(14:25):
ridiculous gets laughs andaudience engagement, so I don't
mind.
And talk and be ridiculoususually, but ridiculous gets
laughs and audience engagement,so I don't mind being ridiculous
.
I think that's maybe the key toavoiding stage fright is if you
don't mind being ridiculous.

Brian Triger (14:38):
That's a really good point.
I use that as much as I rememberto, and one of the questions
that comes to mind that I'd liketo push your way what, or how,
did life change?
If I'm not mistaken, ender'sGame was published in 85.

(14:59):
The book was yes, so, and I Idid my best before the sitting
down in this interview to notresearch you too much, just
based on my own excitement.
Do my best to you know, takeyou off the pedestal that I had
you on, which was what was andis challenging, aside from that

(15:20):
internal thought process beingexposed.
Um, I, I remember being exposedto some information about you
talking about advances and thechallenges of just being a
writer and stuff like that.
So, out of curiosity, how didlife change before and after

(15:42):
Ender's Game?
Like the publishing and thesuccess of Ender's Game, did
life dramatically transform in areasonable amount of time, I
guess is what I'm trying to sayyou know the actual date of
publication of Ender's Game.

Orson Scott Card (15:59):
At the moment of publication, nothing changes.
Okay, because it takes time forthings to catch on.
It took time for Ender's Gameto be nominated for awards and
to receive them, and even then,even after having won the Hugo
and the Nebula for Ender's Game,it's not that that instantly
sparked bestseller status.

(16:20):
Ender's Game never reached abestseller list.
During its initial publication.
Money wasn't just flooding in,and so I knew that I had a book
that was being noticed in thefield of science fiction, but
that isn't a reason to quit yourday job.

(16:42):
By the time Ender's Game cameout as a novel, I was living
solely from my writing income,so my earlier books had done
well enough, not that I wasliving off of royalties, but
that I could kind of count ongetting advances above the
normal minimum.

(17:02):
When I started, the normaladvance for somebody's early
novels was $3,000.
I had occasion to index tocreate the index for a biography
by a fellow named PorgesP-O-R-G-E-S of Edgar Rice
Burroughs and Edgar RiceBurroughs when he first sold

(17:26):
books.
The normal advance for afirst-time writer was $3,000.
The difference being that for$3,000 as your annual income in
New York City at the time thatBurroughs was starting.
That would be enough money foryou to pay rent on a very nice
apartment and keep a couple ofservants and a carriage, and

(17:50):
that could be your entire incomefor the year and you'd be fine
Nowadays.
By the time I sold my firstnovel in, I think, 78, $3,000
was really not much more than amonth and a half's income.
Now it's less than that, but umit.
The numbers never changedbecause writers kept accepting

(18:12):
it, um, and certainly I did.
I was pleased to get anypayment at all.
It was better than the shortstories, uh, that I had sold.
But I had already made the hugethreshold decision of leaving
my day job and we'd been doingfine.
I never had a year in which Imade less money than I had been

(18:33):
making at the very poorly payingeditorial jobs that I had had
before that.
So from sort of the skid row ofthe publishing industry, which
is being an editor and aproofreader, I had made it into
the lofty ranks of grosslyunderpaid, starving writers.

(18:55):
I had a wife then and a childvery quickly and they expected
to be able to eat and so, uh and, and my wife, uh, worked.
My wife worked at first.
Um, uh, I've hated that I'mgetting incoming calls here but
I'm ignoring them.
Um, uh, anyway, my wife workedat first, but then, when she got

(19:21):
pregnant with our first child,um, but then when she got
pregnant with our first child,she got such terrible morning
sickness that she could not goup the elevators at her place of
employment.
She worked on the 21st floor ofa building and then the express
elevator just made her throw up.
This is not a nice thing tohave.

(19:42):
Happen to you as you're tryingto go to a place of employment
is to know that every time yougo to work, somebody's going to
have to clean up the elevator.
So, anyway, she stayed home andtried not to die of dehydration
, and that was when I decided toquit my day job.

(20:04):
Uh, which was weird.
It was terrifying for her tothink that she had married this
guy who had a job and now Iwasn't going to have a job.
But uh, my, this bigtransformation came not on the
strength of my fiction writing,but on the strength of my
writing for a company calledLiving Scriptures in Ogden, utah

(20:27):
.
I was writing half-hour audioplays for them, which they would
sell then in sets of I can'tremember how many tapes there
were to a set cassette tapes andI was involved in the recording
of them as well, not in charge,but I was there as they were

(20:48):
recording them and would dorewrites as needed, because
sometimes I realized my writingwasn't as clear as I had
intended.
But I was living off of $125script for these half-hour plays
and so I was actually making aliving from from what I had
learned as a playwright.

(21:09):
And I still, uh, my favorite,uh recording, my favorite
dramatization of ender's game isnot the movie, which laughably
has that title and almostnothing else, but instead it's
Ender's Game Alive, which is aproduction that we did.
That is available at audiblecomand that's what I think of as a

(21:36):
good adaptation of Ender's Gamefor a dramatic presentation.
But that was my skill then waswriting dialogue, was writing
for audio, and it still is oneof my favorite things to write.
And when I'm writing my novels Iwrite them with the audiobook

(21:57):
in mind, because to me that'sthe real presentation.
When you put out a book forother people to read silently to
themselves, then they are theaudiobook narrator, only they're
not necessarily particularlygood at it.
I try to provide as manyguidelines as I can, where the

(22:20):
stresses are in a sentence, forexample.
The stresses are in a sentence,for example, shown with an
italicizing one word, and I tryto provide guidelines like that
for the reader.
I also try to write narrativein such a way that it feels like
the events are unfolding infront of you and so that it
feels movie-like or audioplay-like.

(22:43):
And that's what I was alreadydoing even before I had any
audiobooks recorded, becausethat's the way I thought, that's
the way I wrote when I wrotethe first version of Ender's
Game, which was the novelettepublished in the August issue of
Analog in 1977, I realizedafterward that, because I didn't

(23:05):
really know anything aboutwriting fiction, what I had
written was a play with stagedirections and then with the
monologue of what was going onin Ender's mind.
I instinctively handledviewpoint reasonably well, so
that I did the things thatfiction only can do, which is

(23:29):
getting inside the character'shead.
You can't do that in movies,can't do it in plays, but you
can do it in fiction.
But mostly my stories weredialogue and I felt comfortable
with that dialogue and I feltcomfortable with that.
So when Ender's Game, the novel, came out, the only excitement

(23:49):
was about the fact that it wasgetting nominated for awards, it
didn't change the way we wereliving.
We were already, by that time,self-supporting from my income
as a writer.
I had had to take an honest jobfor nine months in 1983.
It's why I moved to Greensboro,north Carolina, and worked as

(24:12):
an editor for Compute Magazinefor their to be the editor of
their book production.
But so I was working withcomputers.
I loved computers and I was acomputer hobbyist at the time,
not a bad programmer.
I'm kind of proud of some ofthe programs I came up with.
But I quit that job as soon as Icould, because once you've been

(24:38):
a freelancer it's hard to workfor somebody and come into an
office and have somebody elsefeel like they have a right to
check in on what you're doing atany given moment.
My wife never does that,because I don't think our
marriage could have lasted ifshe had tried to monitor and
supervise my writing.
Just not something I can livewith, but she's never tried that

(25:04):
.
Not something I can live with,but she's never tried that.
So I was able to quit my job onthe basis of the books the
Tales of Alvin Maker.
I sold those at that time andit was that advance that allowed
me to go back to freelancingand I've never looked back.
It was four or five years afterEnder's Game came out that my

(25:28):
royalties finally came to alevel where we could live on the
royalties and Ender's Game isabout half my earnings just that
one book, wow and during theearly years.
Well, my my agent, barbara bovaben bova's wife started as an

(25:51):
agent.
I was one of her first clients.
I had already been selling toben, and so it was natural for
him to suggest me as someone shemight want to represent.
But she was the life changer.
Uh, she's the one who got mynumbers up a bit.
Uh, I had been offered somegood numbers before I had an
agent, but I didn't know how toread a contract properly.

(26:12):
So there were some bad thingsin some of those early contracts
Not going to go into that,because that's boring shop talk
for writers and nobody elsecares about it but the most
important thing she did was shedeveloped a close relationship
with an agent in New York whosespecialty was selling books in

(26:35):
Europe and other foreign markets, and so within the first couple
of years of Barbara being myagent, I was making half my
income from foreign sales, andthe nice thing about foreign
sales is I don't have totranslate the books.
Somebody else does that, and sowhat I get is just found money.

(26:57):
I didn't have to write anythingnew, it's something I already
wrote, and I now have readershipin countries where I don't even
come close to speaking thelanguage and I'm very happy with
that.
Whenever I do go to a foreignconvention, I find that in other

(27:19):
countries most people, mosteducated people speak enough
English that I don't really needtranslation to do public
addresses.
They'll set me up with aninterpreter, but what happens is
I'll say something and ifthere's something funny, the
audience it sounds likeeverybody's laughing, and then,

(27:41):
when it gets interpreted, a muchsmaller group will laugh,
because those are the ones whodidn't speak English well enough
to understand what I'd said.
But I'm impressed by the waythat most foreigners are
multilingual or at leastbilingual.
It's an old joke, butmultilingual means you speak

(28:02):
several languages.
Bilingual means you speak twolanguages and if you speak only
one language, that's calledbeing an american, because we,
we just don't.
I mean people think they'relearning a language in school
but they're not.
Um, when I studied spanish inhigh school and uh and in

(28:24):
college, up to a medium level,and I also studied portuguese
high school, which is very rare,but then I ended up going on my
mission to Brazil as an LDSmissionary and that training
helped, but I did not reallyspeak Portuguese as a result of
any of my classes.
Likewise, I still don't speakSpanish.

(28:45):
I can make myself understood.
I can say things, but if youstart talking back to me in
Spanish at a normalconversational clip, I am lost.
You need to speak more slowly,with relatively separated words,
and then I can understandSpanish.

(29:06):
In Portuguese, though, I wasable, by living in the country,
to become reasonably fluent,fluent enough that Brazilians,
instead of taking me for anAmerican, took me for somebody
from the southern part of Brazilthat had been settled by
Germans, which would explain inthose days I was blonde, which

(29:27):
would explain a tall blonde guywho was fluent in Portuguese,
but I had a bit of a southernaccent, which means a little bit
of a Spanish accent.
When you're talking aboutsoutherners in Brazil, and so
you know, it was kind of fun tobe called, some people would
refer to me as that, that german, uh, which is what they call

(29:50):
the, the southern blondes in inbrazil, and that was flattering.
But uh, the, the whole, thewhole language thing.
I love language, I lovestudying languages, I love
reading about languages, uh, butI'm beyond the age where I can
learn a new language.
I tried a little bit withPolish.
I have a wonderful readership inPoland, smart, smart people,

(30:14):
and I just love the fact ofknowing that my books are doing
well in Poland, a country whichintrigued me when they were
fighting for their independenceintrigued me when they were
fighting for their independence,when Lech Walesa and the
strikers in Danzig-Gdansk weregetting their independence from

(30:36):
the Communist Party.
It was a really thrilling timeto be observing them.
So I think of it as a nation ofheroes and that's the way I
approach them.
When I've been to Poland a fewtimes that I've been there, I've
just loved my time there, butwhat I found is that I can't.
I learned how to pronouncePolish so that if you show me a

(30:59):
sign, a billboard, I can say itout loud, and sometimes that
means I can understand itbecause there are a lot of
cognates, but usually it means Ican understand it because there
are a lot of cognates, butusually it means I can't.
And so I'm by no means a Polishspeaker or even a Polish reader
, but I love faking it in othercountries.
Anyway, I'm babbling.

(31:21):
This is where you're supposed tointerrupt me and get me back to
another subject.
I know my wife sent you aletter saying you know, scott
just fills dead air and uh and.
I do, and if you're, if you'renot stimulating, so well, I'm
glad to know you feel that way,but I also always worry that
when I'm on a telephone calllike this, are you actually

(31:44):
awake?
Uh, so I, you know, have Ibored you to sleep?
Because, speaking of beingawake people every now and then
on I'm on Quora.
It's the only Q-U-O-R-A Okay,it's the only online presence I
have, because there's topics.
It's not like Facebook whereyou just sign on and babble

(32:09):
small talk, chat On Quora.
People pose questions and thenyou answer them.
Writers often will askquestions and one of the most
frustrating ones for me is whenthey'll say I want my work to
really stand out, I want it tobe special.
How can I do that?
And the answer is you can't.
It can't be done, you can'tdecide.

(32:31):
Oh, now I'm going to write aspecial one.
If they're not all special, whyare you writing?
So, you should write storiesthat you care about and believe
in yourself and then hope thatthere are other people like you
who will also care about andbelieve in that story.
You just write it as clearly asyou can and tell what happens

(32:56):
and why, and so when I answerquestions like that, I just say
please stop thinking that way.
You're not competing with otherwriters.
They're not your competition.
You're trying to appeal toaudiences of readers who already
love to read because of thingsthat other people have written.
You're not going to surpassthem.
Why would you care?
Some readers will like yourwork better than somebody else's

(33:16):
work.
Other people will like thatother guy better than you.
Who cares?
What matters is did you tell astory you care about, and did
you tell it clearly enough thatstrangers can understand it and
appreciate it?
And if you've it clearly enoughthat strangers can understand
it and appreciate it?

Brian Triger (33:30):
And if you've done that, you've done your job.

Orson Scott Card (33:31):
That's a good point, as far as popularity,
popularity just takes care ofitself.
You know, there are people whothink I'm the best writer of
science fiction.
I'm glad those people exist,but I don't agree with them,
because there are too manyscience fiction writers that I
admire more than I admire mywork.
But then again I also don'tread my work.

(33:52):
Once it's out there, what's thepoint of rereading it?
All I'll do is becomefrustrated and disappointed in
myself.
So you know, there's no profitin rereading your own work
unless you're involved in theaudiobook.
Then you can accomplish thingsthat makes sense.

Brian Triger (34:10):
Coincidentally, we're kind of on track to the
next question.
You mentioned quora and, butyou also revealed maybe part of
the answer.
You you talked about being acomputer hobbyist, so when, and
memory, my memory escapes me asto which book it started in, but
I remember uh, as Peter andValentine are crafting their

(34:33):
political careers, they'renavigating the nets which uh
happened to be before, I guess,early awareness of you know, the
commercial internet.

Orson Scott Card (34:44):
It was before the internet opened up.
Yeah, so did you the internetused to just be for government
and universities and so itwasn't public.
So I was online with a servicecalled delphi and also compu
serve, and ender's game actuallythe manuscript of ender's game
was uploaded to delphi um to bedownloaded as just an ASCII

(35:09):
novel.
Some of the formatting was notpreserved.
Five people downloaded it.
This was in the days of1200-baud modems and so
downloading a whole novel took aridiculous amount of expensive
online time.
But I think that Ender's Gamemight have been the first new

(35:30):
novel that was first publishedonline for free back in those
early days.
But when I had them using thenets, when Peter and Valentine
were doing it, I really wasguessing at what it could become
like when everybody had aconnection.

(35:51):
In the early days hardlyanybody had modems.
Even people who had computersdidn't think of it as even
interesting to try to go online.
You couldn't download programs,you had to type them in, and
that's the magazine that Iworked at, compute Magazine
Magazine in Greensboro, northCarolina.

(36:11):
I was their book editor and oneof the main things we did was
to clean up people's amateurprograms so that the code worked
and to make sure that it ran,that if you type it all in
correctly, then it's going torun on your computer.
Nothing more frustrating thanspending three hours typing in a

(36:34):
program and then having errormessages.
That shouldn't happen.
So that's one of the mainthings I did was just make sure
the programming was clean.
But that was a lovely thing todo in those days.
The best computer for a homeuser in those days was the Atari
800.

(36:57):
Bill Wilkinson designed thebasic language, the programming
language, that came with thecomputer, and he did a brilliant
job because he called it hiscompiler printer, that you
didn't have to write it and thencompile it and then run it.
It was compiling as it went.
As you wrote it.

(37:17):
It was being converted intomachine language so that there
was no delay.
You type something and you runit.
It just runs and so you gotinstant feedback.
It was wonderful programmingfor that.
But of course it doesn't takelong before you want to start
writing in machine language.

(37:37):
But they call it assemblylanguage because you have to
compile that.
But when you're working inBASIC all you do is get the code
numbers for all of the commandsyou want to make and you poke
them in using BASIC.
So you have little machinelanguage subroutines that you

(37:58):
create that run usually in theinterrupt cycle on the 6502
processor, and I loved that.
I loved that processor and Iloved that.
I loved that.
Basically, you have had a 256by zero page, and so it felt

(38:23):
like an infinite number ofregisters compared to the mere
16 registers that the IBM PC hadwhen it first came out.
Machine language on the IBM PCwas a nightmare, as you spent
all your time swapping data inand out of the registers and
there were only 16 of them, soyou had to keep changing them
around to do anything.
The 6502 processor was just funand free.

(38:47):
I loved working on it, but Istopped programming after, after
the 6502 processors were allreplaced by uh uh Intel's uh
processors.

Brian Triger (39:00):
Okay, Do you?
And now I'm babbling again.
No, are we betting on?

Orson Scott Card (39:04):
it?
No, but what did what?
I believed that.
Well, let's put it this waywhen Bill Gates was working on
getting Windows to be a usableoperating system which it's not
quite at yet, but it's gettingthere he talked in the 90s about

(39:26):
wanting to make the internetpart of the desktop, and by then
the internet had been opened up.
But at first nobody knew what todo with the internet, and I
remember many times saying whata waste of time to go on the
internet because all thesewebsites, all they are is the
equivalent of the brochure rackat the grocery store.

(39:46):
You couldn't do anything withthem.
Part of that was because youcouldn't buy things that cost
less.
It was so expensive for them touse credit cards online that
little things didn't work.
I remember saying that theinternet's not going to be worth

(40:08):
anything until you can pay 10cents for something.
We're there now because ofPayPal, but early on, no, it was
a pain and you had to type your.
They didn't remember yournumber.
You had to type it in each time.
Your operating system didn'tremember your credit card

(40:29):
numbers and sign ins and and youknow your login name and
password.
It was.
It took time for it to becomeusable, but I knew that it would
become usable because it wasthe most convenient way to
converse.
And I don't know if you're oldenough to remember I don't know

(40:50):
how old you are, I've never seenyou, but uh, um the sorry.
I'm having a Joe Biden momenthere, it's okay.
And to and to.

Brian Triger (41:02):
Just to give you some info, the oldest OS cause I
I actually had a computerhobbyist in my family.
I was lucky enough to have oneof those was os2 warp, I think.

Orson Scott Card (41:13):
And uh, I was born a year after ender's game
was published, so 86, I'm about39 oh, okay, okay, so, yeah,
yeah, so you were alive andaround as the internet first
came out yep and as peoplestarted learning how to use it.
But right, and like my kids, myfirst three kids are older than

(41:39):
you because they were born in 78, 80, and 83.
But not far from you we alsohave our youngest, who was born
considerably later than that, in94,.
I believe, now that I've saidthat it'll be wrong because I
have no calendar sense, it's oneof those things when people are

(42:02):
talking about poor Joe Bidenand the memory lapses that show
that he was a demented old manand shouldn't be president, I
thought he's forgetting theexact kinds of things that I
forget People's names, where Imet them, who that face belongs
to, and dates, dates, especiallyHorrible.
I mean, I was around when eachof my kids was born and I know

(42:26):
the month that each of them wasborn in and I have little tricks
that I can them was born in andI have little tricks that I can
do to remind myself of theirbirthdays.
But you know, I would neverhave, like Joe Biden, forgotten
which year my child died in.
My 17-year-old son died, the onewho was born in 1983, in the

(42:48):
year 2000.
I don't forget that.
I don't forget the date, I knowwhen that happened and I think,
okay, if you're forgetting thedate that you lost a child, your
brain is not working properly,because that's the worst thing
in the world.
And when that happens, itsticks.

(43:08):
It sticks in even a memory likemine.
But by and large, I have alwaysbeen bad at the very kind of
memory tricks that Joe Biden washaving trouble with, including
keeping the thread of aconversation, because I'll
digress and then forget where Istarted and have no idea of how
to get back where I started.

(43:31):
And I have no idea of how toget back, uh, so if he's, if he
was truly demented I mean, hewas clearly slow and slowed down
from what he had been when hewas younger Uh, but you know, in
my seventies now I'm gettingslowed down too but, uh, as far
as the kinds of things he wasforgetting, I've never had a
good time.
I've never been able to rememberthem.
Forgetting, I've never had agood time.
I've never been able toremember them.
Um, you know, for a guy who'sbeen in musicals and had to

(43:52):
perform songs, the fact that Ihave it's almost impossible for
me to remember lyrics to musicwhile I'm singing it.
Um, that was a crippler for me.
Um, because I had a decentsinging voice.
But it doesn't help if, if youdon't know the words?
Uh, it doesn't help you getthrough the show, anyway.
Uh, another digression whichhas nothing to do with anything.

(44:15):
You better take charge of thisand get me back on some kind of
track.

Brian Triger (44:19):
I look forward to it.
So I was just thinking about,uh, how often I forget where I
park, and uh I um, let's see.

Orson Scott Card (44:29):
So we all do that.
If you go to a place where youhave parked often, you remember
being in every parking place.
Well, the problem how do youremember which one was today?

Brian Triger (44:39):
So my ignorant defense like the thing that
justifies it when I'm startingto overanalyze to protect my own
ego is well, the sun was in adifferent position and different
cars were around and differentpeople and different sounds,
because I'm sensitive to audio.
So if I was parking a staticobject which it's not in a

(45:01):
static location or anenvironment, then I could
remember, because I could justreference, you know, a specific
thing.
But if everything changesaround it, since it's very low
on the priority list, it's justgoing to be something,
especially if it's a largerparking lot.
I actually work on base nearbyas a systems analyst and there
are hundreds, if not thousands,of cars, so I play a little

(45:24):
video game in my head and justexpect that I'm going to look
for my car for five or tenminutes.

Orson Scott Card (45:32):
Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.
My worst time in finding my car, though, was I have owned
Hyundai Santa Fe's for my pastfive cars for the past my past
five cars and so I changed themrather rapidly, because they
kept upgrading the assistsystems, and so that if I fell

(45:57):
asleep while I was driving, Ireally needed to know that it
would stay in my lane until Iwoke up a quarter of a second
later.
But in a quarter of a secondyou can find yourself in the
wrong lane if you don't havelane assist, so that's why I
changed so often.
But I think my third Santa Fewas dark brown, so dark that at

(46:19):
night it was black, and if youscan a parking lot, depending on
the position of the sun, as yousaid, it would be a different
color.
I could never say to somebodycan you run out to my car and
get that?
It's a brown Santa Fe?
Now, if they could see that itwas brown, it would be the only

(46:39):
one in the lot.
It was not a popular color, butthey couldn't tell it was brown
, and so telling them the brownSanta Fe wasn't going to help.
It's just one of those weirdthings, but that was.
I lost that car so often inparking lots because I would be
scanning and then black carswould look familiar to me and my

(47:01):
own car wouldn't wouldn't standout all that well.
So it's a good thing my wifedrives this beautiful little
baby blue Fiat that we just lovethe car, we love the color and
it's the cutest car in everyparking lot so we never have to
search there.
It is Cuteness just radiatesfrom and then we find it easily.

Brian Triger (47:22):
That's a good solution.
So what's next, if anything,for Ender's Game?
So I haven't Will, actually,yeah, I'll leave the question at
that.
What's next for Ender's Game?

Orson Scott Card (47:35):
I mean, I don't expect that everybody has
read every book in the Ender'sGame universe, so I'm not
offended when people haven't.
But between me and AaronJohnston, who's been working
with me collaborating on thepre-Enders game books, the
prequels there's one more of theprequels yet to come, okay, but

(48:00):
I'm done.
Okay, all of the books that I'mwriting I have finished.
Ender is twice dead and youknow that's not a surprise.
I structure all of my novels asbiographies and if I don't take
them through to death, at leastI take them through to happily
ever after, where you knownothing else of interest is

(48:22):
going to happen in their livesexcept for just normal happiness
.
But I have finished, of course,remembering all my titles again
, memory problems andremembering which one comes last
.
I can't remember right now thetitle of my.
I think it was the Last Shadow.
Might be the Last Shadow, yeah,but it wraps up the Shadow

(48:47):
books and the ender books, uh,so that I think I've resolved
everything that was causing anyanxiety.
Okay, but uh, I have no ideawhether people particularly
liked the way I ended it.
What can I do about that,except for tell the best story I

(49:07):
can think of?
Uh, and I try never to writethe same book twice.
Even when I wrote Ender'sShadow, which is absolutely
parallel with Ender's Game, Ididn't mean it to be.
I thought I was just writingDean's story and that the first
five chapters he had beeninvolved in battle school and

(49:29):
then would move on.
But it turns out that there wasa novel's worth of story to
tell and it ends where Ender'sGame ends begins, right at the
same time frame.
They they run parallel.
That was never a plan, but itmeant that the shadow books were
following their course whilethe off-earth, off-world books

(49:54):
had a course of their own.
Speaker for the Dead was thereal novel.
That's the one that I meant towrite.
I had written the Ender's Gameshort story, but I had no plan
to turn that into anything else.
The Anders Games short story,but I had no plan to turn that
into anything else.
In those days, if somebody tooka short story and made it into a

(50:16):
novel, they usually did it bybeginning with the short story
because they knew they had anopening that would grab people,
because it had been publishedbefore, etc.
So if you win an award for ashort story, there's pressure
from yourself, if no one else,to then write the novel version,
which begins with the shortstory.
But I learned through severalother adaptations most notably

(50:39):
michael songbird being that whenI adapted it into a song master
that that is the opposite ofwhat you should do.
If you have a story that works,a short story that works,
what's working is the climax ofthe short story, so that when
they finish reading it, peoplewill tell their friends you've

(51:00):
got to read this, you've got toread this because they had such
a great experience with theconclusion.
If you have a great opening butit just peters out, nobody's
gonna be rushing to hand it totheir friends.
Great openings are not asimportant to the success of an
adaptation as you might think.
So I learned with MichaelSongbird that the way to do it

(51:24):
was, instead of beginning withthat successful short story from
Analog, I started years beforethat and by the time I got to
the events of that story, whichwere pretty much the climax of
the book, I couldn't use a wordof the original short story
because I had created so muchelse in the world creation prior

(51:49):
to reaching that point thatnothing in the short story was
still true of what happened tothese characters.
And that's what I did withEnder's Game when it was time to
adapt it.
I knew that the climax and theending of Ender's Game were
going to be what they had beenin the story in the short story,

(52:09):
and instead I started yearsearlier.
I gave him a brother and sisterparents and brought him up into
battle school before he was acommander.
The short story begins with thewords remember, the enemy's
gate is down and it's Ender inan early training session or the
first training session of hisown army.
So that's well along in thenovel and that's where the short

(52:34):
story began.
But my technique works If you'vegot a great short story that
you really believe in, you thinkit should be a novel.
Go back before and reinventyour character, start over,
start with a new beginning muchearlier, and then don't even
look at the original story whenyou're getting to the same

(52:56):
events, because now they'll bedifferent, they'll mean
different things, and so youhave to write it differently.
It's not the same novel to thecharacter, and so because the
character is different,everything is different.
Anyway, there it is, scottCard's quick little how to adapt
a short story into a novelcourse.

Brian Triger (53:16):
So I'm going to admit I am one of those readers.
I basically did just thetraditional, I think, the first
four, and then I read, I believe, at least the complete first
book of Bean's story, Ender'sShadow.
Yeah, the one called Ender'sShadow, yeah, and so I'm

(53:38):
definitely not anywhere close toreading everything.
But the other part of thequestion so partially it's
because I haven't finished, butalso, like I guess my question
ties to, like you know, arethere any plans maybe for a
movie reboot or any other typeof media attached to Ender's
Game?

Orson Scott Card (53:59):
Well, I have a plan and it's the Tolkien plan.
The first adaptation of Lord ofthe Rings, of Fellowship of the
Ring, was pretty awful, butnowhere near as bad as what came
with the brilliant filming ofthe trilogy that won Academy

(54:22):
Awards and et cetera.
The filming was gorgeous, theacting excellent.
The filming was gorgeous, theacting excellent.
Uh, andy circus by himself wasso brilliant that it would be
worth watching his golem, evenif nothing else in the movie
were worth watching.
Yeah, but I have.
I was so bitterly disappointedbecause in the first movie they

(54:45):
get to the point where they'releaving Galadriel.
They're coming out of her landsof Lothlorien, and she gives
them presents.
And if you know the books, youknow that one of the most
gorgeous things in the book isthe box of soil that she gives

(55:06):
to Sam Gamgee and the seed, themallorn seed that is in that box
.
And instead she gave him a rope.
Now, rope was something that inthe books he wishes he had
brought, and more than oneoccasion.
And they do give him rope, butthey give it to him not as a

(55:28):
great gift, it was just to helpequip them for their trip.
It was like giving them food.
You do it, but it's not likeenormous.
But the moment that they didnot, that the film did not have
Sam be given by Galadriel thatbox of soil, I knew that they

(55:50):
had made the hideous, evildecision to skip the scouring of
the Shire in the last book.
Yeah, which is not.
You know the director, I can'tremember his name.
Now I block it out because I'mso angry.
Still, I'm angry.
Um said the problem with lord ofthe rings is it just keeps

(56:10):
ending and ending and ending.
It only feels that way ifyou're an idiot and you don't
understand what's actually goingon.
Because, yes, it feels over,and yet they keep they head home
.
And then, when the hobbitsreach the Shire, everything has
gone to hell.
The evil of Sauron has spread,by means of Saruman, into the

(56:36):
Shire, treesrees have been cutdown.
Freedom is over.
It's terrible events.
So this is definitely the storyis not over.
There's no happily ever afterthere yet, except that these
four hobbits, two of whom havebeen nothing but observers Well,
almost nothing but observersPippin and Merry.

(56:58):
But now they, having drunkEntdraft, are taller than usual
among the hobbits and they takecharge and they drive the bad
guys out.
And it's a war, there's abattle, there's it, and it's
vital for us to see what they'velearned, what they have become

(57:20):
because of the events, uh, ofthe lord of the rings.
And yet what we also see is thatfrodo is not the leader.
When he gets home, he's noteven home.
He, he's not happy, he doesn'tbelong there.
He wore the ring for too long,and so the darkness, the

(57:40):
injuries that he had, they'reall playing on his soul.
And so, at the end of thescouring of the Shire, frodo is
able to go off and sail into theuttermost West on the straight
road through the sea like an elf.

(58:00):
It's sort of immortality, it'sapotheosis, he's going to heaven
, basically.
But and here's the great revealwe realize that the protagonist
of Lord of the Rings was neverFrodo and it was never Gollum,

(58:21):
it was Sam.
And in this, as Tolkien callsit, this most Catholic of books,
it makes perfect sense.
It's the scripture that sayswhoever would be greatest among
you, let him be the servant ofall, and that's Sam Gamgee.
He's the servant of all.
He's the greatest among you,let him be the servant of all.
And that's sam gamgee.

(58:42):
He's the servant of all, he'sthe greatest among them.
He wore the ring and gave itback and was unscarred by by the
experience uh, unlike frodo.
And at the end frodo fails hecan't throw the ring in, the
ring overpowers him and it'sGollum who causes the
destruction of the ring.
But Sam is the one who carriedFrodo.

(59:04):
At the end, when Frodo wasexhausted and could not move,
it's Sam who delivered Frodo andthe ring to the cracks of doom.
It's the, it's the meaning ofthe books, and for them to not
understand that just meant thatI re.
I realized then that I was goingto hate the storyline of the

(59:29):
Lord of the Rings movies, andindeed I do.
There were other gross mistakesthat they made in the arrogance
of filmmakers who think they canimprove on the story.
There were other gross mistakesthat they made in the arrogance
of filmmakers who think theycan improve on the story.
There is a movie that takes agood work of literature and
improves it, one case that I'msure of there may be others that

(59:50):
I didn't know about, but senseand sensibility okay with a
script by emma thompson turnsout to be.
It's not her strongest novel,but it is her strongest movie,
jane austen's strongest movie,because emma thompson improved
it.

(01:00:10):
She structured it better, sheunderstood structure better than
j Jane Austen did in that earlynovel of hers.
So everything from the novel isthere.
If you've watched that movie,you've read the book, you've got
everything.
She didn't write long books,and so it fit, but at the end of

(01:00:30):
it you have a climax that isinfinitely better than the brief
, touching on things that Austenherself did.
So that's a movie that's betterthan the book.

Brian Triger (01:00:40):
How did you feel?

Orson Scott Card (01:00:41):
Boy, is that?

Brian Triger (01:00:42):
rare.
How do you feel or how did youfeel about?

Orson Scott Card (01:00:46):
Ender's Game the first film adaptation.
Are you cutting out here,because I have not heard a
complete sentence here.
Can you hear me in thisquestion?
Can you hear me here, cause I,I'm, I have.
I have not heard a completesentence here.

Brian Triger (01:00:58):
Can you hear me in this question?
Can you hear me now?
Yes, okay, perfect.
Uh, sorry about that.
So how did you feel?

Orson Scott Card (01:01:05):
So are you asking me about the Ender's game
movie?

Brian Triger (01:01:07):
Yes.

Orson Scott Card (01:01:09):
Yeah, there is a movie there that has the
title Ender's game.
They have a character in itnamed End, character named Ender
Wiggin, who is played by a15-year-old who looks like he's
six foot four.
This character is supposed tobe 10 years old, 10 to 12 years
old, and during the key events,who's supposed to be small for

(01:01:32):
his age.
So basically, you take aMichael J Fox role and you cast
Matthew McConaughey in it.
Okay, great.
But that's the least of theproblems.
The most important problem isnot for one moment does Gavin
Hood's script of Ender's Gamebear any relation to the

(01:01:55):
character of Ender Wiggin.
He writes the stock Hollywoodrebellious brat hero.
I'm sick of that characteranyway and I certainly did not
write that character in Ender'sGame.
The way that Ender behaves inthe movie, he would not be given

(01:02:17):
the command of a flock of ducks.
He is not a good commander inthe movie, he's just bratty and
insubordinate.
Stock material, standardmaterial for Hollywood crap
fests.
My Ender.
I now understand.
I wrote several scripts thatdidn't have ender properly in it

(01:02:39):
, but I finally came tounderstand that what makes ender
work, ender is in the movie.
When at the end of the moviethe audience wishes he were
their commander.
That that would be the rightscript and that's what it is in
my audio play Ender's Game Aliveis.

(01:03:04):
I've adapted it so that Ender isEnder and what really, for my
money, what makes it work is hisrelationship with the other
kids His opponents, yes, butthat's not important.
What matters is hisrelationship with his friends,

(01:03:25):
because and this is the reasonwhy, by the way, it has been
used by the military in some oftheir training for officers
because Ender Wiggin is an idealofficer.
He knows his men, he hastrained his men, but his men are
not tools that he uses toadvance his own career.

(01:03:46):
On the contrary, he uses histime and effort to try to help
them become stronger and better.
And they sense that, they knowthat he cares more about them
than he does about his owncareer.
And when that's the case, youtrust your commander.
You know that he's not going towaste your life.

(01:04:08):
Yes, you're going to be sentinto harm's way.
Yes, there's a good chance thatyou might lose life or limb,
but if you trust your commander,you know that whatever you lose
will be worth it, because youwill never be wasted.
You will never be thrown awayby this commander, because the

(01:04:29):
commander loves you and you lovehim.

Brian Triger (01:04:33):
I think it would be really cool to see a film
adaptation that genuinely spendstime within the universe or
within the enderverse.
I mean, I'm not an expert whenit comes to literature or movie
production, but as a consumer,aside from what you've mentioned
, it just felt like, um, youknow, uh, there were dramatic

(01:04:57):
time skipping.
There was uh, just character.
I think most, if not all, ofthe characters were very flat
and I didn't feel like time wasbeing spent within the universe
that you created.
Um, you know, it just wasn't.
Uh, like you mentionedmentioned, it was more of a copy
and paste with a stockhollywood's uh script and um,

(01:05:22):
and that was unfortunate.
I still didn't mind watching ita couple of times because it
was nice to see something right,like you know, I so, but um, I,
and the film was better than itwould have been if Gavin had
been the only director.

Orson Scott Card (01:05:40):
But, unbeknownst to Gavin hood
himself, harrison Fordcontributed vastly, as as a
co-director, because he knowshow to talk to actors, which
Gavin hood absolutely did notknow I was.
I spent a little time on set.
There was one scene that I wassupposed to be in just my voice,

(01:06:03):
not my body, but I was on theset giving my lines um, as
Harrison and and uh, asa weretogether, uh, in this little
intimate scene on their way tocommand school.
And it's a good scene becauseof Harrison's Ford.

(01:06:24):
He would do things like youknow, gavin Hood came in and
gave these meaningless crapstatements about oh, this is the
feeling, this is the way it'ssupposed to go, and you know all
this Stanislavski methodbullshit that has nothing to do
with actual acting.
And what Harrison Ford did wasbetween takes he would say to

(01:06:49):
Ace okay, this time I'm going totouch your arm on this line.
It warned him what was comingand I would watch.
And just that movement changedthe entire timing of the scene,
changed the meaning of the scene, and it was brilliant.
But then he wouldn't repeatthat the next take.

(01:07:09):
He would say, okay, this timeI'm going to try this.
And so I don't know if AsaButterfield is ever going to be
able to profit from it or if heeven realized that he was
getting a course in film actingfrom Harrison Ford.
Because all those little thingsin a fairly tight scene like
that, every single one of thosethings changes the mood and the

(01:07:30):
tone and the pace of the scene.
And the end I realized.
And I asked harrison fordafterward, what was he doing?
You know, did what was his goalin that?
And he said I just like to givethe editor different versions
of the scene so they can pickthe best one.

(01:07:50):
Well, yes, I mean and thatconsciously I mean, that really
is what happens.
But there were no bad takes.
When Harrison Ford is in thescene, there are no bad takes.
And that's an important thingto realize about an actor.
Harrison Ford doesn't get creditfor being a great actor because

(01:08:13):
, like John Wayne, he's kind ofHarrison Ford every time.
And so you think, well, he'snot acting, he's just being
himself man.
That's because they have peoplewho say that have no idea how
devilishly hard it is tonaturally play yourself in film.
It's so much easier to overactand to be the hero or this and

(01:08:37):
that, but to just be yourself.
Oh, anyway, he can be himselfor his film self, because I'm
sure that as a human being hedoesn't say all those wry things
uh, because you lose friends.
But, um, he is a superb filmactor and when you look back at

(01:08:58):
his work, his body of work, yourealize every movie that he's
been in has been better becausehe was in it.
He's the reason Star Wars was asuccess.
People don't understand that,but we have it on record from
several people that before theyshot a frame they had the script

(01:09:18):
, they did a reading and hetalked to the other actors
Because you know, lucas was akid.
What did Lucas know aboutdirecting?
He said to the other actorslook, this film will work if we
play it straight.
It's not tongue-in-cheek, it'snot a straight, it's not tongue
in cheek, it's not a joke, it'snot a comedy.

(01:09:39):
There'll be laugh moments, butour characters all have to mean
what they say and be absolutelysincere about being in jeopardy,
about having goals they want tomeet, about fearing death or
bad things.
That's the way they played itand that's why it worked.
If they had done ittongue-in-cheek, like Spaceballs

(01:10:02):
or, like Robin Hood, men inTights, it would have failed and
would have been no more than afootnote in film history.
Not even that really in filmhistory.
Not even that really.
But because of Harrison Fordthe performances were all
absolutely serious and straight,so the audience knew to take

(01:10:24):
the story seriously instead oftreating it as a joke.
If they treat it as a joke,there would not have been lines
around the block the first fewweeks of its opening.
It would not have been such athe block the first few weeks of
its opening.
It would not have been such amonster hit right from the start
.
So you know, find the rightactress, find the right cast,
you can improve a bad movie.

(01:10:47):
Ender's Game was set to be a badmovie because it had a director
who did not understand thestory at all and who was not
good at working with actors.
That's a deadly combination.
And the script was weak becausethat same director had written
it Always a mistake, I think,because the director then can't

(01:11:10):
see anything else to do with itthan what he intended from the
start.
And that's not enough.
You need the collaboration ofthe fresh eyes of an excellent
director to take a good scriptand make it sing on screen.

(01:11:31):
That's what Ender's Game willeventually get.
My guess is that it will be inthe form of a two-part
miniseries.
Doesn't need more than thatbecause it's not a long book,
but the number of hours that Ihad in Ender's Game Alive would

(01:11:54):
be nice to have.
And I think of the first greatmini adaptation of miniseries uh
, obviously roots, but that wasepisodic so it doesn't count.
Um, pride and prejudice by janeausten, one of the finest works
of literature in the history ofenglish, uh, and the one that
established viewpoint the modernnovel.

(01:12:14):
I think of literature in thehistory of English and the one
that established Viewpoint themodern novel.
I think of it as the firsttruly modern novel.
It had had one film adaptationbefore.
It had had one with anoutstanding cast and everybody
was good, but it wasn't Prideand Prejudice because there

(01:12:36):
wasn't time.
So when it came on as aminiseries on the BBC and that
got moved over to America as aminiseries the one this is the
one with Colin Firth it was Idon't know if you noticed this
or if it was even.
You were probably too young toeven appreciate it when it first

(01:12:57):
came out, but it was aphenomenon.
It attracted so many viewersway more than anybody expected
because it was a brilliant story, brilliantly told.
They didn't have to changeanything.
They filmed one of the finestworks of literature in English

(01:13:18):
straight and then had abrilliant cast.
The cast was amazing.
Now, after that, there was aone feature adaptation with.
Was it Jennifer Garner?
No, what's her name?
Anyway, another adaptation.
Jennifer Garner, no, what's hername?
Anyway, another adaptation, andit's good.
And if that were the only thingwe had, we'd be happy with it.

(01:13:41):
But I want for Ender's Game, Iwant to have the treatment that
Pride and Prejudice got in theColin Firth version, because I
think there's enough characterand enough development in
Ender's Game to be worth thatkind of time.
I think it could hold theaudience's attention and be

(01:14:01):
rewarding.
But it will not happen whileI'm alive.
I'm 73 years old.
Ender's Game did not fail themovie that Gavin Hood made.
It just didn't inspire.
You know.
It probably made a slightprofit.
It's probably, of course.
You know, in Hollywood no movieever makes a profit, because

(01:14:24):
then they'd have to shareprofits with the profit
participants.
So I'm sure that they foundways to make it so that it came
out even.
But it didn't fail.
It was a respectable umperformance financially, but not
a tentpole uh franchiseestablishing movie, partly

(01:14:47):
because when studio executivessaw it, none of them were moved.
They didn't, and they didn'tknow what all the hoopla was
about.
To them it was the LastStarfighter again, because the
Last Starfighter was the firstadaptation of Ender's Game.

(01:15:08):
They just didn't admit it.
But it was no more than thelast star fighter and that
wasn't a tent pole franchiseestablisher either.
So there's nobody who wants toput more money into Ender's game
, but it will happen.

(01:15:28):
And here's when it will happenwhen the studios are headed by
people who grew up, as you did,on Ender's Game, where Ender's
Game already existed and itmoved you when you were a kid.
Those guys are not yet incharge of the studios.

(01:15:51):
They will be, but it's stillold men and they don't know what
ender's game should be.
But if you became a studio headyou would know what it should
be, yeah, so, uh, you might verywell say we're going to make a
two-part movie out of this.
I think of dune, which had twosad, sad adaptations the David

(01:16:16):
Lynch one, where he spends ahalf hour on crap that isn't
even in the movie, in the book,establishing these worm-like
creatures in these vats and itdoes not matter, it isn't even
used anywhere in the movie thefact that we've seen those
scenes Really.
Just a guy who lost his wayimmediately and the movie was

(01:16:42):
bad, genuinely bad.
When we were laughing out loudat I am the shout out mapes, you
know, when you have a wonderfulactor saying that line, it's as
bad as in one of the star wars.
People is the first one,phantom menace anyway, where

(01:17:02):
poor jake lloyd was made by thebad script by george lucas was
made to cry out yippee, oh,laughable, pathetic, pathetic.
And I, I, you know those thingshappened in the david lynch
version, the uh next.

(01:17:24):
One can't remember now the nameof the actor who played, uh,
paul atreides, but but uh, hedid a good job.
But the script still wasn't.
But when they did it in twoparts and they had the
shockingly beautiful but alsoextraordinarily talented
Timothee Chalamet in the lead,what a difference that made

(01:17:49):
having the right lead actor,actor.
His casting was as important tothose two Dune movies as the
casting of I've alreadymentioned him the guy who played
Gollum in the Lord of the Ringsmovies.
Just absolutely pivotal and abrilliant performance and a

(01:18:15):
script that allowed him toreally be Paul Atreides, so that
we could understand why peopleloved him.

Brian Triger (01:18:24):
I just rewatched the revisiting Gollum's story,
if I'm not mistaken, in like2026.
Taken in like 2026, well, thelive action films at least I
heard.

Orson Scott Card (01:18:41):
I heard a rumor read like a, just a
headline or two tied to uh, whywould?
Why would they be doinganything with gollum?

Brian Triger (01:18:46):
the movies exist understandable but, maybe the
journey of his character.

Orson Scott Card (01:18:51):
So just the date okay okay, yeah, the same
people who thought there werethree movies in the Hobbit which
there weren't.
Yeah, I might very well thinkthat that Gollum deserves a
movie of his own.

Brian Triger (01:19:03):
Well, maybe Gollum's going to go on some
errands.

Orson Scott Card (01:19:08):
Well, he's dead now.
No, no, no, I know during,during his adventures.

Brian Triger (01:19:13):
I um, but yeah, I do agree with you.

Orson Scott Card (01:19:15):
Yeah I mean, I can imagine a movie about the
hobbit being made and as long asthey cast andy circus and as
long as they get good writingfor his character, great, that's
wonderful.
But uh, I have very low hopesof that because of how
unwatchably bad so much of theHobbit was.

(01:19:37):
There was some that was good.
I ended up watching the wholething, but with great impatience
.
I think it's the first of theHobbit movies, but maybe it's
the second.
When they are coming out of theelves' realm on those barrels

(01:20:02):
and those kegs, I walked away.
I was watching them at home,walked away, went to the
bathroom, grabbed a bite to eat,came back in and they were
still in the barrels.
That's how long and tedious thatsequence was.
It's something that deservedtwo minutes of screen time and I

(01:20:24):
don't know how much it actuallygot.
It felt like a half hourProbably was only about eight or
nine minutes, because everyminute on screen is a million
bucks.
So they were careful of theirbudget, I'm sure.
But anyway, maybe they can makea good movie out of, out of uh
um gollum.
But he is a despicable humanbeing.

(01:20:47):
That's.
One of the things you have toremember is that we feared
Gollum.
We knew that he would beutterly selfish, no matter what.
We knew that he was a murdererwho had murdered his best friend
to get the stupid ring.
And after that, where do you go, you?

Brian Triger (01:21:11):
follow the ring.

Orson Scott Card (01:21:13):
Yeah, you follow the ring, but then that
story's already been told, andso I mean you're right, it could
be done.
But it would only matter topeople who knew and loved the
trilogy, the original trilogy,and, that being the case,

(01:21:37):
they'll probably make theirmoney back.
If they do that, that wouldmake sense, because making your
money back is the miracle thatevery filmmaker is trying to do,
as they want to get a bigenough budget to make it right,
but then they have to make it soright that it makes back that
budget, and that's hard to doand nobody knows how to do it.

(01:21:58):
Every time, even a director asfine as ron howard, with hit
after hit, he's had some flops.
He's had some movies that didnot work.
Um, there are other examples.
You know, george lucas.
Of course, it's only on amemory of films one and two that
any of the other films work,because you have to already care

(01:22:20):
.
Um, my wife just handed me anote saying that we need to
leave in 10 minutes, which meansthat I have babbled so much.
Okay.

Brian Triger (01:22:29):
One more question.
I promise I'll keep it to like30 seconds to a minute and make
sure you cut me off.

Orson Scott Card (01:22:36):
I will.
I promise You're not theproblem, I'm the problem.

Brian Triger (01:22:42):
So any quick, just seeds of wisdom for current and
future creatives that ventureout into the world, whether
they're writing, creating film,podcasting, any type of creative
works, personally and orprofessionally, like from your
own experiences, any inspiringwork.

Orson Scott Card (01:23:07):
I'll sum up with some of the things I've
said to my writing students.
First of all, remember you're ahuman first and an artist
second.
If you ever let the artist getahead of being the human, you're
the scum of the earth.
Your children are moreimportant than anything you'll
ever create as an artist.
Your spouse is more importantthan anything you will ever

(01:23:31):
create If you don't live a goodlife.
Who cares about the art?
Now I realize that obviously wedo care about other people's
artists who lived scummy lives,but the people around them got
no joy from it.
So be a good person, a lovingperson, first, and then take

(01:23:54):
care of your body.
It's so easy as a writer tobecome what I am a fat, lazy
slob sitting in a recliner witha laptop propped up on his lap.
I'm not healthy, I'm not strong.
I went through a strong phase.
I ran, I got to the rightweight, I was fine, but then my

(01:24:15):
son died in 2000.
And after that I kind of fellapart.
I stopped caring and it washard for me to write.
It was hard for me to doanything, but at least my body
knew what it was like to behealthy for about five years,
and you got to get those goodfive years.
I see so many writing writingstudents and young writers who

(01:24:38):
are letting their body go toseed and it's all you got.
If you're not healthy, you'renot going to do your art Well,
you need to have a working,functional body.
Okay, those are the personaladvice things.
Thank you.
Then, as an artist, here's thenext bit, and this is also

(01:24:58):
important as an artist, tosucceed, pay no attention to the
kind of crap they teach you inschool.
No, there are no such things asthree-act movies unless they're
a trilogy.
The three acts can be appliedto any movie, whether they have
three acts or not.

(01:25:18):
It's a nonsense thing thatgives you the illusion of
structure.
There are structures, but uh,and I've taught them, they're in
my books, but they're notformulas.
You know anybody who says thatminute 22, you should be doing
this.
That's.
That's complete crap.
And the instructions to writersthat they give them, the advice

(01:25:40):
they give them, all useless.
Here's what it is.
Story is everything, everything.
If you have a good enough story, the audience will forgive you
almost any number of writingflaws, as long as you have the
story, which is why you can makethe hideous mistake of making

(01:26:04):
the Hunger Games series inpresent tense, which is a vile
mistake.
English does not tell storieswell in present tense.
French does, english doesn't.
But even if you make thatmistake, the story was so good
that the readers were willing toforgive the clumsiness of
present tense writing.

(01:26:25):
And so you concentrate on thetale, tell what happens and why,
as clearly as you can Tell astory that you care about, that
you believe in and help thereaders to care about it and
believe in it too, and that'sall you think about.

(01:26:46):
You don't think about yourcareer.
You don't think about what willsell.
That's bull.
What will sell is excellence,and excellence gets redefined
whenever somebody comes out witha new excellent book.
So you don't worry about whatthe latest bestseller has been.
That's what your agents, allthe agents, try to get you to
write is last year's bestseller.

(01:27:07):
They're always wrong, becausenext year's bestseller comes
from a writer who writessomething to believe in and care
about, and they'll do it theirown way, in their own voice.
You don't have to think aboutstyle.
You have a style.
If you're thinking about style,it's like thinking about
pedaling while you're riding abike.
You're going to fall over.

(01:27:28):
You can't maintain it.
If you're thinking about thepedaling.
The pedaling just comesnaturally, automatically.
Your style comes out of youautomatically, and anything you
do that you are conscious of isgoing to wreck the story.
You just tell what happens andwhy as clearly as you can, and

(01:27:48):
then you'll be fine.
There's nothing else to it.
All the other things you'lllearn tons of things along the
way, but whatever I learned thatmakes book A work is going to
be not particularly helpful inbook B.
It's like raising children.
I knew I was a brilliant fatherwhen our firstborn, our boy,

(01:28:10):
was a baby.
I did everything right.
My wife did everything right.
We knew how to raise childrentill we got child number two,
who is also a brilliant andbeautiful human being, but
nothing like her brother.
Nothing that we learned inraising Jeffrey had anything to

(01:28:30):
do with raising Emily, andlikewise with our other kids.
They're all different and youhave to invent.
Whatever you're going to inventthat will work with each one,
and so that's.
It's true of every novel, it'strue of every movie, the stuff
that you knew how to do becauseof your successful great hit

(01:28:51):
that made them give you millionsof dollars to write this next
thing.
None of that will help, becauseyou're solving a whole new set
of problems.
You don't ever want to becomeformulaic.
You've got to tell stories thatyou care about and believe in,
and follow the story where ittakes you.
Anyway, there it is all mywriting advice, and now I've got

(01:29:13):
to go, because we've got topick up my grandkids at the
airport.

Brian Triger (01:29:15):
Perfect.

Orson Scott Card (01:29:16):
And so we're heading off to do that.
Well, thanks for letting mebattle.
You've been very patient, so Ihope that this is in any way
useful for you.

Brian Triger (01:29:26):
Yeah, thank you for your time.
Thank Mrs Card as well.
She was very kind every timethat we spoke.
And enjoy your day and yourweekend as well.

Orson Scott Card (01:29:38):
Well spoke and enjoy your, your day and your
weekend as well.
Well, I'm I'm going to enjoymyself.
Hope you enjoy working withthis material and thank you for
giving me a chance to have thisconversation.
I really appreciate it bye, bye, mr.
Card take care we'll see you,thank you.