November 7, 2024 • 41 mins
Bestselling authors William and Lara Bernhardt discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interview the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children novels, which have sold over ten million copies and led to Tim Burton’s film adaptation. His new book is Sunderworld, a portal fantasy planned as the first installment in a new series.
Chapter 1: Opening Thoughts
Have you ever thought the movie was better than the book?
Chapter 2: News
1) AI Podcasts Have Arrived
2) Audible/ACX Now Allow AI/Human Hybrid Narrators
Chapter 3: Craft Corner
Today's segment is on book marketing by Desiree Duffy, head of Black Chateau and Books That Make You, and longtime friend and sponsor for WriterCon. No one knows more about book marketing than she does.
Chapter 4: Interview with Ransom Riggs
In this interview, the author of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children discusses:
1) how old photos led to a novel;
2) how modern LA led to Sunderworld;
3) how movies and VHS tapes figure in Sunderworld;
4) writing a novel with a series in mind; and
5) structuring your writing day.
Chapter 5: Parting Words
WriterCon has its own free newsletter and you don’t want to miss the next issue, which has wonderful articles on writing issues and allows provides the latest on new agents and publisers. Go to Substack.
If you haven’t joined the WriterCon Facebook Group yet, do it now! Join this wonderful community of writers.
Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.
William Bernhardt
www.williambernhardt.com
www.writercon.com
Chapter 1: Opening Thoughts
Have you ever thought the movie was better than the book?
Chapter 2: News
1) AI Podcasts Have Arrived
2) Audible/ACX Now Allow AI/Human Hybrid Narrators
Chapter 3: Craft Corner
Today's segment is on book marketing by Desiree Duffy, head of Black Chateau and Books That Make You, and longtime friend and sponsor for WriterCon. No one knows more about book marketing than she does.
Chapter 4: Interview with Ransom Riggs
In this interview, the author of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children discusses:
1) how old photos led to a novel;
2) how modern LA led to Sunderworld;
3) how movies and VHS tapes figure in Sunderworld;
4) writing a novel with a series in mind; and
5) structuring your writing day.
Chapter 5: Parting Words
WriterCon has its own free newsletter and you don’t want to miss the next issue, which has wonderful articles on writing issues and allows provides the latest on new agents and publisers. Go to Substack.
If you haven’t joined the WriterCon Facebook Group yet, do it now! Join this wonderful community of writers.
Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.
William Bernhardt
www.williambernhardt.com
www.writercon.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This week on the writer con podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
My number one piece of advice for aspiring writers is
to as much as you can silence your inner critic,
that little devil on your shoulder who tries to edit
your work as you're writing it.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to writer Kon, a gathering place for writers to
share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
The Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award
winning author of the want LNN Files book series.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining us.
I'm in kind of a movie mood today, unlike most
of our podcasts, probably inspired by the guests we're going
to be interviewing. You know, I'm an author, so of
course I believe books are vastly more impactful than movies,
and if people just read more books, there'd be a
(01:03):
lot less anxiety and unhappiness in the world. But that's
just me. But when you're at the theater, what do
people always say? They always say the book was better
than the movie, and I think, well, of course it was,
but maybe there are some exceptions. I don't know. Jesse
can you think of a movie that you actually liked
better than the book.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
There, I do. I'm trying to remember now, but there was.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
You read a lot. There must do something.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I think A common example people uses Fight Club.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Ah really yeah, well, I mean I guess like.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It's one of those things where if you take a
book that's very out there and weird, using movies have
to simplify it a little bit, and that actually helps
the story in some ways. I'm trying to think, Uh,
did do.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well? Well, he thinks, Laura, how about you? Have you
got one?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I actually do have one, the Notebook.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Oh really you like the I have not read that book,
but you liked the movie better?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
No?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Oh, what are you saying? Sorry?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Yes, I like it.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You're confusing me, Laura.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Misunderstood the assignment.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
There No, I saw the movie first. I thought to myself,
that was so good, but the book is always better.
So I had to go get the book, and I
is this is it a hot take? I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I thought, well, that's a different I mean, if you've
already got one image in your mind. I remember I
loved Forrest Gump and thought, I just I want to
live in that world longer. So I got the book,
but the book opinions very I get, but it is
very different from the movie. So it was not at
all like continuing the same thing well the book.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
And I don't mean to offend any Nicholas Sparks fans.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I'm a fan, but come for a spark, Sparky, they're
not called Sparks. You should be calling a spark.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
He's gonna team up with James Patterson and they're both
gonna come bring it.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
But I'm ready.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Oh no, I most of his books are more successful
reads for me, but I found that one just much
less impactful for me.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Okay, I've got a hot take. Movies better than the
book The Two Towers really, yes?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Oh that was like heresy for you, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I mean, there's some things that are just there's some
things those movies do better than the books, like the
way er Gorn plays his character and whatnot. But just
the fact that elves show up to help humans in
the movie, there's always something I felt was missing from
the book. I'm like, there's still elves here they could help.
He's having them show up was just it's it's small
(03:52):
changes like that. I'm like, that is nice.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I like to see that.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Also, like for a book that is fifty battle visually
seeing that is incredible and they did such a great
job at it.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
So true.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yes, the Return of the King movie not as good
as the book due to them completely cutting out my
favorite ending, so the scouraging.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I'm still still mad, so mad the what do they
call it? The shire Shire? Yes, I knew something, but
I couldn't quite come up with it. Instead of having
five endings, you wanted to have six.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, well they could. They could have cut out two
of those endings. Give themselves time.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
But I absolutely love in that movie where he raises
the Army of the Dead. That was visually beautiful. I thought,
I love that, and.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Which is fine because Peter Jackson was like, I don't
like this part of the story. It seems you know,
days X Makina out of it. He's like, but god
do it. It's there?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
So well. Okay, Well, getting back to our topic. Sorry,
as I have already hinted, Today, we're interviewing a super
successful author who's also had adapted to film. Ransom Rigs
is the number one New York Times bestselling author of
Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. That whole series of novels, which
(05:11):
have sold over ten million copies, and of course led
to Tim Burton's adaptation of the first book in the series,
which was the number one movie and it's opening weekend
at the box office. I think I saw it twice.
I thought it was a great movie. And now he's
got a new book which seems to me surely destined
(05:32):
for the movies at some point. It's a portal fantasy
called Sunderworld, planned as the first installment in this new series.
We're going to talk to him about that and much
much more. But first, the news news story number one. Actually,
(06:04):
all the news stories today are going to be kind
of related because they have to do with how publishing
is still struggling to find the appropriate use for AI.
Except it's not just publishing. Now. We're going to have
AI podcasts. In fact, they're not just coming, as we
may have hinted before, they have arrived thanks to Google.
(06:27):
Google's got a new program it's called Notebook Notebook l M,
which can generate a conversation, like a realistic sounding conversation
between co hosts like what we do here every week,
and they'll talk about whatever you want them to talk about.
You upload materials like a book, and they'll sit there
(06:50):
talking about your book on this AI generated podcast. I
will put the links in the show notes. But I
saw example somebody did where they took this is really
scintillating Facebook's ninety nine page privacy policy and uploaded it
notebook LM and like a few minutes later out popped
(07:13):
this summary and a seven and a half minute podcast
about Facebook's data practices. There was one male host and
one female host, and they were talking to each other
like real people, even saying kind of silly stuff, or
you could air there'd be pauses or slight stutters, little
(07:35):
you know, performative stutters or that kind of thing, like.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Why would they include that?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Sorry, because that makes it sound real, right, That's the
way people really talk in real life. And at one
point they were talking about hiking boots, and the AI
generated host talked about how well, you know, I looked
at hiking boots on a website, and so suddenly all
this stuff about hiking book started showing up in my
(08:03):
Facebook newsfeed. I thought I was going crazy, he's the
he it it's a fake person. But I mean, that's true,
that really is what happens, right, you go to a
site and suddenly these ads start showing up on Facebook.
I just thought, Wow, that was our only ace in
(08:24):
the hole. Is that Laura is so smart and you're
so funny, Jesse. I don't think they can duplicate that.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, they can't. Here's the thing. You can't duplicate a following,
like who's gonna be like, yep, I got to hear
what this AI thinks today about a topic. I give it.
That's not why anyone listens to anything.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
You You wouldn't think like, I'm fine.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It making a podcast about a topic I'm interested in
instead of like just reading a Wikipedia page. Right, this
is a fun learning tool, like learning via conversation, all
for it. I don't think. I don't think these AI
podcasts are going to get spot ships, right, I don't
think people are going to follow them on a weekly basis.
You think if they get sponsorships? I quit, I will
(09:07):
say that.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Look you know like, oh, Ai, Joe, did you get
your hiking boots?
Speaker 4 (09:12):
God?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, it's like this episode brought you by Casper. I'm like,
all right, that's it. I'm out. I'm out.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Laura, what about you? Let's assume it was a topic
that's of interest to you. Would you listen to a
podcast that you knew were a couple of AI characters
talking to each other.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
No, No, that's right. It's just too it's just too weird.
It's just too weird. What if you are trying to
learn something, you really want to learn something like Jesse said, what,
it's just made up. It's just made up. It's all
made up. Every bit of it is made up. Oh,
I think I saw mister spot.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yep, it's about just ran off and that wouldn't happen
in a podcast the other a cats.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
No guest starring Cat. I'm glad to hear you say that, Laura,
because I think this is about one step away from
having an AI companion who watches television with you at night,
gets up with you in the morning, and pretty soon
I'd be gone. So this is.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, that was not AI.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
But yeah, for I mentioned that this is already out there,
and that's true. If you want an example, there's a
podcast called Histories of Mysteries, and shouldn't be the other way.
Shouldn't it be Mystery of History or or whatever whatever?
It's Histories of mysteries, which is basically podcasts that have
(10:40):
been made from Wikipedia pages and and they you know,
they have all kinds of things that they're talking about,
and in fact, in some and at least one instance,
the AI podcast hosts who are AI again had sort
of an existential meltdown because they suddenly realize they're not real.
(11:03):
And on another one they argued about which words were
I'm not going to say them, but what words were
vulgar or not. It's it's a true interesting let me
tell you. Okay, from there, we'll segue into news story
number two, which, as I hinted, is pretty closely related.
This is about AI narration of audio books, which you
(11:25):
may remember we discussed in the past and people's concerns
about AI narration replacing human narration. Well, now ACX, which
of course is the place Audible, which is owned by Amazon,
uses to let people upload their audio books, and they've
got this new program for narrators. Now I'm talking about humans,
(11:49):
you know, people who actually record audio books and work
with various clients through ACX. They can now have their
voices replicated by AI tech so that they can audition
for jobs. As you know, when you're looking for an
AI narrator, not an AI for an audiobook narrator. You
(12:12):
ask people to submit samples. Well, this AI can submit
a sample based on your voice, and for that matter,
it can narrate chapters or do the whole thing whenever
you're ready. Their announcement says, and I'm quoting here. Narrators
continue to maintain control of the projects they went to
(12:33):
audition for using voice replica or live performance, and will
remain central to the production process. Using production tools, narrators
can edit pronunciation and pacing, ensuring their voice replica productions
maintain high quality standards. And of course they are at
(12:54):
least asking for people's permission before they duplicate their voice. Laura,
what you would you listen to one of these uh
semi human AI combo audio books.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I think I'm still a little bit confused on how
this works.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
So they get an actual audiobook narrator. So you know,
there are people who do it all the time. You
got to ACX and people will audition for various terms
to UH record your books. So here they're having AI
like record your voice. I assume extensive enough that they
(13:38):
can then duplicate it. You know, syllabically, I suppose or something.
So they can create an audiobook that's made of your voice,
but you haven't actually recorded it may creep out.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
I need a little I'm gonna I'm gonna have to
go look into this a little more on probably going
to have to listen to some samples and see what
I think.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
But Jesse, what do you think? Would you go for it?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I mean again, I'm not. I'm also a little confused.
But so in theory, if this is allowing narrators to
sort of skip some of the more time consuming parts
of narrating a story, I'm okay with it. If it's
their voice and they continue to have the rights to it,
they're still going to have to go in and like
(14:26):
fixed pronunciations and pacing all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, but do this sort of I mean they could,
they can, but.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I mean the pronunciation part is the thing that takes
up most of the time of editing an audiobook is
getting names right places, right, all that sort of thing,
especially like nonfiction audiobook narration. I just you know some
I here's the thing. Some people are gonna be okay
with it, and some people are not gonna be okay.
With it, and same thing with the A podcast. It's like,
if you want your media to sound soulless, like not yourself,
(15:00):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
But is this a human being? Sort of?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, well it's a human being turned into a robot.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So even weirder, you know, I have to say I've
had back in the day, I had audio books made
from my novels, but of course the publisher chose the narrator.
I had zero input, and often they were riddled with mispronunciations,
particularly of Southwest place names. You know, they talk about
(15:26):
the Outcheetah Mountains and that kind of thing. It just
made me, but you know that was still a human being. Yeah, okay,
how about this Jesse. So it's an AI audio book.
Let's say it's a Star Trek book narrated by an
AI version of Majel Barrett, who you know very well
was the voice of the computers the Enterprise. Would you
(15:49):
listen to that?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Well? I would, And the reason why I would is
because she, before passing away, actually like recorded herself saying
like every possible word imaginable using her in TV shows,
and so she specifically wanted her voice to sort of
live beyond her in this case. Again, I'm still worried
about these companies and what they're going to do with
(16:10):
your voice once you give it to them. You know,
they can say everything they want this little paragraph, but
like what's actually in the We'll have to have that
Google LM thing read us the small print stuff of.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Ax AI become the voice for the next pull string
version of Lars and the real girl that has AI.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Again, like they should be focusing the use of AI
into making our lives easier, not taking away from things
that already exist.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Right right, Amen, All right, let's move on Today. In
craft Corner, we have a great piece on book marketing
by Desire Duffy, who, of course is the head of
Black Chateau and Books That Made You. She's a longtime
friend and sponsor for writer Con. She's been on the
podcast before. No one knows more about book marketing than
(17:02):
she does, so let's hear what she has to say.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Craft Quarter.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
When people ask me what is the number one thing
that I can do marketing wise to ensure the success
of my book, I tell them write a good one.
Here's the deal. The secret to your books marketing success
is crafting and engaging page turning well written captivating story
(17:35):
or idea, whether it be fiction or nonfiction. That's what
sets your book up for marketing success. I often say
I can lead a horse to water, but I can't
make them drink. Marketing can lead people to your book,
but if it doesn't grab them, nothing that I do
will make them buy it. Here are the key points
(17:58):
to making sure your book is engaging right from the beginning.
First of all, that first chapter, heck, I actually like
to work it backward, the first page, the first paragraph,
all the way to that very first sentence needs to
make them want to keep reading on. If they don't,
(18:19):
why would they want to buy your book? The description,
what they read when they flip around to the back
cover or the Amazon description or any retail description. That's
also the key to making them want to grab that copy. Punchy,
poignant descriptions that answer the question what will I get
(18:43):
out of this book? That's what you're going for. We
are human beings, and as human beings, we are all
a little bit selfish. We always want to know what's
in it for me, and that's what you need to
convey to your potential reader. The other thing the cover,
the title adhering to genre expectations. The look and the
(19:06):
feel should promise the reader something as well. Don't go
against genre expectations, or if you do, do so at
your own risk. You don't want to confuse the reader.
And above all else, please be professional in your cover design,
especially if you're an indie author or self publishing. Here's
(19:26):
what you can do. Assess your book, just like the
reader does. What happens when you hold up your book?
How does that title, the cover design, that back cover
description or maybe any blurbs the author bio? What does
that convey to the reader? What's to tell them about?
(19:47):
What is in it for them when they flip to
that first chapter and begin reading? What keeps them hooked
from beginning to end? To make them want to keep reading?
And therefore your book. I'm desire Duffy, founder of Black
chat Told the book Fast and Books that make You.
Thank you to William Bernhardt and Writer Con for inviting
(20:10):
me to share this for you and for everything that
you do for the writing community.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Thank you so much, Desiree Duffy, and remember her company
as Black Chateau. Now let's move on to the interview
and talk to Ransom Rigs. Ransom Rigs. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
We are pleased and honored to have you. Okay, traditional
first question. If you could offer writers one piece of advice,
what would it be.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
My number one piece of advice for aspiring writers is
to as much as you can silence your interview critic,
that little devil on your shoulder who tries to edit
your work as you're writing it. It will just stop
you cold and you'll never get anything past one chapter.
And I'm sure you've heard this cliche before, but you
(21:13):
know you can't edit a blank page, and editing is really,
you know, where the book comes to life. So you've
got to get to the stage of having a draft
before you've really got something you can work with.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, great advice. Certainly that's true of me. I don't
know if it's true for everybody, but I bet it is.
How did you get started with writing? Was that always
your dream or did that come a little later in life.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was my dream when I was a young man,
grew up writing my own stories and dreaming of being
a writer one day, and I got sidetracked in high
school when I discovered in middle school and high school
when I discovered movies that became a huge movie buff
(22:01):
and decided I want to be.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
A movie director.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And I had already, you know, a love of photography,
so the two just sort of came together. I ended
up going to film school, but I'd never lost my
passion for writing. So after film school, I was out
here in LA and I was working doing and anything
I could that was you know, creative, to get by
(22:26):
making short films and advertisements and web shorts and writing
to a lot of freelance writing. And the freelance writing
gigs led me to writing for a magazine, and that
magazine occasionally published books, and so I wrote for one
of those books, and then that connected me with another publisher.
(22:50):
It was kind of a longing, twisting path, but I
eventually was connected with a publisher who did really fun,
sort of pop culture how to books, and one of
them was how to be a consulting detective like Sherlock
Holmes was essentially the concept of the book. And they
asked me if I wanted to do this, and I said, definitely,
(23:10):
that's right up my alide. So I wrote this book
for them. It's called the Sherlock Holmes handbook, and then
you know, the door was sort of open with this
non traditional publisher, and I had an idea for a
book that was illustrated with photographs, and that became Miss Peregrine.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Yeah We're we are your big bands of Miss Peregrine's
Home for Peculiar Children. And I wanted to ask you
where that idea first came from.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Well, I had.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Had an idea about an island full of children with
abilities that weren't quite superpowers and weren't quite disabilities, but
what sort of ranged between those two polls for a
long time. And I had also had a love of strange,
found antique photographs ever since I was a kid, and
(24:08):
my grandmother would take me to secondhand stores and swap
needs on Sunday mornings and I would find them in
shoe boxes and just sort of go crazy wondering who
these people were and what their stories were. And after
film school the two started to come together. I was
going to flea markets around LA looking for old furniture,
(24:29):
and I started finding more photographs and really good ones,
Like it's like they were finding me, and so I
treated them kind of like maybe a director or a
casting director treats actor headshots and say, well, okay, this
boy covered in bees, perhaps he controls the bees and
they live inside of him.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Something.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
They started to populate that island of my imagination, and
I concocted a way to tell a story THROUGHO and
then mostly words, but illustrated with photographs.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
All those photographs are what lended the sort of weird authenticity.
So were those all photographs you found yourself? I did.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I found many of them myself, and then I also
got connected with other photo collectors who were much more
serious than me and had been doing it for a
very long time and had deep connect collections. And when
I explained to the project of them, I'd say, well,
do you have anything that's like this or like that?
(25:35):
And they and many of them were very kind, and
they just said, well, I don't know. Came look through
my collection. So in some cases, you know, they lived locally,
and I'd go to their house and just dig through
mountains of cool stuff until I found, you know, things
that felt like they fit my story in my world.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
How fun? Okay, enough about misparagrine. You've got a new
book out which appears to me to be intended to
launch a new series called Sunderworld, right, that is, which
apparently takes readers through a previously unseen side of Los Angeles. Right,
tell us about this book.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Well, so, Miss Peregrine, these books all had time loops,
and the peculiars would live in time loops, and there
were many books, and the second trilogy. They came to America,
and I was always looking for new places in America
where peculiar things might happen and peculiar time loops might
(26:37):
be located. And I've lived in LA for many years,
and I have always thought that this was like the
most peculiar of places, and that it would be natural
fit to have time loops full of peculiar people here
in LA. But something was stopping me from setting a
peculiar children book here. And I eventually realized that it's
(26:59):
It's like it was almost too obvious, Like the city
is so peculiar, it's almost self consciously peculiar. And it
didn't need, you know, Miss Peregrine, didn't need LA's weird
like faux magic, and it had enough of its own.
And I saved La for a different story because I've
(27:23):
loved exploring the sort of strange gritty nooks and crannies
of this city ever since I moved here, and I've
always felt like it would be a great place to
set a secondary, secret, magical world and say that's what
I created with the Leopoldberry and Sunderworld, right, I.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Love it was it was it tricky to blend the
real world La these little nooks and crownies that you're
talking about with your Sunderworld extraordinary locations.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
It's not tricky exactly. I really prefer urban fantasy and
stories that have one foot in the real world and
one foot in fantasy. I like the feeling that you
could go find the wardrobe and go explore Narnia and
then come back. Yes, it grounds the stories in a
(28:21):
sense of reality that I feel like makes them more
tangible and present and relatable. So that's always my natural
instinct when concocting fantasy worlds.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
There's also a lot of real world La history in
the book too, Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
To some degree.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I mean there's a lot of historical sort of locations
and strange places that I worked in. For instance, there
is when I moved here, I discovered this big, old, creaking,
almost closed cafeteria called Clifton's that open to the nineteen
(29:08):
thirties and was apparently one of the inspirations for Walt
Disney to create Disney World. It's redwood forest themed and
full of these animatronic animals that pop out of like
real flowing streams and pipe cleaner redwood trees and stuff.
And by the time I discovered it many years later,
it was, you know, just a fire trap and really know,
(29:33):
atmospheric and broken, and I thought, there's definitely a portal
hiding somewhere in this place. Fully portal, right it is. Yeah,
So that's one of the places that I worked in
to sunder as well as my red list. It was
(29:58):
a lot of fun marrying my my knowledge of like
real la to this very fantastical world that I created
inside of it.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Okay, now, the Miss Paragrine novels were of course about peculiar,
extraordinary children. But in this book, you've deliberately chosen a protagonist,
Leopold Berry, who seems very normal. Was that a deliberate choice?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
It was.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
A big feature. A prominent feature of fantasies and portal
fantasies is the chosen one, which is, you know, the
reason the story is about protagonist x is because they've
been chosen above all of the other people around them,
makes sense, it powers the story, but I felt like
(30:48):
I'd already told that story with Miss park Or. Jacob
is absolutely sort of chosen one, and he has powers
he had no idea about that become extremely important to,
you know, saving peculiar world. So in this story, I
thought it would be much more fun to have Leopold
believe for all the world that he's a chosen one.
(31:10):
He grows up on with these videotapes of a show
called sunder World, which is about Sunder. It's like a
very bad, low budget nineties TV show about a chosen
one boy who gets brought into Sunder and saves it.
And he starts seeing bits of Sunder in the real
(31:35):
world when he's young, after he's gone through the trauma
of his mother dying and having to go live with
his very overbearing father, and he comes to believe that
that's all they're just hallucinatory visions until he's seventeen and
going through a new trauma, the difficult period in his life,
and he starts seeing into Sunder again, and it turns
out that it's very real and finds a way in,
(31:59):
and he naturally comes to believe that if Sunder is
real and he's going into it, then he must be
the chosen one eight chosen Channeler, as they say, which
is something Sunder desperately needs to bring back the fading
source of magic that they use and defeat the Noxom.
Which are these disgusting, horrible creatures of the night that
(32:22):
are threatening Sunder.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
And I'll name too for disgusting creatures. Let go ahead.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Inventing disgusting creatures is one of my favorite things to
do as an author. Find it very diverting, but he
quickly discovers that he's quickly, dramatically and humiliatingly discovers that
he is not the channeler and not a chosen one,
and he has to pick himself up and figure out
what to do next afterward.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Anyway, cool, Well, you mentioned that you're a film buff
as am I, and of course at one point Leopol
becomes obsessed with Sunderland's like old VHS tapes, Right, Is
that your way of getting the film aspect into the book.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Well, I definitely love movies and Hollywood history, and but
my personal you know, connection to movies that I fell
in love with them as a kid in the nineties,
on you know, VHS tapes, I would tape them off
TV commercials and everything, and so I thought it would
be more fun for Leopold to discover this other world
(33:34):
through the medium of old VHS tapes, this obsolete technology.
Right then, you know, there was a physical media way
into the fantasy. And Miss Peregrine too was collection bold photographs.
So this is sort of a twist and an update.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
On that.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Nice sweet Now, when you were recording the on VHS
tape back then, did you ever try to like pause
the recording to get rid of the commercials and then
hit it again. It was always like a goal of
mind to try to avoid the commercials.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I did try that a few times, but I would
just end up missing the show.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
The first couple of seconds.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Yeah, I call it just wrong and miss some I
think I gave up to Yeah, but my.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Friends and I would also make videos with one another
on VHS tapes and camcorders in our backyards and stuff,
really crazy, ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
You know, off the wall, that's so fun.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
What the characters in Leopoldan's Best Friend, and they do
the same thing in their lives. They realized there's only
one season of Maxi's Adventures in Sunderworld, and it seems
like there should be more. So they said about making
their own episodes and mauls. You know, we had to
(35:00):
did these things ourselves. When we were shooting them, I
had no there was no final cut, pro or a
premiere or anything or even nonline hating at all. So
to do a simple conversation where you cut from one
angle of someone speaking to another, you would have to
sit across from the person who was speaking, record from mint, cut,
(35:20):
turn around, put the camera in the other direction, you know,
and you were cutting in the camera. And I got
pretty We got pretty good at that, but you would
mess it up every once in a while.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
And now, what does a typical writing day look like
for you? What's your writing process?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Well, we have a little kid, and so we have
we were behold into like schools, schedules and life obligations
and family stuff. So my wife and I my wife's
also a writer, We get up very early in the
morning and we work for a few hours before our
(36:06):
daughter gets.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Up, and.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Then we have a number of hours during the day
and then after school pickup time, you know, ideally we're
off the clock and it's family time.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Right, excellent. Would you say that you are a pants
or a planner?
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Ah, the eternal question.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I am a little, especially on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I suppose I think, you know one, Pantsing a novel
is a great exercise in courage, and I've never quite
been able to do it. So what I do is
I I plan, and I plot a bit, and I
(36:54):
generate a lot of ideas and notes, probably many more
than it's necessary, in a very inefficient manner, and then
I dive in, knowing perhaps what my first act looks like,
you know a little bit of I know what my
first act looks like, and I know where I want
the story to end up, and the middle is Hayes,
(37:14):
and I find it as I go.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
You know, don't don't tell Bill, but this actually sounds
pretty similar to my process. I don't. I don't plan
quite as meticulously as he does. But on the other hand,
I don't write as fast as he does, either, so
there could be a correlation there.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I feel like my best ideas often come while I'm writing,
so I end up.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Throwing Agreed, absolutely, What are some of the craft or
skill tips that you've learned along the way, maybe that
you you didn't know when you started writing, but I
wish you had because now you understand very important they are.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Well, I feel like I'm still learning. I hope I'm
better at this than I was when I started ten
twelve years ago. Every novel you write kind of feels
like you're first, a little bit like you're starting over.
And one thing that I have learned is that it's
(38:24):
important to read a lot, a variety of different things
all the time. Those are your Those are your your tools.
That keeps your tools sharp.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Kay. I agree with that, So okay, one last question?
What are you working on or what should we expect
to see from you next?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I am working on the sequel to U Sunderworld Sunderworld
Volume two.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Yes, I didn't want to be presumptuous. You were right.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yes, this is the joy and the privileged writing series.
You usually know what you're doing next.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Maybe next year then, and how do you have any
sense of how long this series could go?
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Well? I have three definite and we will see from there.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
That sounds good. I'll just tell you my first series,
Ben Kincaid Thrillers. I started also with a three year
plan and ended up doing nineteen of them, but whatever, Ransome,
thanks so much for being on the podcast. Appreciate it,
my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Thank you both.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Just a few quick parting words. Two other ways to
stay informed on what's happening in the writing world in
between our podcasts. Remember, writer Con has its own newsletter
and magazine, but they're the same thing. The magazine comes
out about every quarter as part of the newsletter, but
we do shorter newsletters to keep up on a date
(40:12):
on things and let you know what's happening with literary
agents and publishers and whatnot. Plus there are articles included
in that and it does not cost a thing. This
is completely free. All you have to do is go
to substack substack dot com and search for writer Con
wr it E r co N and it'll bring it up. Subscribe.
(40:35):
It'll come free to your email newsbox every time there's
a new issue. And even in between those newsletters, you
can join the writer Con Facebook group. I'm usually there
almost every day and a lot of other people do,
and this is the best way to keep up with
what's going on in the writing world on a day
(40:56):
to day basis. All right, okay, til next time, keep writing.
Remember you cannot fail if you refuse to Quid. See
you next time.
This week on the writer con podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
My number one piece of advice for aspiring writers is
to as much as you can silence your inner critic,
that little devil on your shoulder who tries to edit
your work as you're writing it.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to writer Kon, a gathering place for writers to
share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
The Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award
winning author of the want LNN Files book series.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining us.
I'm in kind of a movie mood today, unlike most
of our podcasts, probably inspired by the guests we're going
to be interviewing. You know, I'm an author, so of
course I believe books are vastly more impactful than movies,
and if people just read more books, there'd be a
(01:03):
lot less anxiety and unhappiness in the world. But that's
just me. But when you're at the theater, what do
people always say? They always say the book was better
than the movie, and I think, well, of course it was,
but maybe there are some exceptions. I don't know. Jesse
can you think of a movie that you actually liked
better than the book.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
There, I do. I'm trying to remember now, but there was.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
You read a lot. There must do something.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I think A common example people uses Fight Club.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Ah really yeah, well, I mean I guess like.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It's one of those things where if you take a
book that's very out there and weird, using movies have
to simplify it a little bit, and that actually helps
the story in some ways. I'm trying to think, Uh,
did do.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well? Well, he thinks, Laura, how about you? Have you
got one?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I actually do have one, the Notebook.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Oh really you like the I have not read that book,
but you liked the movie better?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
No?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Oh, what are you saying? Sorry?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Yes, I like it.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You're confusing me, Laura.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Misunderstood the assignment.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
There No, I saw the movie first. I thought to myself,
that was so good, but the book is always better.
So I had to go get the book, and I
is this is it a hot take? I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I thought, well, that's a different I mean, if you've
already got one image in your mind. I remember I
loved Forrest Gump and thought, I just I want to
live in that world longer. So I got the book,
but the book opinions very I get, but it is
very different from the movie. So it was not at
all like continuing the same thing well the book.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
And I don't mean to offend any Nicholas Sparks fans.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I'm a fan, but come for a spark, Sparky, they're
not called Sparks. You should be calling a spark.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
He's gonna team up with James Patterson and they're both
gonna come bring it.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
But I'm ready.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Oh no, I most of his books are more successful
reads for me, but I found that one just much
less impactful for me.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Okay, I've got a hot take. Movies better than the
book The Two Towers really, yes?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Oh that was like heresy for you, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I mean, there's some things that are just there's some
things those movies do better than the books, like the
way er Gorn plays his character and whatnot. But just
the fact that elves show up to help humans in
the movie, there's always something I felt was missing from
the book. I'm like, there's still elves here they could help.
He's having them show up was just it's it's small
(03:52):
changes like that. I'm like, that is nice.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I like to see that.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Also, like for a book that is fifty battle visually
seeing that is incredible and they did such a great
job at it.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
So true.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yes, the Return of the King movie not as good
as the book due to them completely cutting out my
favorite ending, so the scouraging.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I'm still still mad, so mad the what do they
call it? The shire Shire? Yes, I knew something, but
I couldn't quite come up with it. Instead of having
five endings, you wanted to have six.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, well they could. They could have cut out two
of those endings. Give themselves time.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
But I absolutely love in that movie where he raises
the Army of the Dead. That was visually beautiful. I thought,
I love that, and.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Which is fine because Peter Jackson was like, I don't
like this part of the story. It seems you know,
days X Makina out of it. He's like, but god
do it. It's there?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
So well. Okay, Well, getting back to our topic. Sorry,
as I have already hinted, Today, we're interviewing a super
successful author who's also had adapted to film. Ransom Rigs
is the number one New York Times bestselling author of
Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. That whole series of novels, which
(05:11):
have sold over ten million copies, and of course led
to Tim Burton's adaptation of the first book in the series,
which was the number one movie and it's opening weekend
at the box office. I think I saw it twice.
I thought it was a great movie. And now he's
got a new book which seems to me surely destined
(05:32):
for the movies at some point. It's a portal fantasy
called Sunderworld, planned as the first installment in this new series.
We're going to talk to him about that and much
much more. But first, the news news story number one. Actually,
(06:04):
all the news stories today are going to be kind
of related because they have to do with how publishing
is still struggling to find the appropriate use for AI.
Except it's not just publishing. Now. We're going to have
AI podcasts. In fact, they're not just coming, as we
may have hinted before, they have arrived thanks to Google.
(06:27):
Google's got a new program it's called Notebook Notebook l M,
which can generate a conversation, like a realistic sounding conversation
between co hosts like what we do here every week,
and they'll talk about whatever you want them to talk about.
You upload materials like a book, and they'll sit there
(06:50):
talking about your book on this AI generated podcast. I
will put the links in the show notes. But I
saw example somebody did where they took this is really
scintillating Facebook's ninety nine page privacy policy and uploaded it
notebook LM and like a few minutes later out popped
(07:13):
this summary and a seven and a half minute podcast
about Facebook's data practices. There was one male host and
one female host, and they were talking to each other
like real people, even saying kind of silly stuff, or
you could air there'd be pauses or slight stutters, little
(07:35):
you know, performative stutters or that kind of thing, like.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Why would they include that?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Sorry, because that makes it sound real, right, That's the
way people really talk in real life. And at one
point they were talking about hiking boots, and the AI
generated host talked about how well, you know, I looked
at hiking boots on a website, and so suddenly all
this stuff about hiking book started showing up in my
(08:03):
Facebook newsfeed. I thought I was going crazy, he's the
he it it's a fake person. But I mean, that's true,
that really is what happens, right, you go to a
site and suddenly these ads start showing up on Facebook.
I just thought, Wow, that was our only ace in
(08:24):
the hole. Is that Laura is so smart and you're
so funny, Jesse. I don't think they can duplicate that.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, they can't. Here's the thing. You can't duplicate a following,
like who's gonna be like, yep, I got to hear
what this AI thinks today about a topic. I give it.
That's not why anyone listens to anything.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
You You wouldn't think like, I'm fine.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It making a podcast about a topic I'm interested in
instead of like just reading a Wikipedia page. Right, this
is a fun learning tool, like learning via conversation, all
for it. I don't think. I don't think these AI
podcasts are going to get spot ships, right, I don't
think people are going to follow them on a weekly basis.
You think if they get sponsorships? I quit, I will
(09:07):
say that.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Look you know like, oh, Ai, Joe, did you get
your hiking boots?
Speaker 4 (09:12):
God?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, it's like this episode brought you by Casper. I'm like,
all right, that's it. I'm out. I'm out.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Laura, what about you? Let's assume it was a topic
that's of interest to you. Would you listen to a
podcast that you knew were a couple of AI characters
talking to each other.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
No, No, that's right. It's just too it's just too weird.
It's just too weird. What if you are trying to
learn something, you really want to learn something like Jesse said, what,
it's just made up. It's just made up. It's all
made up. Every bit of it is made up. Oh,
I think I saw mister spot.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yep, it's about just ran off and that wouldn't happen
in a podcast the other a cats.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
No guest starring Cat. I'm glad to hear you say that, Laura,
because I think this is about one step away from
having an AI companion who watches television with you at night,
gets up with you in the morning, and pretty soon
I'd be gone. So this is.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, that was not AI.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
But yeah, for I mentioned that this is already out there,
and that's true. If you want an example, there's a
podcast called Histories of Mysteries, and shouldn't be the other way.
Shouldn't it be Mystery of History or or whatever whatever?
It's Histories of mysteries, which is basically podcasts that have
(10:40):
been made from Wikipedia pages and and they you know,
they have all kinds of things that they're talking about,
and in fact, in some and at least one instance,
the AI podcast hosts who are AI again had sort
of an existential meltdown because they suddenly realize they're not real.
(11:03):
And on another one they argued about which words were
I'm not going to say them, but what words were
vulgar or not. It's it's a true interesting let me
tell you. Okay, from there, we'll segue into news story
number two, which, as I hinted, is pretty closely related.
This is about AI narration of audio books, which you
(11:25):
may remember we discussed in the past and people's concerns
about AI narration replacing human narration. Well, now ACX, which
of course is the place Audible, which is owned by Amazon,
uses to let people upload their audio books, and they've
got this new program for narrators. Now I'm talking about humans,
(11:49):
you know, people who actually record audio books and work
with various clients through ACX. They can now have their
voices replicated by AI tech so that they can audition
for jobs. As you know, when you're looking for an
AI narrator, not an AI for an audiobook narrator. You
(12:12):
ask people to submit samples. Well, this AI can submit
a sample based on your voice, and for that matter,
it can narrate chapters or do the whole thing whenever
you're ready. Their announcement says, and I'm quoting here. Narrators
continue to maintain control of the projects they went to
(12:33):
audition for using voice replica or live performance, and will
remain central to the production process. Using production tools, narrators
can edit pronunciation and pacing, ensuring their voice replica productions
maintain high quality standards. And of course they are at
(12:54):
least asking for people's permission before they duplicate their voice. Laura,
what you would you listen to one of these uh
semi human AI combo audio books.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I think I'm still a little bit confused on how
this works.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
So they get an actual audiobook narrator. So you know,
there are people who do it all the time. You
got to ACX and people will audition for various terms
to UH record your books. So here they're having AI
like record your voice. I assume extensive enough that they
(13:38):
can then duplicate it. You know, syllabically, I suppose or something.
So they can create an audiobook that's made of your voice,
but you haven't actually recorded it may creep out.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
I need a little I'm gonna I'm gonna have to
go look into this a little more on probably going
to have to listen to some samples and see what
I think.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
But Jesse, what do you think? Would you go for it?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I mean again, I'm not. I'm also a little confused.
But so in theory, if this is allowing narrators to
sort of skip some of the more time consuming parts
of narrating a story, I'm okay with it. If it's
their voice and they continue to have the rights to it,
they're still going to have to go in and like
(14:26):
fixed pronunciations and pacing all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, but do this sort of I mean they could,
they can, but.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I mean the pronunciation part is the thing that takes
up most of the time of editing an audiobook is
getting names right places, right, all that sort of thing,
especially like nonfiction audiobook narration. I just you know some
I here's the thing. Some people are gonna be okay
with it, and some people are not gonna be okay.
With it, and same thing with the A podcast. It's like,
if you want your media to sound soulless, like not yourself,
(15:00):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
But is this a human being? Sort of?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, well it's a human being turned into a robot.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So even weirder, you know, I have to say I've
had back in the day, I had audio books made
from my novels, but of course the publisher chose the narrator.
I had zero input, and often they were riddled with mispronunciations,
particularly of Southwest place names. You know, they talk about
(15:26):
the Outcheetah Mountains and that kind of thing. It just
made me, but you know that was still a human being. Yeah, okay,
how about this Jesse. So it's an AI audio book.
Let's say it's a Star Trek book narrated by an
AI version of Majel Barrett, who you know very well
was the voice of the computers the Enterprise. Would you
(15:49):
listen to that?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Well? I would, And the reason why I would is
because she, before passing away, actually like recorded herself saying
like every possible word imaginable using her in TV shows,
and so she specifically wanted her voice to sort of
live beyond her in this case. Again, I'm still worried
about these companies and what they're going to do with
(16:10):
your voice once you give it to them. You know,
they can say everything they want this little paragraph, but
like what's actually in the We'll have to have that
Google LM thing read us the small print stuff of.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Ax AI become the voice for the next pull string
version of Lars and the real girl that has AI.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Again, like they should be focusing the use of AI
into making our lives easier, not taking away from things
that already exist.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Right right, Amen, All right, let's move on Today. In
craft Corner, we have a great piece on book marketing
by Desire Duffy, who, of course is the head of
Black Chateau and Books That Made You. She's a longtime
friend and sponsor for writer Con. She's been on the
podcast before. No one knows more about book marketing than
(17:02):
she does, so let's hear what she has to say.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Craft Quarter.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
When people ask me what is the number one thing
that I can do marketing wise to ensure the success
of my book, I tell them write a good one.
Here's the deal. The secret to your books marketing success
is crafting and engaging page turning well written captivating story
(17:35):
or idea, whether it be fiction or nonfiction. That's what
sets your book up for marketing success. I often say
I can lead a horse to water, but I can't
make them drink. Marketing can lead people to your book,
but if it doesn't grab them, nothing that I do
will make them buy it. Here are the key points
(17:58):
to making sure your book is engaging right from the beginning.
First of all, that first chapter, heck, I actually like
to work it backward, the first page, the first paragraph,
all the way to that very first sentence needs to
make them want to keep reading on. If they don't,
(18:19):
why would they want to buy your book? The description,
what they read when they flip around to the back
cover or the Amazon description or any retail description. That's
also the key to making them want to grab that copy. Punchy,
poignant descriptions that answer the question what will I get
(18:43):
out of this book? That's what you're going for. We
are human beings, and as human beings, we are all
a little bit selfish. We always want to know what's
in it for me, and that's what you need to
convey to your potential reader. The other thing the cover,
the title adhering to genre expectations. The look and the
(19:06):
feel should promise the reader something as well. Don't go
against genre expectations, or if you do, do so at
your own risk. You don't want to confuse the reader.
And above all else, please be professional in your cover design,
especially if you're an indie author or self publishing. Here's
(19:26):
what you can do. Assess your book, just like the
reader does. What happens when you hold up your book?
How does that title, the cover design, that back cover
description or maybe any blurbs the author bio? What does
that convey to the reader? What's to tell them about?
(19:47):
What is in it for them when they flip to
that first chapter and begin reading? What keeps them hooked
from beginning to end? To make them want to keep reading?
And therefore your book. I'm desire Duffy, founder of Black
chat Told the book Fast and Books that make You.
Thank you to William Bernhardt and Writer Con for inviting
(20:10):
me to share this for you and for everything that
you do for the writing community.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Thank you so much, Desiree Duffy, and remember her company
as Black Chateau. Now let's move on to the interview
and talk to Ransom Rigs. Ransom Rigs. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
We are pleased and honored to have you. Okay, traditional
first question. If you could offer writers one piece of advice,
what would it be.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
My number one piece of advice for aspiring writers is
to as much as you can silence your interview critic,
that little devil on your shoulder who tries to edit
your work as you're writing it. It will just stop
you cold and you'll never get anything past one chapter.
And I'm sure you've heard this cliche before, but you
(21:13):
know you can't edit a blank page, and editing is really,
you know, where the book comes to life. So you've
got to get to the stage of having a draft
before you've really got something you can work with.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, great advice. Certainly that's true of me. I don't
know if it's true for everybody, but I bet it is.
How did you get started with writing? Was that always
your dream or did that come a little later in life.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was my dream when I was a young man,
grew up writing my own stories and dreaming of being
a writer one day, and I got sidetracked in high
school when I discovered in middle school and high school
when I discovered movies that became a huge movie buff
(22:01):
and decided I want to be.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
A movie director.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And I had already, you know, a love of photography,
so the two just sort of came together. I ended
up going to film school, but I'd never lost my
passion for writing. So after film school, I was out
here in LA and I was working doing and anything
I could that was you know, creative, to get by
(22:26):
making short films and advertisements and web shorts and writing
to a lot of freelance writing. And the freelance writing
gigs led me to writing for a magazine, and that
magazine occasionally published books, and so I wrote for one
of those books, and then that connected me with another publisher.
(22:50):
It was kind of a longing, twisting path, but I
eventually was connected with a publisher who did really fun,
sort of pop culture how to books, and one of
them was how to be a consulting detective like Sherlock
Holmes was essentially the concept of the book. And they
asked me if I wanted to do this, and I said, definitely,
(23:10):
that's right up my alide. So I wrote this book
for them. It's called the Sherlock Holmes handbook, and then
you know, the door was sort of open with this
non traditional publisher, and I had an idea for a
book that was illustrated with photographs, and that became Miss Peregrine.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Yeah We're we are your big bands of Miss Peregrine's
Home for Peculiar Children. And I wanted to ask you
where that idea first came from.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Well, I had.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Had an idea about an island full of children with
abilities that weren't quite superpowers and weren't quite disabilities, but
what sort of ranged between those two polls for a
long time. And I had also had a love of strange,
found antique photographs ever since I was a kid, and
(24:08):
my grandmother would take me to secondhand stores and swap
needs on Sunday mornings and I would find them in
shoe boxes and just sort of go crazy wondering who
these people were and what their stories were. And after
film school the two started to come together. I was
going to flea markets around LA looking for old furniture,
(24:29):
and I started finding more photographs and really good ones,
Like it's like they were finding me, and so I
treated them kind of like maybe a director or a
casting director treats actor headshots and say, well, okay, this
boy covered in bees, perhaps he controls the bees and
they live inside of him.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Something.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
They started to populate that island of my imagination, and
I concocted a way to tell a story THROUGHO and
then mostly words, but illustrated with photographs.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
All those photographs are what lended the sort of weird authenticity.
So were those all photographs you found yourself? I did.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I found many of them myself, and then I also
got connected with other photo collectors who were much more
serious than me and had been doing it for a
very long time and had deep connect collections. And when
I explained to the project of them, I'd say, well,
do you have anything that's like this or like that?
(25:35):
And they and many of them were very kind, and
they just said, well, I don't know. Came look through
my collection. So in some cases, you know, they lived locally,
and I'd go to their house and just dig through
mountains of cool stuff until I found, you know, things
that felt like they fit my story in my world.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
How fun? Okay, enough about misparagrine. You've got a new
book out which appears to me to be intended to
launch a new series called Sunderworld, right, that is, which
apparently takes readers through a previously unseen side of Los Angeles. Right,
tell us about this book.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Well, so, Miss Peregrine, these books all had time loops,
and the peculiars would live in time loops, and there
were many books, and the second trilogy. They came to America,
and I was always looking for new places in America
where peculiar things might happen and peculiar time loops might
(26:37):
be located. And I've lived in LA for many years,
and I have always thought that this was like the
most peculiar of places, and that it would be natural
fit to have time loops full of peculiar people here
in LA. But something was stopping me from setting a
peculiar children book here. And I eventually realized that it's
(26:59):
It's like it was almost too obvious, Like the city
is so peculiar, it's almost self consciously peculiar. And it
didn't need, you know, Miss Peregrine, didn't need LA's weird
like faux magic, and it had enough of its own.
And I saved La for a different story because I've
(27:23):
loved exploring the sort of strange gritty nooks and crannies
of this city ever since I moved here, and I've
always felt like it would be a great place to
set a secondary, secret, magical world and say that's what
I created with the Leopoldberry and Sunderworld, right, I.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Love it was it was it tricky to blend the
real world La these little nooks and crownies that you're
talking about with your Sunderworld extraordinary locations.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
It's not tricky exactly. I really prefer urban fantasy and
stories that have one foot in the real world and
one foot in fantasy. I like the feeling that you
could go find the wardrobe and go explore Narnia and
then come back. Yes, it grounds the stories in a
(28:21):
sense of reality that I feel like makes them more
tangible and present and relatable. So that's always my natural
instinct when concocting fantasy worlds.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
There's also a lot of real world La history in
the book too, Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
To some degree.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I mean there's a lot of historical sort of locations
and strange places that I worked in. For instance, there
is when I moved here, I discovered this big, old, creaking,
almost closed cafeteria called Clifton's that open to the nineteen
(29:08):
thirties and was apparently one of the inspirations for Walt
Disney to create Disney World. It's redwood forest themed and
full of these animatronic animals that pop out of like
real flowing streams and pipe cleaner redwood trees and stuff.
And by the time I discovered it many years later,
it was, you know, just a fire trap and really know,
(29:33):
atmospheric and broken, and I thought, there's definitely a portal
hiding somewhere in this place. Fully portal, right it is. Yeah,
So that's one of the places that I worked in
to sunder as well as my red list. It was
(29:58):
a lot of fun marrying my my knowledge of like
real la to this very fantastical world that I created
inside of it.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Okay, now, the Miss Paragrine novels were of course about peculiar,
extraordinary children. But in this book, you've deliberately chosen a protagonist,
Leopold Berry, who seems very normal. Was that a deliberate choice?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
It was.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
A big feature. A prominent feature of fantasies and portal
fantasies is the chosen one, which is, you know, the
reason the story is about protagonist x is because they've
been chosen above all of the other people around them,
makes sense, it powers the story, but I felt like
(30:48):
I'd already told that story with Miss park Or. Jacob
is absolutely sort of chosen one, and he has powers
he had no idea about that become extremely important to,
you know, saving peculiar world. So in this story, I
thought it would be much more fun to have Leopold
believe for all the world that he's a chosen one.
(31:10):
He grows up on with these videotapes of a show
called sunder World, which is about Sunder. It's like a
very bad, low budget nineties TV show about a chosen
one boy who gets brought into Sunder and saves it.
And he starts seeing bits of Sunder in the real
(31:35):
world when he's young, after he's gone through the trauma
of his mother dying and having to go live with
his very overbearing father, and he comes to believe that
that's all they're just hallucinatory visions until he's seventeen and
going through a new trauma, the difficult period in his life,
and he starts seeing into Sunder again, and it turns
out that it's very real and finds a way in,
(31:59):
and he naturally comes to believe that if Sunder is
real and he's going into it, then he must be
the chosen one eight chosen Channeler, as they say, which
is something Sunder desperately needs to bring back the fading
source of magic that they use and defeat the Noxom.
Which are these disgusting, horrible creatures of the night that
(32:22):
are threatening Sunder.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
And I'll name too for disgusting creatures. Let go ahead.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Inventing disgusting creatures is one of my favorite things to
do as an author. Find it very diverting, but he
quickly discovers that he's quickly, dramatically and humiliatingly discovers that
he is not the channeler and not a chosen one,
and he has to pick himself up and figure out
what to do next afterward.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Anyway, cool, Well, you mentioned that you're a film buff
as am I, and of course at one point Leopol
becomes obsessed with Sunderland's like old VHS tapes, Right, Is
that your way of getting the film aspect into the book.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Well, I definitely love movies and Hollywood history, and but
my personal you know, connection to movies that I fell
in love with them as a kid in the nineties,
on you know, VHS tapes, I would tape them off
TV commercials and everything, and so I thought it would
be more fun for Leopold to discover this other world
(33:34):
through the medium of old VHS tapes, this obsolete technology.
Right then, you know, there was a physical media way
into the fantasy. And Miss Peregrine too was collection bold photographs.
So this is sort of a twist and an update.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
On that.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Nice sweet Now, when you were recording the on VHS
tape back then, did you ever try to like pause
the recording to get rid of the commercials and then
hit it again. It was always like a goal of
mind to try to avoid the commercials.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I did try that a few times, but I would
just end up missing the show.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
The first couple of seconds.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Yeah, I call it just wrong and miss some I
think I gave up to Yeah, but my.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Friends and I would also make videos with one another
on VHS tapes and camcorders in our backyards and stuff,
really crazy, ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
You know, off the wall, that's so fun.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
What the characters in Leopoldan's Best Friend, and they do
the same thing in their lives. They realized there's only
one season of Maxi's Adventures in Sunderworld, and it seems
like there should be more. So they said about making
their own episodes and mauls. You know, we had to
(35:00):
did these things ourselves. When we were shooting them, I
had no there was no final cut, pro or a
premiere or anything or even nonline hating at all. So
to do a simple conversation where you cut from one
angle of someone speaking to another, you would have to
sit across from the person who was speaking, record from mint, cut,
(35:20):
turn around, put the camera in the other direction, you know,
and you were cutting in the camera. And I got
pretty We got pretty good at that, but you would
mess it up every once in a while.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
And now, what does a typical writing day look like
for you? What's your writing process?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Well, we have a little kid, and so we have
we were behold into like schools, schedules and life obligations
and family stuff. So my wife and I my wife's
also a writer, We get up very early in the
morning and we work for a few hours before our
(36:06):
daughter gets.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Up, and.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Then we have a number of hours during the day
and then after school pickup time, you know, ideally we're
off the clock and it's family time.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Right, excellent. Would you say that you are a pants
or a planner?
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Ah, the eternal question.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I am a little, especially on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I suppose I think, you know one, Pantsing a novel
is a great exercise in courage, and I've never quite
been able to do it. So what I do is
I I plan, and I plot a bit, and I
(36:54):
generate a lot of ideas and notes, probably many more
than it's necessary, in a very inefficient manner, and then
I dive in, knowing perhaps what my first act looks like,
you know a little bit of I know what my
first act looks like, and I know where I want
the story to end up, and the middle is Hayes,
(37:14):
and I find it as I go.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
You know, don't don't tell Bill, but this actually sounds
pretty similar to my process. I don't. I don't plan
quite as meticulously as he does. But on the other hand,
I don't write as fast as he does, either, so
there could be a correlation there.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I feel like my best ideas often come while I'm writing,
so I end up.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Throwing Agreed, absolutely, What are some of the craft or
skill tips that you've learned along the way, maybe that
you you didn't know when you started writing, but I
wish you had because now you understand very important they are.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Well, I feel like I'm still learning. I hope I'm
better at this than I was when I started ten
twelve years ago. Every novel you write kind of feels
like you're first, a little bit like you're starting over.
And one thing that I have learned is that it's
(38:24):
important to read a lot, a variety of different things
all the time. Those are your Those are your your tools.
That keeps your tools sharp.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Kay. I agree with that, So okay, one last question?
What are you working on or what should we expect
to see from you next?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I am working on the sequel to U Sunderworld Sunderworld
Volume two.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Yes, I didn't want to be presumptuous. You were right.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yes, this is the joy and the privileged writing series.
You usually know what you're doing next.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Maybe next year then, and how do you have any
sense of how long this series could go?
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Well? I have three definite and we will see from there.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
That sounds good. I'll just tell you my first series,
Ben Kincaid Thrillers. I started also with a three year
plan and ended up doing nineteen of them, but whatever, Ransome,
thanks so much for being on the podcast. Appreciate it,
my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Thank you both.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Just a few quick parting words. Two other ways to
stay informed on what's happening in the writing world in
between our podcasts. Remember, writer Con has its own newsletter
and magazine, but they're the same thing. The magazine comes
out about every quarter as part of the newsletter, but
we do shorter newsletters to keep up on a date
(40:12):
on things and let you know what's happening with literary
agents and publishers and whatnot. Plus there are articles included
in that and it does not cost a thing. This
is completely free. All you have to do is go
to substack substack dot com and search for writer Con
wr it E r co N and it'll bring it up. Subscribe.
(40:35):
It'll come free to your email newsbox every time there's
a new issue. And even in between those newsletters, you
can join the writer Con Facebook group. I'm usually there
almost every day and a lot of other people do,
and this is the best way to keep up with
what's going on in the writing world on a day
(40:56):
to day basis. All right, okay, til next time, keep writing.
Remember you cannot fail if you refuse to Quid. See
you next time.
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