R.L. Stine has been one of the most beloved children's authors for decades, possessing the talent to both spook and entertain his readers at the same time. After publishing hundreds of Goosebumps and Fear Street novels combined, the author is now reaching a whole new generation with the revival of his Fear Street series.
BuzzFeed had the chance to catch up with Stine and discuss his latest book, Don't Stay Up Late, the details of his own personal writing routine, and Twitter.
On how he started writing horror books:
How did you get into writing horror stories?
RLS: It was an accident, seriously. Actually, nothing that's happened to me was my idea. So I always say when I talk to young people and talk to people in school, you can't really plan your life because things don't just work out the way you think. You always end up somewhere else.
But I never planned to write scary stuff ever. I liked it when I was a kid, but I always wanted to be funny. I wrote like, 100 joke books for kids and I did a humor magazine for Scholastic called Bananas for 10 years. My wife had the biggest kids magazine in the country then, it was called Dynamite and it was a huge, huge thing. That's what I thought I would do with my life, and then the magazine folded and Scholastic fired me and one day — it was a total accident — I was having lunch with this woman Jean Feiwel who works at MacMillan now, she was a friend and editorial director there and she was really angry. She came to lunch and she had a big fight with a writer, a guy who wrote teen horror novels who shall go nameless — Christopher Pike — and she said, "I'm never working with him again. You can write a good horror novel for teenagers — go home, write a book called Blind Date."
So she gave you your first title?
RLS: She was the one who told me to be scary and even gave me the title, and at that point in my career — you know there's this point where you don't say no to anything. You just say, "Yes, fine." And I said, "Sure." I didn't know what she was talking about, and I ran to the bookstore and bought all these Christopher Pike books and Lois Duncan and a bunch of other writers to see what it was. And I wrote Blind Date, and when it came out it was a number one best-seller on Publisher's Weekly. And a year later I did one called Twisted for her, another number one best-seller, and I thought, forget the funny stuff. [Kids] like to be scared.
On brainstorming ideas:
How do you keep coming up with ideas for hundreds of books?
RLS: I kind of work backwards from most authors, and my trick is to think of a title, not an idea. A year ago I was walking my dog in Riverside Park and these words flashed into my head: Little Shop of Hamsters. It's a great title, right? So then I think, Well how do you make a hamster scary? This was the challenge: Do you have maybe a thousand hamsters somewhere, or do you have a giant hamster? And it sort of leads me to the story; it's what happens almost all the time. I did an old Goosebumps story called Say Cheese and Die, and then I had that title and you start thinking, Well what if there's an evil camera, and what if some boys discover the camera? What if it takes pictures of bad things that happen in the future? And you just build the story that way. Also, I'm really lucky, I think, because every time I need an idea I have one.
Some people might call that talent and skill, but if you want to call it lucky…
RLS: I think it's luck.
On the writing process:
How long does it take you to write one of these novels?
RLS: I outline every book first. I do a very complete chapter by chapter outline, and that'll take four to five days, but then I've done all the thinking; I know everything that's going to happen in the book. It makes the writing so much easier. Kids always ask me about writer's block and I say if you plan out the whole thing first, then you can't have writer's block. You've done the hard part. And then I just have fun with the writing.
These new Fear Street novels are longer than they used to be, they're about 100 pages longer, so it takes me three to four weeks to write one. In two weeks I can write a Goosebumps book. It's like factory work: Every day I get up at like 9:30, 10, I sit down and I write 2,000 words, and then I quit. Five to six days a week I write 2,000 words. It's fast. That's lucky, too, I think.
Again, that's definitely not lucky. That's talent.
RLS: Eh, I think that's luck.
On characterization:
Which characters do you like writing more, your protagonists or the monsters and villains?
RLS: I don't know, it's something I've never thought about. I probably should concentrate more on villains, especially in Goosebumps. I realized in watching the Goosebumps movie, which has all the early monsters, that I really probably could've done a better job of creating more interesting monsters. It wasn't something I thought about then.
Right, but when most of the stories are told from the perspective of the protagonist I'm sure it's easy to be more invested in that character.
RLS: Yeah that's true, you're mostly invested in the protagonist. You have to identify with the protagonist. I'm always criticized for not doing much characterization. One of my editors said that I'm great with full-blown, cardboard characters; that's my real talent. But you want the reader to think they're the protagonist, so I don't do much in the way of description so the reader will assume that it's them in this situation.
On his split audience:
We grew up reading your books, but this book is technically written for current teenagers and young adult readers, who are a whole new audience and a new generation of readers for you.
RLS: I have like a split audience now, seriously. The Goosebumps movie is coming out in October and [people] say, "Well who is the Goosebumps movie aimed at?" Well, it's aimed at 30-year-olds because it's nostalgia. I'm nostalgia to you. How would you like to be nostalgia? It's very weird. But [it's the same] with Fear Street as well, because there are people your age who buy it...and you hope to get the 10- to 12-year-olds and 14-year-olds, but also the 25- to 30-year-olds.
When I do a book signing, it's kind of hard for me because I have to prepare a talk [and] I don't know who's going to show up. I did one at Barnes and Noble for the first Fear Street and it was 90% adults and there were just a few kids. Then a day later I did a signing and it was mostly kids and a sprinkling of adults, but I never know who's going to come. But what a nice thing, to get different generations. It's really a nice thing.
On keeping up with the culture:
Something I noticed in the book was that you reference a lot of modern-day pop culture. You talk about Kung Fu Panda 2, Netflix, iPhones, and FaceTime plays a pretty integral role in the end. Is it hard for you to keep up with all that?
RLS: No, it's just a big part of the job. You don't want to sound out of date but the other thing is, you have to be careful not to put too much of that in because the technology changes in two weeks, and two weeks later everyone's listening to music on something else, you know; they're not walking around with their Walkman and then you're stuck with your book and [your characters] all have Walkmans and cassettes. So, that's hard. You have to be careful, and I'm very careful about language. You have to make it sound like teenagers but I don't want to use a lot of current stuff because it won't be current in a year. It's a lot to think about.
On technology and fear:
Do you find it harder to make your books scarier now since the characters have so much technology?
RLS: You know, cell phones have ruined everything. They've ruined every plot, seriously. You used to have this plot where the girl is getting these frightening phone calls and she's trying to figure out who's calling her. You can't do that story anymore [because the name is] right there on the phone. In the first new Fear Street novel, Party Games...they arrive on this island, they're all invited to a birthday party, and the guy who's giving the party collects all the phones and said, "We're not going to have phones this weekend." I had him collect all the phones to get them out of the way so they couldn't just call for help, because now you can just call for help. So you have to find some way around it now.
On age:
Do you find it harder to write for a younger audience the older you get?
RLS: It doesn't get easier; you'd think maybe after writing 300 books or something it'd be a little easier. But it's not age, I don't think. I've always had to keep up with the culture and do all that, spy on kids and see what they wear and go to schools and listen to them. I do a lot of spying to keep up, so I've always had to do that. My problem now is that I've done every story you could possibly do on everything, so trying to find new scares and new plots and not repeat myself, that's the big challenge.
On Twitter:
The Fear Street series is back after a 20-year hiatus.
RL: I thought I'd killed enough teenagers. But you never kill enough.
Can you talk about how it got revived?
RLS: It happened all because of Kat [Brzozowski] mainly and because of Twitter. It's totally a Twitter story; it's amazing. Mainly I like [Twitter] because it's such a good way to keep in touch with my '90s readers. I used to write a lot more books, but I spend a lot of time on Twitter. It's very good for my ego because I hear all day long, "Thank you, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be a librarian" or "If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be a writer" or "Thank you for getting me through a really hard childhood," and that's, you know, good for your ego.
Anyway, Fear Street was gone for 20 years and when I got on Twitter, so many people said, "Why aren't you doing Fear Street? Please bring back Fear Street, please." And we had tried the original publishers and they said, "Oh that's old hat" and so one night on Twitter I decided to be honest and I said, I'm just going to say an honest thing, I'm really sorry but there isn't going to be any more Fear Street because there aren't any publishers who are interested. And 10 minutes later there's a tweet from Kat at St. Martin's and she said, "I love Fear Street, I would love to publish more Fear Street."
On why he won’t stop writing:
All these years, decades, series later, why are you still writing?
RLS: What else would I do all day? I still love it, I enjoy it. This is what I've done since I was 9 years old. I was a weird, weird kid. I would be in my room typing and I don't know why, but I still enjoy it. It's so much fun for me. Someone once asked me, "What's the worst advice you ever got?" and I thought back and I remembered my mother. I'd be in my room typing and she said, "Stop all that typing and go outside and play." That's the worst advice I ever got.
Make sure to check out the author’s new Fear Street novel, Don’t Stay Up Late, in stores now.
