When I asked author Patrick Carman if he'd like to do an interview, he said sure, but due to being crazy-busy, would a phone interview work? I said yes (of course!) and had a great time chatting with Patrick about his innovative video-book series, the first of which includes
Skeleton Creek and
The Ghost in the Machine; his contribution to the interactive
39 Clues series; and more. You can find him online at
www.patrickcarman.com.
I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I enjoyed talking with Mr. Carman!
Did you invent the idea of a video-book or had you heard of the concept elsewhere?I don't know about inventing.... I'd never heard about it being done before. We started working on it about three years ago and, for my purposes, I came up with the idea of mixing the books and the videos together. So, I don't know if I was the first person or not, but for
Skeleton Creek which we started on three years ago (and came out seven months ago) I think it was the first time that a project that told the story in those two formats had been done. Who knows, if you were to really dig around, maybe there's something else out there, I don't know.
Was your publisher on board with the idea right away, or were they skeptical about the whole video-book idea?My editor is David Levithan at Scholastic, [and] when I came up with the idea I was sure there was no way he was going to want to do it. So I went in assuming it wasn't going to happen. I sent it to him, and he said, "Well, we're working on something else that this would be perfect to go along side of, but I can't tell you what the something else is." But Scholastic took it off the market the day after I showed it to them - it never got shown around besides that. Really surprised me. So it went in a day, and then it was later on, a couple of months later, that I found out--because it was all very secretive at that time--about
The 39 Clues. He said, this is why we wanted
Skeleton Creek, because we wanted something for a little bit older of kids, we wanted to do something else in what we call "21st century literacy" - in that vein, besides
39 Clues. The funny thing is, there was an email that went out to a very small group of people about
39 Clues when it was getting closer, and he didn't ask me if I wanted to do one, but as soon as I understood what it was, 20 seconds after I read it, I sent him an email and said, you have to let me do one of these. [laughs] I wasn't actually chosen to do a
39 Clues book, I sort of begged. I ended up being able to do one.
With the 39 Clues books, was that really challenging coming in part-way through a series and writing just one book, yet trying to keep a consistency? Was that harder to do versus writing a series of your own books?It's funny, I think the number one question I get about my participation in the
39 Clues is, was it hard, or what was it like, coming into the middle of the story? In fact I think on the Today Show I got that question in some form or another five different times. It was hilarious, they don't screen the questions for the kids on Al Roker's Book Club, they just let them ask whatever they want. Well, they all had the exact same question!
The funny thing is, that was the
easiest thing about the whole process. I don't know how many books I've written--like fifteen or something?--and coming in to a story that's already going with already developed characters....and it would've been one thing if it had been poorly done, but really, the characters are so well-developed, and the storyline was so fun and interesting. It's a little bit like if you write series works, which I had the The Land of Elyon books or the Atherton books: when I write a series, the first one is always the most work, because you've got to create a world, and you've got to create characters; you've got to do all this setup. And then once you're done with all that, you're cruising by book two and three and four, you're moving the story along, you don't have to do all that stuff. So in a sense, that was all done for me in this case, and again, if it had been done poorly, maybe it would've been harder, but the world of
The 39 Clues was so intricately developed. Tons of what I would call back-matter, reams of paper I read through to begin with, that sets the stage for everything. I had a great time. To be honest, the hardest part about that book was the fact that I had never been to Russia. And mine,
The Black Circle, takes place in Russia. And I felt a responsibility to really get it right. My biggest responsibility with this series was for me to get the country that they gave me and make it interesting and fun, something kids would really want to explore. Trying to narrow it down to what things they would do and where they would go. Because really,
The 39 Clues is really one big geography and history lesson.
Back to the video-books. When you write out the video-book, and you have the parts that are novel and the parts that are screenplay, is that really hard to switch back and forth between the two and make it a flowing story? Or does that come easily for you?It's getting easier, since I'm doing more of these projects. But in the beginning....you know what I think it is? It's the less you know the better kind of a thing. You're just dumb enough you think you can do it. If I really knew what I was getting myself into....it's like when you're on the other side of something and you look back and go,
wow, that was so hard. It was exciting and different and interesting and I didn't think about the fact that it couldn't be done, I just started doing it, which was probably a good thing. It was, in hindsight, very tough. It took a lot longer than anything else I've ever worked on.
How long did it take?It took over two years, from start-to-finish. To get it all down on paper, get a group of people together who could actually work on it, and go up and do all the filming and do the editing.... To put the entire project to bed, it seemed like it was never going to end.
The process I used was that, when I came up with the idea for
Skeleton Creek--and this is a little different than any other story I've come up with--I didn't come up with the plot first, I came up with the characters first. Normally I come up with a big idea of what a story's going to be. In this case, I felt like it was critically important to have two strong characters that were very different. One had to want to write, the other had to want to go out with a video camera. And just by their very nature, that creates two very different characters. One is more quiet, doesn't necessarily want to go out as much, the other is completely opposite and wants to go out and see everything. So once I had established those characters, then I could go and think about, okay, where would it be and what would the story involve and how would that all come together. I would write a journal part, and as soon as I came to a part where I felt like it was time to watch a video, I basically pretended I was Ryan, the main character, and it was time to watch something, and I was watching what he was watching, and I was screenplaying that out in my head as I went. So I did it all in line like that, and when it was done, I hired a guy named
Jeffrey Townsend. He was a production designer in Hollywood for about 20 years....he worked on
Sleepless in Seattle, he worked on
After Hours with Martin Scorcese, he worked on a bunch of stuff. But the thing about a production designer, that was one of the things I happened to know because I love movies and I've studied them my whole life, is that the production designer is kind of the jack of all trades. If there's one person on the set of a movie that has to know a little bit about everything, it's the production designer. Not only do they set everything up, but they have to know what it's going to look like, so they have to know camera work, they have to know how to talk with the actors, it's just everything. That's what he did for 20 years, so I thought he would be perfect, and he just happened to live in Walla Walla [in Washington], he'd sort of burned out on Hollywood and moved back home, and we'd actually become friends. So he was sort of the key person. And he'd done a lot of writing too, so he took the screenplay and turned it into what's called the shooting script. So my words remained, but a lot of other stuff was added to what I did to create the film staging and all this other stuff that I didn't have to do that he did for me. And then we did casting calls. We went down to LA and hired a casting director, the same person who did all the casting for
Pulp Fiction, and we had about 120 girls come through to audition to play Sarah. The final person that we chose, we were right down to the wire to have this person do it, and she got an offer to be part of the chorus for the Hannah Montana tour. So she backed out. So we went back to some other people, and at one point we said, can we just look around nearby and do a regional casting call? So we did a regional casting call in Washington. And we ended up finding a person who walked in, auditioned, and we said, that's totally her. She's exactly what we want. And she happened to be from the area.
Where did you shoot it?It's a real place. There's a website floating around out there called
Skeleton Creek Is Real. There's thousands of people on that site.
Do you get a lot of people who think it's real?Shockingly large numbers of people who think it's real, and a lot of it's because of that website. But I think also because it's a journal, and because the videos are shot in a way that makes them look like a home video, that it just feels like it's real. And the location, the Skeleton Creek dredge, is not only real a real place but you can go and tour it. And there is an actual--there was one person down through history who was killed on one of these dredges and his name was Joe Bush. So there is a lot of urban legend stuff floating around about the story, and I did that on purpose. I thought, well, might as well make it seem like there are some factual things about it. The fact that there's all this stuff floating around adds to the intrigue, makes it more interesting.
Did you find out about the urban legends and then that gave you the idea for the story, or did you think of the story and then discover the legends while researching?The location came before the characters, but I didn't know it was going to be the location I was going to use. I got the idea for doing a book and a movie at the same time, then came up with the characters, then was like, where can I put this thing? Then I thought back to the place. I had actually been to the dredge before, and I remembered wandering around and heard all the stories about it and the legends of it and what it was used for and I remember taking a lot of pictures and thinking, someday this is going to make a cool setting for a story. And then going back and thinking, okay, this will be perfect. And I went back up there, did a bunch more research, a bunch more photographs.
You're working on another video-book series right now. What can you tell me about that?It's killing me. [laughs] There's another website you can go to, called
Enter PC Studio, and there's a back lot for the new project. So I think it's okay to say the name of it now, we kept it under-wraps for a long time, but I think it's okay now. It's called
Trackers, and it's basically a spy novel meets the
Skeleton Creek format. That's the short version. It's got more characters--five--but it's primarily one main character who tells the whole story. It's going to be interesting, because I think it takes the format to the next level. Kind of like
Skeleton Creek 2.0.
Skeleton Creek is great because you read for a little bit and then watch a video, a very linear experience, very straightforward, it's hard to mess it up. With
Trackers, it's more accumulative, so it's like evidence, piling up into a sort of mystery/thriller where every time you go back to this thing called The Interface, it's got more stuff in it. As opposed to unlocking one video at a time, there's multiple videos and a GPS system you can look at and it'll show you every place you've been.... It's still all contained, and it's still very much you read for awhile and then you come to a place where you can go online and find videos. But it's a little more advanced then
Skeleton Creek.
How many books are going to be in the new series?The original story arc is two books, but as with
Skeleton Creek--it looks like we're going to be doing more of those, too. So, that story is done, but the
Skeleton Creek investigation will go on and have more standalone stories. I don't know with
Trackers....the thing is, we had five teenagers and we had to get them and their parents to basically move to Walla Walla and live--this is like a reality series waiting to happen--in a big cast house this summer for six weeks and we filmed non-stop for six weeks. It's so costly, is the problem, and it takes so much time and effort, plus they're going to get older. So I don't know if we'll do more of those or not, but we're definitely trying to keep going.
And I would like to say this, so I don't forget: I still love writing traditional novels. I definitely don't want to become "that guy" who's always known for doing these cross-platform projects. I'm going to keep doing them, but I'm also doing a lot of [straight] novels, too.
What are you working on right now?Well, we're done with
Trackers, done shooting it, so down the hall from my office there's an editing suite and Jeffrey Townsend's in there right now grinding away. I go in there everyday and look at stuff and make comments. But I'm working on other things right now, yeah. There's another book that's finished that comes out in April called
13 Days to Midnight, which is my first YA novel.
What's that about?It's kind of a dark superhero novel. And definitely not for younger kids, for older kids. Really excited about that. It's a traditional novel, and it's going to be fun.
When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer?Probably not until about ten years ago. I've been writing full-time for around eight years. I was a frustrated creative person for awhile. I think that for some reason I didn't think of writing as an artistic pursuit, and I've always, since I was little, wanted to be an artist. It's what I wanted to do--drawing and sculpting and painting, all that kind of stuff, I loved doing that. The trouble is, I'm not very good at it. [laughs] I wish I was, but I'm not. So for years I ran an ad agency so I could be around other people who were talented and who could do creative things since I couldn't. That was right out of college, when I was 22, I was in Oregon and I started an ad agency. And there ended up being about a dozen people working there. And I was the one who ended up doing all the writing! It was the one thing I could do. I didn't really ever put two and two together to think, well maybe the writing part is the part I should actually focus on. Think of the blank page on a computer as a pallet just like you'd have for a painting or whatever. It's still a canvas. Somewhere along the way, I started figuring that out, and once I did, then wow, it was great. I feel like writing comes very naturally for me. But it took me a long time to let go of the idea that I had to have a paintbrush in my hand, or a piece of clay or whatever, in order to be an artist. Everybody's artistic. It's a matter of figuring out how.
Who are some authors who have inspired and influenced you the most?I went through a real John Steinbeck phase. He was someone who influenced me quite a bit at the beginning. I remember
Grapes of Wrath, and even some of the shorter ones, made a big impact on me. And, for some reason, I actually kind of like the old Russian novels. Maybe it's because you get a sense of accomplishment when you get done with one. In some ways I feel like I'm not sure if some of those books would find an audience in the modern world we live in, because they're a lot of work to get through. But they explore a lot of themes that I like to explore, and they challenge me to think, critically think, about certain aspects of the characters I want to write and whatnot.
And then.... not to obvious, but I really love Tolkien. When I read
The Lord of the Rings, it was the only time that I finished reading something and then turned around and started reading it all over again. And obviously I've read it again since. But I remember that experience so vividly, of going through that amazing story and enjoying it again, and doing a lot of research on him and all the stuff that was going on while [he was writing it]. He was so committed to that story, basically his whole life was this one big story, and I admire that, and I admire how well it works. I think I struggle with some of the same challenges he had and went through.
Thank you so much, Patrick!
---
Find the rest of today's interviews:
Ann Marie Fleming at Chasing Ray
Laurie Faria Stolarz at Bildungsroman
Jacqueline Kelly at HipWriterMama
Dan Santat Fuse #8
Nova Ren Suma at Shelf Elf
When I asked author Patrick Carman if he'd like to do an interview, he said sure, but due to being crazy-busy, would a phone interview work? I said yes (of course!) and had a great time chatting with Patrick about his innovative video-book series, the first of which includes Skeleton Creek and The Ghost in the Machine; his contribution to the interactive 39 Clues series; and more. You can find him online at www.patrickcarman.com.
Did you invent the idea of a video-book or had you heard of the concept elsewhere?
The funny thing is, that was the easiest thing about the whole process. I don't know how many books I've written--like fifteen or something?--and coming in to a story that's already going with already developed characters....and it would've been one thing if it had been poorly done, but really, the characters are so well-developed, and the storyline was so fun and interesting. It's a little bit like if you write series works, which I had the The Land of Elyon books or the Atherton books: when I write a series, the first one is always the most work, because you've got to create a world, and you've got to create characters; you've got to do all this setup. And then once you're done with all that, you're cruising by book two and three and four, you're moving the story along, you don't have to do all that stuff. So in a sense, that was all done for me in this case, and again, if it had been done poorly, maybe it would've been harder, but the world of The 39 Clues was so intricately developed. Tons of what I would call back-matter, reams of paper I read through to begin with, that sets the stage for everything. I had a great time. To be honest, the hardest part about that book was the fact that I had never been to Russia. And mine, The Black Circle, takes place in Russia. And I felt a responsibility to really get it right. My biggest responsibility with this series was for me to get the country that they gave me and make it interesting and fun, something kids would really want to explore. Trying to narrow it down to what things they would do and where they would go. Because really, The 39 Clues is really one big geography and history lesson.
The process I used was that, when I came up with the idea for Skeleton Creek--and this is a little different than any other story I've come up with--I didn't come up with the plot first, I came up with the characters first. Normally I come up with a big idea of what a story's going to be. In this case, I felt like it was critically important to have two strong characters that were very different. One had to want to write, the other had to want to go out with a video camera. And just by their very nature, that creates two very different characters. One is more quiet, doesn't necessarily want to go out as much, the other is completely opposite and wants to go out and see everything. So once I had established those characters, then I could go and think about, okay, where would it be and what would the story involve and how would that all come together. I would write a journal part, and as soon as I came to a part where I felt like it was time to watch a video, I basically pretended I was Ryan, the main character, and it was time to watch something, and I was watching what he was watching, and I was screenplaying that out in my head as I went. So I did it all in line like that, and when it was done, I hired a guy named Jeffrey Townsend. He was a production designer in Hollywood for about 20 years....he worked on Sleepless in Seattle, he worked on After Hours with Martin Scorcese, he worked on a bunch of stuff. But the thing about a production designer, that was one of the things I happened to know because I love movies and I've studied them my whole life, is that the production designer is kind of the jack of all trades. If there's one person on the set of a movie that has to know a little bit about everything, it's the production designer. Not only do they set everything up, but they have to know what it's going to look like, so they have to know camera work, they have to know how to talk with the actors, it's just everything. That's what he did for 20 years, so I thought he would be perfect, and he just happened to live in Walla Walla [in Washington], he'd sort of burned out on Hollywood and moved back home, and we'd actually become friends. So he was sort of the key person. And he'd done a lot of writing too, so he took the screenplay and turned it into what's called the shooting script. So my words remained, but a lot of other stuff was added to what I did to create the film staging and all this other stuff that I didn't have to do that he did for me. And then we did casting calls. We went down to LA and hired a casting director, the same person who did all the casting for Pulp Fiction, and we had about 120 girls come through to audition to play Sarah. The final person that we chose, we were right down to the wire to have this person do it, and she got an offer to be part of the chorus for the Hannah Montana tour. So she backed out. So we went back to some other people, and at one point we said, can we just look around nearby and do a regional casting call? So we did a regional casting call in Washington. And we ended up finding a person who walked in, auditioned, and we said, that's totally her. She's exactly what we want. And she happened to be from the area.
What inspired The Miles Between?
What calls you to that? Is it intentional or does it just seem to manifest itself in your writing?
am finishing up Charles and Emma by Deborah Heligman and then it is on to Lips Touch by Laini Taylor.
This month, readergirlz are discussing Sweetgrass Basket by Marlene Carvell!
(i want to live here)
Right now, I am inspired in my life in ways I never have been before.
