Me: Hello! Thank you for taking the time to talk with us today. We have a variety of questions: about you, your stories and film, and a few from aspiring-writers. Which one would you prefer to start with? 

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NS: Whatever you want to start with is fine. 

 

Me: A common theme through many of your stories, especially Unwind and Scythe, is the idea of 'people getting what they want with horrifying consequences'. What draws you to that type of story, and to speculative fiction in general? 

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NS: I think some of the biggest pitfalls in the world are the unintended consequences of the choices we make as individuals and as a society. If we were able to look at these things with a greater perspective, we might not have had those unintended consequences to begin with. And some of those unintended consequences can be pretty terrible! So I hope that these are cautionary tales that help us to see problems before they start. 

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Me: On a related note, do you think it's possible for humanity to achieve utopia, or is corruption doomed to occur? 

 

NS: I think there can never be an absolute. There will always be a consequence to everything that we do. Our goal should be to mitigate and minimise what those negative consequences will be. Utopia can't exist.

 

I don’t call Scythe a dystopia. People call it dystopia, but it's not. Because a dystopian story is about the world going wrong. I intentionally set out to tell a story about the consequences of the world going right. But it's not utopian because utopia can't exist. I call it an anti-dystopian story. I basically set out to break the genre.

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Me: It’s like a cycle, right? We keep trying to get better, but we keep making mistakes and it goes over and over again. 

 

NS: I mean, things do get better, but it's two steps forward, one step back.

 

Me: Yeah. To you, is that more hopeful or cynical?

 

NS: I think it's more hopeful. To look at things with eyes that only see the positive creates the problem. But if we can look at our hopes for the future and understand the problems that are going to incur along the way, that will help us solve the problems before they happen. 

 

Me: On a different note: just like how parents say they don't have a favourite child, most writers say they don't have a favourite story. And just like parents, we all know that's usually a lie. What is your favourite story that you think everyone should read at least once? 

 

NS: Well, first of all, I'm going to take exception with your first comment, because as a parent, what I know is that your kids are your favourites at different points in time. And the one who I feel like my favourite last year isn’t necessarily my favourite this year. They're all favourites. It just varies depending on the times of everybody's life.

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Me: So at this point in your life, what is a story you would want to recommend to most people? 

 

NS: Challenger Deep. Challenger Deep is the most personal of all my stories. And so it's the most meaningful.

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Me: That's great! We have four or five questions that are just about Challenger Deep. 

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First, what type of research did you do for the book? The mental illness is portrayed so realistically– did you also conduct interviews, or was this achieved through pure reading and research? 

 

NS: None of it. Every book that I write, every book that I've written, I researched extensively except for Challenger Deep.

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Challenger Deep, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I didn't do any research because it was lived. The story was inspired by my son Brendan's experiences with mental illness, so I didn't need to research. I knew what it was like having to face mental illness. And because of that, I didn't want any other, anybody else's point of view on that. I wanted to share my learned knowledge of mental illness through our family's experience. So that was the only book that did not require any research and that I actively chose not to do any more research than into our own lives. 

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Me: And so the illustrations we saw at the beginning of the book… How did they impact the style of storytelling?

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NS: Yeah. All the illustrations in the story were done by Brendan when he was hospitalised. And the entire fantasy aspect of the story, the journey and the ship, everything, everything that he came across, the monsters – all inspired by his artwork. But the illustrations came first. 

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Me: I really enjoyed how the book was written in vignettes. Was the story written straight through, beginning to end? Or was it written in pieces and pieced together? 

 

NS: This is the only time I've ever written a book this way: as I had an idea, as I had a paragraph, as I had a concept for a vignette, I would write it. All out of order, just however it came to me. And then I would put it in a box.

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For four years, I collected those pages. And then when I felt I had enough, I laid them out on my living room floor and started to put them together like a puzzle.

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Me: You mentioned that you like writing by hand. How do you feel like that impacts your writing? Do you feel the difference between writing by hand and typing? 

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NS: I like the feel of it. It keeps me from staring at a computer all the time, which is very monotonous. It also aids in the rewriting process because I rewrite it as I'm typing it up. So it helps with revision.

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Me: Are you the type to rewrite, not revise? 

 

NS: It's a combination of both. The process of typing it in is rewriting rather than revising. And that's why I do it. I literally have to rewrite every single word. Anytime I try to skip that process, it actually slows it down because you end up having to do twice as much work, or you don't revise it enough. 

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But then there are other times where it's just revision, where it's looking at specific things that need to change as opposed to just reconceiving everything from the first word. 

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Me: What inspired you to write using second person perspective in Challenger Deep? I’m especially interested in the distance between the narrator and the protagonist. 

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NS: I used it as a tool. There was the point at which Caden basically, we call it, “falling off the cliff.” He fell completely into schizophrenia and that's when he lost his sense of self. And I thought, well, if you lose your sense of self, you're no longer a me. You're no longer an I. And so, at the moment he crossed that threshold into the disease, it became second person. And it didn't become first person again until he got to the point where he was starting to come out of it.

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Me: We have a few questions about film. You used to be a screenwriter, yes? We’ve heard that Scythe, Unwind, and Challenger Deep are all being adapted to the screen. 

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NS: In the process, yeah.

 

Me: What is the most challenging part about adapting or helping to adapt these stories into a different medium? Especially Challenger Deep, since the writing style is so unique. 

 

NS: The biggest problem is getting it over the hurdles to get made. The studio system chews through a lot of material. And basically for every 35 projects they develop, they're only going to make one. And so how do you get to be the one that they make? It's very frustrating.

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And most of the time, it has nothing to do with you or your project. It has to do with the personalities involved: whether or not there's a director that they want to work with, or who's interested in it. There are so many different variables involved. 

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Now, I did a draft of Challenger Deep, I did a draft of Game Changer, Dry (that's a story Jared and I wrote). And some of them are using our draft. Others hired other writers. One of the reasons why they hire other writers is because the studio wants to work with a specific writer. And so the producers say, “Okay, we're going to hire this writer to write the script. And then maybe the studio is going to buy it.”

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But then that writer has to write a good script. And that doesn't always happen. 

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Me: And what is the process of that happening? Do you reach out to the studios? Do they reach out to you? 

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NS: I have agents that do that. And I have meetings with the agents. They say, “We're going to go to Paramount, we're going to go to Disney, we're going to go here. And we're going to go to them with this director attached. And we have an actor who's going to do it, but only if he does it at Disney.”

 

And then it goes out. And either someone picks it up or they don't. And then just because they pick it up doesn't mean they're actually going to make it.

 

Me: So if you could adapt one of your stories into a film or TV series, unlimited budget, which one would you choose? 

 

NS: I would choose Challenger Deep if it's done right. It has to be done right. Otherwise it would be Scythe.

 

Me: Is there a director in particular you would want to work with? 

 

NS: Well, the director who's attached to Challenger Deep is <very well known>, who directed <a very well-known project>. 

 

Me: Wow.

 

NS: And the way that they want to do it is they want to do a combination of live-action and animation, so he’s perfect.

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But just because we have an Academy Award-winning director doesn't mean that the studio is going to make it. Matter of fact, it was at Disney and then Disney let it go. And they've had it since 2016. So it's good that they've let it go because now we can take the book somewhere else. Last week, it went out to the rest of the studios. And we're just waiting to see if anybody bites.

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Then it just sits.

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We don't know if someone else is going to pick it up. We have a great package. We have an Academy Award-winning director, we have an Academy Award-winning writer. We have What's-His-Face-Whose-Name-I-Can-Never-Remember, the kid from <insanely famous show>, he's attached to it. And now it's just a matter of: is anybody going to step up and say, “OK, yeah, we like that package. We're going to greenlight this movie.” 

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Me: God, how could they not? 

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NS: Believe me, they will. 

 

Me: Hey, Disney let Nimona go and Nimona is winning, like, 500 awards right now. So it's going to be great. 

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Here’s another question: as someone who's worked as a screenwriter, would you recommend someone learn screenwriting, even if they feel like they like writing prose more? 

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NS: I think the more types of writing that you learn, the better writer you become. The more you can do, the more ways you challenge yourself. 

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I mean, when I was first starting, I was working on a novel; I was working on a script; I was working on a stage play; I was writing articles for newspapers. I wanted to try to do every kind of writing.

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I figured whichever door of opportunity opened first was the one that I'd go through. Just so happens I got my first job writing a script the same month that I sold my first book. So I ended up developing this parallel career doing both.

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Me: How has being a screenwriter affected writing in other mediums, or vice versa? 

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NS: I think they affect each other. It's hard to say specifically how, but I think I'm a better writer because I've done both. 

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Me: I have a question from the students: we've been told that if you major in creative writing in college, it would crush your spirit. What are your thoughts on this sentiment?

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NS: Yes and no. I think that it's not about crushing your spirit as it is teaching you how to take criticism. I mean, if you can't take criticism, you have no business doing it. And you have to learn how to take criticism and how to use it to make your writing better. I don't think it's so much the professors as it is the competitiveness of your peers that tend to tear you down more because everybody is fighting for the same attention and there are a lot of very, very competitive people out there.

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But developing a thick skin is critical because you're going to face so much rejection. You have to be able to believe in yourself and work through that rejection. And when things don't go your way, you have to learn to take a deep breath and then get on with it instead of letting it crush you. 

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Me: So it's worthwhile to feel that. 

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NS: It's worthwhile.

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But to be fair, I did not become a creative writing major because I didn't want to be in that whole thing of tearing everybody down. I majored in psychology and theatre, and I took all of the creative writing courses that the university offered outside of my major to the point that there were no more undergraduate creative writing courses for me to take.

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And so the head of the writing program, the graduate writing program, Oakley Hall, at UC Irvine (where I went). It was considered, at the time, and it still is, one of the best writing programs in the country for graduate/MFA students. And he saw that I was taking all these courses and he said, “Why don't you sit in with my graduate classes?” And so I got to sit in and do the graduate work with these students, with The Guy. Nicest guy in the world.

 

He was not the type of person that would tear you down. And he gave me the best advice I'd ever gotten. And the best advice was: stop writing science fiction.

 

I asked him why. And he said, "Because you're already doing that. If you want to become a writer, write outside your comfort zone. Look at all the other genres. Write in genres that you don't feel comfortable writing in. And only after you have explored all different genres and all different kinds of writing, then go back to science fiction and your science fiction is going to be 10 times better." And he was absolutely right.

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But, yeah, there you go. 

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Me: What are some things you think a student who's an aspiring writer should do in high school or college to prepare themselves for the writing world? 

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NS: Write. Not just think about writing, not just talk about writing. Not complain about writer's block, because writer's block is just the hard part of writing. Everybody goes through it, and it's a normal part of the writing process. 

 

Submit your material. And face rejection. Because you're going to have to learn how to face it anyway. There are tons and tons of contests, especially for high school students, to submit their work. And that's a great opportunity to get your work out there and to get exposure and to get people to see your work. And to face rejection. Because you're not going to win every contest you submit your work to. If you do, that could end up being the worst thing for you. Because then you expect that. Then you think, “Oh, this is what it's going to be.” And then when it turns out not to be like that, it's crushing. 

 

Keep going. Keep going. 

 

Me: A few questions about you:

 

You've said that most of your writing is done while travelling. What are some of the favourite places you've visited? And are there places you think are essential to go at least once? 

 

NS: Everybody should be everywhere at least once. That's a tough one.

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I mean, my favourite places to go are just really, really cool spots. I mean, one of my favourite places to write that I've been to is Italy. I sat in the Forum on one of the fallen columns. I sat there writing in the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel. Just sitting there and spending two hours writing. You're not supposed to stay there. They try to smooth you through. But they also don't care. So I sat in one of the benches and they never made me leave. And I sat there with my notebook and just wrote. I wrote Challenger Deep. Two hours writing Challenger Deep in the Sistine Chapel. 

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Me: Wow.