Ransom Riggs answers tumblr questions 1

Questions about writing

settledown1d: Do you listen to music while you write a book? If so, what type?
Ransom Riggs: I listen to music while I plot books, but not while I’m writing scenes. It’s usually orchestral, never has lyrics, and I like movie soundtracks and Philip Glass. I’ve probably listened to the soundtrack for THE THIN RED LINE 7,000 times while writing these books.

affections-and-wishes-unchanged: I absolutely love the way your work blends two different medias to create these fantastic worlds. However, if you could only choose either words or photos to convey a story, which would you pick?

Ransom Riggs: Oh, definitely words. Working with photos was a fun experiment, and one I think turned out pretty well, but it actually makes the writing of the books much more difficult than if I’d had no photos at all. It was a real challenge to make the photos feel like they were a seamless part of the world that the text was conjuring – especially because I had to go out and find the photos (or let them find me), and you never quite find what you’re expecting to find.

 allthegoodonesaretakencom: Why did you call the peculiar children 'peculiar' instead of superpowers or something? Any inspiration behind that or did it just sound cooler? 
Ransom Riggs: Well, I don’t think of them as having superpowers. Some of the kids’ peculiarities aren’t “abilities” at all, per se, and are often make life difficult. Olive’s always nearly flying off uncontrollably into the clouds, for instance, and Hugh has to wear a bee-net over his head just to have dinner with his friends. So there’s a spectrum of ability and disability among the peculiars, but what links them all is that they’re marginalized by society as a result of them. 

wayshit: Do you ever get writers' block? I get it all the time and go weeks without any inspiration or motivation to write. Any tips on how to combat this?
Ransom Riggs: My answer to writers’ block is always to read. read read read read read read read READ. You’ll get inspired in no time flat. Keep a notebook handy in case you get ideas while you’re reading. 

jennersd Do you have any special writing routines? A special chair? A certain drink? Music? The low buzz of a leaf blower in the distance? Only in the am or pm?

v0idal would you say there is a limit to how unconventional a storyline can go before it becomes //too// ridiculous? (your writing is my favourite + keep doing ur thing)

Not really, It all depends on your style and if you can pull it off. If you’ve ever read George Sunders, you’ll see that the story can get SUPER crazy but still be brilliant and have a lot of important things to say about modern life.

erinink: Was there one specific moment where you thought to yourself "Yep, I want to be a writer"? If so, what was it? I'm particularly curious...
Ransom Riggs: I think I was five! I’ve wanted to be a writer (and have been writing) since forever. It wasn’t always specifically *novels* that I wanted to write – I went to USC film school and studied to be a writer/director – but telling stories with words (and sometimes with pictures) has been my ambition since I was itty-bitty. 

monophobist: Was there something you would want to change in any of books, or have written different after you (re)read it again?
Ransom Riggs: I’d take that one f-bomb out of the first book! I didn’t quite realize I was writing a YA book when I was working on Miss Peregrine (though it seems extremely obvious now) and it seems inconsistent with Jacob’s character. Also, there are some small differences in the movie that are so smart and perfect that I often think “I wish *I’d* thought of that …” 

kenyoncollege: What advice did you receive from your Kenyon professors that influenced your writing?

Ransom Riggs: Hi there, alma mater! Though I was an English major at Kenyon, what I learned there was how to draw & synthesize knowledge from other disciplines and traditions – philosophy, history, politics, religion, in addition and in complement to literature. I’m not sure it was any one piece of advice as much as the whole approach of professors like our dear departed Donald Rogan that influenced me. Initially, when I’d first published Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, I worried that it was too unfocused, genre-wise, because it had mystery elements and fantasy elements and contemporary realistic fiction elements and horror and romance and time travel – but somehow it all gelled, and I think that octopus-like tendency I have to grab a bunch of ideas from very different places and stick them together came from my time at Kenyon.

emiliehan Why did you start writing? And have you written other novels before your debut book? :)

Ransom Riggs: I’ve been writing forever because I love to tell stories. I wrote a book about Sherlock Holmes and I published a coffee table book of found photos. But those aren’t novels! Miss Peregrine was my first. 

decreasing-bmi my parents think writing isn't a serious career option.. how can I convince them otherwise?

Ransom Riggs: The great thing about writing is that you can be a writer AND something else – you don’t have to choose. And if and when your writing starts to earn money, you can transition to just doing that. Sometimes you have to work the day job to finance the dream!

passionatelyshrugs I imagine you belong to the Books Belong To Their Readers school of thought but how symbollic do you personally think your novels are? To what extent are you trying to tackle themes in the way so called "non-genre" novels do so? Does this not concern you at all or are you preoccupied with it? (I read miss peregrines in a few days when it came out by the way and just found it incredible.)

Ransom Riggs: Yeah, I think it’s really hard for a writer, of genre fiction or otherwise, to unpack all their own themes and symbols. That stuff works its way into your writing practically subconsciously, and sometimes you don’t even realize it’s there until a reader points it out. I think when a writer starts trying consciously to invest their work with heavy themes, there’s a danger of sermonizing. A story should be, above all else, a story – not a lecture.

tragedyistheirs Did you have Jacob's last line of the 2nd book planned out ahead of time or was it spontaneously written? It's fantastic. And peculiar! (See what I did there?)

Ransom Riggs: Thank you! dialogue and scene-work is always spontaneous and comes to me as I’m writing. In fact, I often find myself silently acting out the roles of the various characters in the scene – gesturing and making facial expressions and such – which is why I can’t write in coffee shops. I’d be arrested.