A conversation with Patrick Carman,
bestselling author and creator of Skeleton Creek, a new multimedia series from
Scholastic
Questions by David Levithan, Executive Editorial Director, Scholastic
January 2009
David Levithan is Patrick Carman’s longtime editor at Scholastic.
David Levithan: Usually, I start off Q&As by asking my authors “Where did this idea
come from?” But here that question has multiple parts. Let’s start with: Where did you
get the idea for Skeleton Creek’s groundbreaking format?
Patrick Carman: I’ve always preferred writing books where there are illustrators, artists,
sculptors, filmmakers, and visionaries involved in the process. All of my past projects
have included outside creative forces in many forms (including editing!). For me,
Skeleton Creek was the answer to a fundamental problem I was having as technology
entered the picture.
In the past, when technology has been included in one of my projects, I’ve never felt like
it was deeply connected to the story. So for example, the last project I worked on
contained a lot of filmed segments for the Web, but they weren’t tied to the story in a
very meaningful way. This kind of Web-based add-on feels hollow for the reader, as if
it’s been bolted on as a bonus rather than essential to the experience. It was frustrating
because I know technology means something different to my kids (11 and 13 years old)
than it does for me. It holds more weight in a way I don’t completely understand.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this problem, often when I was on the road after
having visited two or three schools earlier in the day. On one of my trips I was working
in a journal, trying to think about how to bring these two artistic mediums together—
printed word and online video— and I drew a picture. It was a page from a book that
twisted in the middle. When it came out the other side it was a piece of film stock. The
image completely ignited my imagination.
Was there a story that could be told in which the printed word and online videos could
contribute equally? And better still, from my perspective, could they be made
inseparable?
DL: And where did the idea for the story come from?
PC: I had a strong feeling from the very beginning that this idea was doomed if the
material didn’t fit the format. It takes a specific kind of story to be told successfully in
this way. I scrapped four different drafts in the beginning because it felt too much like the
structure was taking center stage. For this format to work— in the same way that a movie
or a book works— the story and the characters had to be front and center, not the medium
that presented them.
I knew I needed two distinct characters, one that loved to write and one that loved to
shoot video. Ideally, they would almost compete with one another over the power of
storytelling in their chosen field, trying to convince the reader and the watcher that their
medium was best. I love this idea, especially for young readers, because online video has
become so integrated into their lives.
I also liked the idea of creating two characters who loved their craft in part because of
their own personalities. The often competing personalities of filmmakers and writers
created the basis for Ryan and Sarah. Ryan (the writer) is motivated at least in part by his
fear of what lies outside the safety of his journals. Sarah, on the other hand, feels happiest
when she’s investigating the world outside.
A ghost story always felt like the perfect fit for this format. It gave me so much to work
with! Ryan loves to write scary stories, not experience them in real life, so the idea of a
real ghost keeps him isolated from Sarah. And for an outgoing girl with a camera, it
doesn’t get much better than a mystery wrapped in a good scare. A ghost story also gave
me the kind of imagery I needed with Sarah’s short videos, which needed to hold the
readers’ attention and provide payoff for having done the work of reading 20–30 pages of
text.
DL: What was it like for you, as an author, to suddenly be telling stories in both written
and visual form?
PC: Writing a book feels very linear compared to working on a story told in video form.
When I write a book I have a plan, a sort of straight line from start to finish that drives
the effort. We had seventeen people working on different parts of the video segments all
at one time and it was my job to oversee the production, so in that respect I was the
producer/writer. I quickly learned that whether I liked it or not, the script I wrote would
have to be a fluid document. Me in a room writing a book is different than my shooting
script having to survive locations, actors, sets, lighting, music, the director, videographer,
weather, sound effects…well, you get the idea. Bottom line, I had to become much more
flexible as a writer.
DL: From the beginning, we knew this would be a massive behind-the-scenes
undertaking. And while I’d love to say it was just you and me the whole time, with you
manning the camera and me playing every part in the videos, there were actually a lot of
people involved in this process. How did you form the Skeleton Creek team?
PC: I was extremely lucky to have a close friend on the project who had spent 20 years in
Hollywood working on films. Jeffrey Townsend worked on Sleepless in Seattle, The
Fabulous Baker Boys, Night Shift (Martin Scorsese), and Pacific Heights, to name a few.
He’d also won an Emmy for writing on The Tracey Ullman Show, so he really understood
how my script would need to evolve. Having him involved in filming, editing, and
visual/audio effects was huge. From there we worked together to bring in a seasoned
videographer and all the other important parts of the crew.
The video sections of the story were purposely developed as GIRL WITH A CAMERA. I
put those words in caps because ultimately the girl we chose would have to carry a lot on
her shoulders or it wasn’t going to work. Both guys and girls would have to like her and
want to root for her. She had to show a wide range of emotions. And above all, the girl
had to look into the camera as if she was simply talking to her best friend, because in the
context of the book, she’s looking right at the reader. I wanted the reader to feel like
Sarah was their best friend, taking them out of the book to join her in the real world.
I flew to Los Angeles with the videographer where an agent had pre-screened 500 girls
and narrowed it to 100. We filmed every one of them doing a scene from the book,
narrowed to ten, then to three, then went home and decided to screen another ten girls
from Walla Walla (the small town where I live). I didn’t expect to find a talented enough
actress for the part in a small town, but I wanted to at least try. No one, least of all me,
expected to be blown away when Amber Larsen, a local Walla Wallan, read for the part.
But when she left the room we all knew Amber was the one. There was very little
discussion. The way she connected, the way she looked, everything about her said Sarah.
I searched MySpace for a band with the right kind of sound and got them involved, and
worked with Jeffrey to build the rest of the team (makeup, set design, lighting, the
works).
Needless to say, making Skeleton Creek wasn’t cheap. I’ve never blown an advance
faster in my life!
DL: How long, in all, did it take to develop Skeleton Creek?
PC: Start to finish, three years. A year developing the story, another year preparing, and a
final year filming/editing/packaging the online experience.
DL: What’s the biggest challenge in telling a story this way?
PC: If I had to pick one thing it would be dealing with the fear of failing. Nothing came
easy on this project because we were inventing a new way of telling a story. For a writer,
it doesn’t get much scarier than that.
I understood not everyone was going to respond positively to Skeleton Creek, that it
would create some controversy over what constitutes an actual book. My hunch, prepublication, is that Skeleton Creek will be a polarizing project. Not everyone is going to
be comfortable going back and forth between the printed page and online videos.
Knowing this going in was really hard, because I knew it would meet with some
resistance, particularly from my adult peers (thus the fear of failure noted above!).
But here’s what kept me going….
I’ve traveled to over 600 schools in the past five years, and that experience has shown me
firsthand how wired kids have become. Three important takeaways from my travels:
1) Every year kids are drawn into communication and entertainment technology at a
younger and younger age, and the noise is getting louder and louder. Two short years ago
I saw almost no cell phones in the hands of middle school students, now they’re beyond
common in middle schools and grade schools.
2) Books are having a harder time holding the attention of a wired youth culture. iPods,
cell phones, movies, the Internet, video games, and television are distracting even our
best young readers.
3) While there will always be plenty of room for traditional books for young adults,
publishing has to think outside the box in order to bring back many of our young readers.
I developed Skeleton Creek for ten to sixteen year olds who have grown up with
YouTube and MySpace for one reason: I want them to read. I’ve come to acknowledge
the fact that some people aren’t going to get it.
DL: For a New Jersey boy like me, when you first said that the series would involve a
haunted dredge, I will confess I had no idea what you were talking about. But then the
first video came in and IT WAS SO SPOOKY. How did you find the dredge? Is it still
there now?
PC: Finding the dredge was one of the magic moments on this project. It’s a very
uniquely scary location. Back in the 40s and 50s the Northwest was open to gold
dredging, but they’ve long since been banned because of the environmental damage they
do. The gold dredge was like a giant earth eating monster, filled with conveyer belts and
gears. The fact that I was able to locate it was the first bit of magic, the second was the
unbelievable privilege of being able to film inside it. The dredge we used is part of the
Oregon parks system, so it was a small miracle we were able to gain access to shoot for
weeks on end.
Someone was killed on the dredge a long time ago, back when it was still in operation,
and there’s a thriving urban legend about the dredge being haunted. Our crew filmed at
night, from dusk until dawn, and the place definitely felt haunted at two in the morning.
Low-flying bats were a serious problem, but more than that, the dredge at night just felt
incredibly spooky. There weren’t too many on our crew that would go in there at night
alone. We worked in teams or as larger groups.
The dredge is real and they give behind-the-scenes tours. If you want a really good scare,
or if you just want to see the incredible shooting location for yourself, visit
www.friendsofthedredge.com.
DL: You’ve already been getting feedback from the book’s target audience—ten to
fourteen year olds. What have they been saying?
PC: The feedback has been very exciting. We’ve let about 50 young readers go through
the Skeleton Creek experience top to bottom, and they absolutely love it. I think it hinges
on interesting characters, a strong plot, and a good scare, but there’s also a genuine
reaction to the format itself. They get it, love it, and want more of it.
DL: When we first started on this, it was before the iPhone had come out, and I know
there was some concern that Webvideo was confined to desktop computers. Now, of
course, many kids have Webvideo capability in their pockets. How has this impacted the
project?
PC: The delivery method is sort of beside the point with Skeleton Creek, because the
videos will show up on whatever device a reader uses to access the Web. We designed it
that way on purpose, at first for international markets that are ahead of us in this area
(Japan comes to mind) but then because we knew mobile Internet on a phone was quickly
taking over.
It’s very interesting, because my-13-year old daughter is a typical teenager, and she never
does one thing at a time when it comes to communication. She’ll sit with her laptop open,
IM’ing her friends and surfing the Web, while collecting and sending text messages on
her phone, while listening to iTunes in the background, while trying to do what we told
her to do, which was to clean her room. Having Skeleton Creek available on a phone is
important, but kids are consuming media in so many different ways all day long that I
actually think the Web versions will be far more popular for awhile yet.
This takes me to another small but important point. The passwords used to access Sarah’s
videos online are completely by design. They may seem esoteric at first, but with our
early readers, I was very excited to find that they did exactly what I hoped they would do:
watch the video, then go straight to a search engine and put in the password. Every
password leads to something interesting that’s connected to the story. Some of them are
characters from old gothic novels, others are connected to classic scary films—and in all
cases, if they search a little bit, they’ll see a connection between the password and what’s
happening in Skeleton Creek. To me this is very exciting, because it brings the whole
experience full circle: the story sparks curiosity, and being online, there is instant
gratification as they go out and learn something new. The passwords are also designed to
point readers toward some of the most important authors, stories, and filmmakers of the
past.
DL: While kids completely get this project, and most teachers, parents, booksellers, and
librarians do as well, there are some people who still get skittish when there’s a marriage
of books and technology. What do you say to people who are concerned about the
format?
PC: There will always be endless space in bookstores and libraries for traditional books
and I hope to write a few more of them. But as an author who stands in 100 different
school gymnasiums every year, I’m here to tell you: we need to start thinking outside the
box more often, not less often.
Movie studios, video game companies, music labels, social networking sites, cell phone
companies—all of them would much rather our kids spend time consuming their brand of
entertainment than reading books. And the toughest part? Books are by far the most
challenging entertainment sale for our kids. No sounds, no lights, no gaming strategy, no
beat to dance to, no person on the other line to talk with. And yet all the studies show the
same thing: reading is king when it comes to educating kids.
Skeleton Creek is a project that goes all the way out to the edge and back again—it’s not
about bridging the gap between technology and books— its about erasing it.
To answer your question more directly: What do I say people who are concerned about
the format? I say visit a middle school or a high school. Ask the students what they spend
their time doing. Ask them when they last read a book purely for the fun of it (make sure
and ask both boys and girls). Ask them how much time they spend surfing the Web,
texting, playing video games, watching TV and movies, or listening to music. Then ask
yourself: is it so hard to imagine a book that cuts directly into all that noise and brings
students back to the printed page?
DL: The Skeleton Creek story has, of course, taken on a life of its own, outside of the
books and the videos. Can you tell us anything about the www.skeletoncreekisreal.com
site that has popped up?
PC: No comment.
DL: After reading book one, I’m sure the first question on every reader’s mind is going to
be: WHEN CAN I READ BOOK TWO?! Care to comment?
PC: This is a two-book-only experience and it’s going to happen fast. Skeleton Creek will
be out February 10th and the second book, Ghost in the Machine, will be out six months
later. The big reason for this is the cliffhanger ending of the first book, which I defend as
absolutely necessary to what my vision for the story is. I’m highly influenced by other
people doing groundbreaking story formats. Shows like Lost, 24, and even 30 Rock broke
the mold in their respective areas and reinvented storytelling along the way. And I make
no distinction between the writing of a show and the writing of a book—it’s all writing as
far as I’m concerned. Lost and 24 in particular have a cliffhanger element to them that, I
think, is an important part of the story itself. Lost would be nowhere near as interesting if
it wasn’t so darn frustrating sometimes to have to wait. Sometimes the wait is a week,
sometimes it’s many months, but what happens in between is important. Everyone talks
about it, everyone has their own ideas about what will happen next. In that way we all
become part of the developing story. Make no mistake— Skeleton Creek ends on a
cliffhanger— but there will be a lot to keep readers going during the six-month wait for
Ghost in the Machine. The wait will provide a critical moment for readers to ask
themselves and each other: what’s going to happen next?
I said no comment on www.skeletoncreekisreal.com but I’ll at least say one thing: go
there between books. Whether I have anything to do with it is beside the point. It’s where
the story is unfolding, real or imagined.