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MAN ON THE SIDE

'Red Rising' author Pierce Brown develops characters based on songs


In Pierce Brown’s sci-fi young adult (YA) novel "Red Rising", the inhabitants of planet Mars and the entire solar system are divided by a color-based class.

At the very top are the so-called Golds, followed by mid-colors like Blues, Yellows and Violets, classified based on their skills and the roles they play in society.

At the bottom end are the Reds, who are basically indentured servants forced to do hard labor.

Darrow, a Red who lives and works deep underground in the planet’s mines, is our hero. How Darrow’s eyes are opened and how he eventually leads a rebellion against the Golds is the subject of the gripping, New York Times bestselling three-book series.

Brown was in the Philippines as one of the special guests of National Book Store’s Readers and Writers Festival. During a brief chat, he talked about his beginnings as a writer, how music helps in his writing, what fans can expect from Iron Gold, the follow-up book in the series, and who he thinks would be the perfect actors to play the characters in the movie adaptation of his books.

 

Thanks Manila! @nbsalert

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Do you enjoy this part of being a writer? 
You mean getting to meet wonderful human beings with great smiles and amazing fashion sense? Yeah I enjoy it!

I think it’s a different aspect of it that I haven’t thought exists. While I was writing my book above my parent’s garage, I thought that I would basically be writing books for my family, and they’d read it, and they’d be like, um, this is cute. And so, it’s fun to see how it evolves because I get to meet different people, and get to see their perspectives.

I guess I asked that because you know how some writers are introverts. They prefer solitude.
Sure, sure. I’m not very good at putting on airs. I’ve had enough solitude in my life. So any integration with human beings is a happy relief. And it also give me the excuse to procrastinate.

 

When did you start writing professionally?
I started writing seriously when I was 18. But I didn’t think it was practical. I mean I wrote a book a year until I was 23, which was when I wrote "Red Rising". And even then I thought it was kind of a pipe dream. I think the real moment came when I finished "Red Rising".

I was able to quit my day job; I was able to get an advance large enough to cover my living costs. That was a striking thing for a first-time writer. I was fortunate enough to get an advance that big. I could move out of my political science professor’s blow-up mattress in his garage, which was where I was living at the time.

Your background is political science and economics. Are there any aspects of what you studied that are helping you with writing?
There are a few. My favorite thing is using science fiction to assess politics of our time. Not necessarily politicians because it’s so easy to point fingers and say, ‘This guy’s a fool.’ We have people that have been doing that forever.

I’m interested in looking at trend lines and seeing how we got where we are, what we did to deserve certain things and what future patterns are going to be followed, because you read history, you learn a lot about the future.

I think you should read books in order to learn about humans. And that’s the point—you learn stories to be entertained, but you also learn. And so it’s fun to use political theory and some anthropology and sociology and economics to help create the world that I’m creating in "Red Rising". 

Also to use it to explore various political thought. Certain characters are libertarians, certain characters are socialists, some are straight-up communists. And getting to show how their various theories can affect this fake world that I created is the ultimate high for me. It’s like playing in a sandcastle.

 

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy

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On your Reddit AMA, you said you experienced crippling self-doubt. How did you get past that?
You hope you do. JK Rowling didn’t get past that until her second book. She said that she felt like an impostor every time she woke up. If she feels like an impostor, it’s okay for everyone else to feel that way.

For me, I still feel self doubt, but it has to be met by, to a degree, just a pissed-off stubornness, to refuse to let other people shape what you want to [do]. It comes down to you having the guts to just sit down and write a thousand hours. To create or whatever your goal is, whatever skyscraper you’re trying to build. Whatever book you’re trying to write. It comes down to a thousand hours of unglamorous toil.

There are some very lucky individuals who don’t have to toil that much. They just stumble into it. An actor can just stumble onto a role. But not every profession is like that, particularly writing.

 

Why you should pre-order Iron Gold, and why I've been silent as a church mouse (working at this desk you see here). Writing is wandering. At least it is for me. A bit like fumbling about lost in a dark cave. You smell the earth, feel the cold, but aren't sure where to go. You reach for walls to find a compass. You feel the granite under your fingers, and you follow the cave's chill skin till you see light. Step by step the world beyond begins to materialize and you emerge from the dark and look back and see the cave's mouth and realize you were never lost to begin with. You were just wandering till you could see where you were going. Iron Gold has been like that for me. There were so many places it could go that at times I felt like I was struggling with which direction to take it. Now, after the greatest bulk of the writing is done, I could not be happier in how the book is going. Hint, it is BIG. I know I've been absent, and much of that is because I wanted to lock myself in before I knew how I wanted to communicate my experience with and my confidence in the book. It's a humdinger, boyos, and I think you're going to like this twisty, raucous dive into Darrow's world through the new fresh perspectives. As always, shit escalates. If you haven't already, you can pre-order Iron Gold now. It helps drive up first week numbers and gives Random House the confidence to PUSH the book. Pre-orders can be HUGE for authors (do this for other authors you love as well, if so inclined). So, loyal howler legion, if you want to help these books catch like a wildfire slingBlade on an Institute hill, order yourself some sexy literary love at the link in my bio

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Writing is, you beat the bushes, you lay the foundation. I wrote six books before I wrote "Red Rising". And I got rejected by over 150 agents. And that was basically because I was copying other people’s voices. I would read a Neil Gaiman book and I’d think, boy I would love to write something like that. So I’d write a Neil Gaiman copy, but not as good. So "Red Rising" was the first time I was like, I’m going to write what I want to write, not what I think the market wants. Just write about things that I liked as a kid.

When you write, do you have any rituals. Like, does the room have to be a certain way? 
It used to be cigarettes, but not anymore. I want to live past 55. Or 40. I think that the things that I need to have are coffee, and clean working environment.

I do not do well with clutter. Which is hilarious because I don’t take notes. I have no notes basically in any of my series. We’re talking about 200 characters…I should take f***ing notes. But yes, a clean working environment. If the room’s not clean, then I feel claustrophobic. 

I used to work in coffee shops, but not anymore. In LA, you hear the most inane conversations of all time.

Give me an example.
“My botox is just wearing off!” “I was gonna date him, but then I realized he only has 50,000 followers. Who does he think he is?” It’s gross! But I moved out there because I tried to do entertainment stuff as well.

 

"Once upon a time when I was a little girl, there was a man who wanted to do bad things to me. I'd just left my princess stage in the dust. I had a ponytail and little Star Wars sneakers that flashed when I ran. I wore boy’s clothes mostly—a little bright blue hoodie and a jeans—because I thought dresses were ridiculous and Tomy Hobart twice tried to put a frog up mine. The man wore a letterman jacket and chewed Skoal, the minty kind that stings my nose. He followed me home from Kimberly’s house where we'd spent the day watching Fantasia and catching gophers. I'd just moved with mom to a small town in Iowa, and I remember her saying something about how we would be safe because Iowa people were nice; and so long as I remembered to call her by her new name, we’d have nothing to worry about. The Evil Men wouldn’t find us. They wouldn’t hurt us. The man walked with me for a block before he asked me if I was good at keeping secrets. He said I was super smart and gave me a cherry jolly rancher and when he saw my shoes; he said he loved Star Wars too and that he even had lightsabers back at his house. He could show them to me and we could watch Luke blow up the Deathstar. He smelled nice and was not balding or wearing a trench coat, and his car, though old, was green and shiny. At that age, I thought bad people had horns or wore masks. But I still told him mom was probably waiting for me and that I didn’t keep secrets from her. He didn't like that. So he grabbed my arm hard. When the police came to scrape him up from the sidewalk, I cried and told them that I was sorry and that mommy said the people in Iowa were nice, but she was a liar. We weren't safe. We never would be safe. One of the officers wiped the blood off of me and let me hug him until I fell asleep. We left Iowa that night." #Icon #sideproject

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Lightning round time. What’s your favorite city?
Ooh. Yeah. Favorite town is Heidelberg, Germany. I lived and studied there for a year. It's amazing. I used to live three houses down from the castle. It was incredible. We’d go over there with a liter of beer. Explore the town, Christmas markets there were heavenly. Everything about that town was amazing.

Favorite snack?
Cookie dough. I know that’s not really a snack. (Laughs). I’d say my favorite snack is beef jerky.

Favorite TV show?
Game of Thrones! Come on.

So where would you be on a typical Saturday night?
Probably meeting friends out for dinner, and then going to like, a music venue. Or at a friend’s house, in their backyard.

You were organizing an intimate dinner party…
As I’ve been known to do!

…and you had to invite 3 living authors. Who would be there?
Neil Gaiman, JK Rowling. And David Mitchell.

 

 

I hate gyms. They smell like fungy grandma toes and there's always someone making oxen-mating grunting sounds while they listen to Beastie Boys (who are great, btw), which wouldn't be a problem if they didn't also stand behind you menacingly like Shrek with diarrhea while you take a much needed sip of water from the fountain. So how do I maintain my fitness, you ask? By integrating it with more interesting leisure activities! Like eating ice cream. With friends! Here you can see me planking vigorously. I recommend lavender honey for this particular position....Wait. Why am I still writing this? Does anyone actually read this far down? If all the worlds a stage, who is the audience? Who decided the order of the alphabet? What happens if batman is bitten by a vampire? Oh, my manuscript is done printing...????

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You’ve said you develop characters sometimes out of emotion, which comes from a song…
Almost always from a song. Or poetry. I’m all about impressions. Tonality. Not in my life. I’m not like a spiritual guru. But what I key in on, is the theme or emotion of a song, that can connect me to the character arc of a character. Or to their soul, kind of. So what I’m really finding is the tenor of what their impression is. You know the song Hallelujah?

Yeah. Leonard Cohen.
Yeah. That song was instrumental in helping me understand Darrow, who is my main character. So understanding the tragedy of the human, the joy in someone, the hopefulness in someone, the fantastical sadness in someone, those are all can be found in a song. And songs are, they can only carry a certain amount of emotions. A song is defined by the emotion of its hook. The chorus. It helps for me to find an anthem for someone. And it’s not even like, I’ll play it while I’m writing and form that perspective, but it’ll help me to kind of brainstorm a story, and understand who they are, if that makes sense. 

I think with Iron Gold, which is the follow-up with the "Red Rising" series, it’s different. It demands more from the reader. It demands more perspective. It has a different pace. But because of that, it’s a better book. It’s more nuanced. It’s bigger. But it is different. I didn’t want to write the same thing ‘cos I wanted to challenge myself. I think that’s more my duty as a writer, not just rehash the same formula that people liked, and it’s a proven commodity. But to continue to explore.

What’s happening with the movie adaptation of your book?
The movie thing is still in development. There’s not much more I can say for a little while now. We’ll probably have an announcement in a couple of months. We’re piecing something really cool together right now. So it would be too soon for me to say anything. Or to name names. Or I’d get in trouble.

Would you be involved in casting? 
To a degree, mostly for the older roles, not for the younger ones. Younger ones, I’d want it to be unknowns. To be honest, Disney or young adult channels teach people how to be bad actors. I feel like Disney teaches people how to be really cute and bubbly. A lot of younger actors are in it for all the wrong reasons. To be famous, particularly with our generation. So what I’d love is for some kid to be pulled off the stage in England or Ireland and to really be organic and natural for them to read the books. Not just some kid who wants to be famous.

And I think that’s why people read the books, there’s an emotional connection. In my head, I’ve cast the older characters, like I want Mickey The Carver to be Gary Oldman, or like, Paul Bettany to be Fitchner, or something like that. Ken Watanabe to be Romulus au Raa. Shoot for the stars. — LA, GMA News


Paul John Caña is a writer and live music geek. Check out his blog manontheotherside.blogspot.com. Email him at pjcana@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter and Instagram @pauljohncana