My arms were outstretched. My belt buckle hung down, undone.
The guard took out his metal detector wand. As he moved it from my head down to my feet, he said, “Can I ask you a question?”
I have to admit—I was a little nervous. And not just because I thought my pants were going to fall down. “Sure,” I said.
“Where do you get your ideas?”
Huh?
If he knew who I was, why was he searching me?
“Why don’t you write a story about a magic suitcase?” he continued.
A magic suitcase.
“You know what?” I said to him. “That’s not a bad idea!”
I’ve always been interested in stories. I’ve spent most of my life dreaming up ideas for stories and books. Some of my earliest memories are about stories and fairy tales.
One of my earliest memories is of my mother reading Pinocchio to me. I was really young—three or four—and she would read a chapter to me every day before my nap. She read the original version—not Disney’s Pinocchio. And I remember two scenes from the original book.
In one, Pinocchio gets tired of the cricket’s constant lectures. So he takes a big wooden mallet—and smashes the cricket against the wall.
Later, Pinocchio falls asleep with his feet on the wood-burning stove—and burns both his feet off! I was a tiny kid, but I still remember these two scary scenes.
I always liked the idea of a wooden puppet coming to life. In the Goosebumps series, I wrote many books about Slappy, a ventriloquist dummy that comes to life. I think I partly got the idea for the Slappy books from reading Pinocchio when I was little.
I could never get enough stories. In elementary school, I read all of the books of fairy tales, Greek myths, Norse legends, and folktales in the library!
The characters in those myths and legends were like superheroes to me. They all had special powers. Many of them could fly. I read entire shelves of these books—then asked the librarian for more.
When she suggested that I read some biographies of real people, I said no thanks. I never liked reading about real people or real events. I only like reading made-up stories. To me, the real world just isn’t as interesting or exciting.
Halloween was my favorite holiday when I was a kid. But I never had the costume I wanted. I always wanted to be a ghost or a mummy—something really scary. But my mom bought a duck suit for me. And every year I’d go out trick-or-treating as a duck.
Other kids thought it was very funny, but I didn’t think it was funny at all. I wanted to be scary—not a stupid duck!
When I wrote The Haunted Mask for Goosebumps, I remembered my duck costume and how embarrassing I thought I was. And so I gave Carly Beth, the girl in the book, a duck costume, too.
One of the very first scary books I ever wrote was called The Baby-sitter. I got the idea from when my brother, Bill, and I used to baby-sit for our two little cousins. We were paid two dollars an hour, which we thought was really good money.
But we earned it!
The little boys were wild animals! They were sweet and quiet when their parents were around. But as soon as the parents left, the two boys became monsters. They would wreck the house. Then they would jump on my brother and me and wreck us! They loved to wrestle and fight. They refused to go to bed. They would stay up till midnight, beating up my brother and me. Then Bill and I would struggle to get the house back in shape.
When they returned home, my aunt and uncle would always ask, “How were the boys?” And we would always answer, “Fine. They were great. No problem!” because we didn’t want to lose our high-paying baby-sitting job.
Because of those cousins, I’ve always thought that baby-sitting was a very scary job. I remembered my scary times as a baby-sitter, and I used some of those scares in the four Baby-sitter novels that I wrote.
Where do I get my ideas? As you can see, a lot of them started long ago when I was my readers’ age.
Sometimes they come from the things I did and from the things I liked.
Sometimes they come from the things I see and do now.
And sometimes the story I’m writing gives me an idea for the story I’m going to write next.
Let me tell you about Max and Bernie, and you’ll see that I mean.
When I was a kid, one of my favorite TV shows was called Topper. It was about a stuffy guy named Cosmo Topper and the two ghosts who lived with him. I loved that show, especially when the ghosts tried to embarrass Topper, which was all the time. It was hilarious. Sometimes, I laughed so hard, my brother, Bill, thought I was crying.
While I was working on a scary ghost story for Goosebumps, I got the idea that it might be fun to write a series just about ghosts that was mostly funny for a change, like Topper.
In 2004, the first book in that new ghost series came out. It was called Mostly Ghostly. It stars a boy named Max Doyle and the two ghosts who move into his bedroom closet. Max is the only one who can see and hear them. The ghosts try to help Max solve his problems, but somehow they always make things worse.
I wrote eight Mostly Ghostly books, and three of the books were made into TV movies. Maybe you’ve seen them on the Disney Channel!
Writing Mostly Ghostly was fun, and it put me in the Jovial Bob mood. That’s when I got the idea to write something that was totally funny, not scary at all. I remembered another TV show I loved when I was a kid. It was called The Phil Silvers Show. It was about an army sergeant named Sgt. Bilko who was always scheming about ways to get everyone to do his work for him while he tried every way possible to get rich … without working.
I thought about Bilko when I was creating my new funny series, Rotten School. It’s about Bernie Bridges, a kid who is always trying to trick his friends. I loved coming up with the names of the characters for that series. There was Gassy, Bernie’s dog, and April-May June, the girl Bernie had a crush on, and Jennifer Ecch, the girl who had a crush on Bernie. Some of Bernie’s pals were Nosebleed, Beast, and Billy the Brain.
And Rotten School had something that none of my other book series ever had before—its very own theme song. It was written by my son, Matt! You can hear it on YouTube.
I’m a huge Disney World fan. I love theme parks, and I always wondered what it would be like if there was a horror theme park. One of my favorite Goosebumps books is One Day at HorrorLand. It’s about a family trapped in a horror theme park.
When I was writing that book, I drew maps of the park so I could picture where each attraction would be. My maps didn’t make it into the book, though—after all these years, I still can’t draw!
I created all kinds of hilarious and scary rides, like the Doom Slide (pick the wrong slide and you’ll slide forever) and the Coffin Cruise. I loved the bungee jumping in HorrorLand—jumping without a cord—and Werewolf Village.
In fact, I loved that book so much I wanted to do a whole series of books that took place in HorrorLand.
And that’s just what happened. Between 2008 and 2011, I wrote nineteen books that all took place in HorrorLand, and each had a continuing story at the end.
Today, I’m so busy, it’s scary.
I’m writing new Fear Street books and, of course, more Goosebumps!
I’m always working on new ways to entertain my readers and to give them what they ask for. That’s why the next series of Goosebumps books features the most-wanted Goosebumps villains, like Slappy, those horrible lawn gnomes, and Frankenstein’s dog—in the most-wanted stories.
That series is called—what else?—Goosebumps Most Wanted.
I’ve been so lucky that readers like the books I write. And lucky that many of them were turned into TV shows.
R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: The Series, a TV show inspired by a book of my short stories, has been on TV for four seasons and won two Emmy Awards for “Outstanding Children’s Series.”
It can’t get better than this, I thought, when the show won the Emmys.
Then I got a call from Hollywood …
There’s going to be a Goosebumps movie.
I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news from Hollywood.
It is very exciting to have a Goosebumps movie on the big screen.
Exciting and strange—because it turns out I’m a character in the movie.
In the movie, I’ve stopped writing. I stay home most of the time and no one knows who I am—until a couple of kids figure it out.
The big question was, who was going to play me?
I heard that the movie producers were talking to Jack Black about taking on the role.
Since I like to talk to my fans on Twitter, I asked them: “Should Jack Black play me in the movie? What do you think?”
Some people wrote back and said, “He’ll be terrific. He’s hilarious. Your movie will be great.”
Some people wrote back and said, “He’s terrible. Your movie is ruined. You’re doomed.”
Then a few people wrote and said, “Why don’t you play yourself in the movie? Who could play you better than you?”
I thought about that—for about two seconds. It would be way too scary for me to play me. Plus, the last time I did that—it worked out much better for the seal. He got all the laughs.
So I was very happy to hear that Jack Black got the role.
I met him for lunch in New York. He asked me a lot of questions about writing and about how I felt about the books becoming a movie.
Then he talked about how he was going to play me.
“I’m going to play you as you—only a lot more sinister,” he said.
That sounded right to me. In person, I’m not very sinister. An Ohio newspaper once wrote: “In person, R.L. Stine is about as scary as an optometrist.” In the movie, Jack has short hair like mine and glasses and he dresses in black, just like I do, but believe me—he’s a lot more sinister.
When I was a kid, I loved going to the theater to see the movie monsters up on the big screen.
I got to go to Atlanta, Georgia, to visit the Goosebumps movie set. They were shooting a scene on a high school football field, and all my monsters were there. They were all going to be in the movie.
I could never have imagined this moment. I could never have imagined that one day I’d be watching monsters that I had dreamed up—my monsters—up on that big screen.
Telling my life story has made me look back with pride and amazement. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, and I’m totally amazed that any of it happened.
I’m so grateful to my readers. I’m so thrilled that you enjoy my scary stories so much.
I don’t plan to stop writing these books. As long as you keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them!
I still have so many stories I want to tell.
But for now, I have only two things left to say:
Thank you all.
And, have a SCARY day!
1. HOW MANY BOOKS HAVE YOU WRITTEN IN YOUR LIFE?
About three hundred and thirty. That includes scary ones, joke books, funny books, adventure books, choose-your-own-ending books, and so on. I read an article recently about a writer in South America who has written over a thousand books! Sometimes he writes three books a day! My hero!
2. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE BOOKS THAT YOU’VE WRITTEN?
My favorite Fear Streets are Silent Night and Silent Night II. That’s because they have my favorite character in them—Reva Dalby. I loved writing Reva because she was so rich and mean and nasty to everyone. She was really fun to write! I have two other favorites—Switched and The Face. I liked them because their stories were very different from other Fear Streets.
The newer Fear Street book, Party Games, takes place on Fear Island. I love that the characters are trapped on an island while someone is trying to murder them.
My favorite Goosebumps books are Night of the Living Dummy, The Cuckoo Clock of Doom, Stay Out of the Basement, and The Haunted Mask. And I love the villains in the Goosebumps Most Wanted books. They are some of the creepiest Goosebumps characters I’ve ever written.
3. WHAT IS YOUR MOST POPULAR BOOK?
Welcome to Dead House is the first Goosebumps book I wrote, and it is still very popular. Say Cheese and Die! is another one. And any book that features Slappy!
4. WHAT INSPIRED THE MONSTER BLOOD BOOKS?
My son had a plastic container of green slime. He stuck it to the wall and couldn’t get it off. That gave me the idea for the first Monster Blood book.
5. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR?
I have three favorites, two of them British: P.G. Wodehouse, who wrote the hilarious Jeeves and Wooster novels, and Agatha Christie, who wrote seventy-nine really clever, tricky mysteries. My favorite American writer is Ray Bradbury. I loved what he wrote. When I was a kid, his writing made me want to read books.
6. WHY DO YOU START A BOOK WITH THE “GOOD PART” AT THE BEGINNING?
I like to get right into the action. And I like for the reader to know exactly what the book is about—in the very first chapter.
7. WHY DO YOU WRITE BOOKS THAT DON’T END?
I like a surprise at the end of every book, some kind of shock, something to surprise you when you think the book is over.
8. WHAT IS THE SHORTEST SHORT STORY YOU’VE EVER WRITTEN?
I love connecting with my fans on Twitter. One of the shortest stories I’ve ever written was for them. I wrote it in fourteen tweets. It’s called “THE SANDWICH.” Here it is:
People call me a loser, but that’s going to change. I was in a little diner downtown and I ordered an egg salad sandwich …
… I was about to bite down on it when I noticed something moving in the egg salad. Was I imagining it? No …
… I saw a hairy, three-fingered claw push a clump of egg out of the way. I saw two round black eyes. A fur-covered face …
… The creature poked out of the sandwich, sending egg salad tumbling onto the plate. It was the size of a fat beetle …
… But it wasn’t an insect. It had a furry head and eyes that peered into mine. Before I could react, a second creature poked out …
… And then a third. My sandwich was infested. My stomach lurched. “Is everything okay?” the waitress asked …
… “Yes. Fine,” I said. “Could you wrap this sandwich to go?” Finding hairy things in your sandwich is gross …
… But I knew this sandwich would make me a winner. The sandwich would turn my life around …
… Discovering a new life form had to make me rich. I carried the sandwich home carefully and set it on a table …
… I didn’t hear my son Willy come home. When I finally saw him, he had egg salad on his face …
… Yes, he ate the sandwich. If only I could have stopped him. Now the creatures are biting holes in his stomach …
… They are biting holes in Willy from the inside, poking their furry heads out of his stomach, chewing his flesh …
… Okay. A minor setback. But I’m not giving up. Willy is screaming in agony. The poor guy is terrified …
… I’m so excited. Where is my camera? Willy is going to make me rich.
9. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN AT THE TERROR TOWER?
Yes. About fifteen years ago, my family and I visited the Tower of London in England. We toured the torture chamber and the tower chamber where prisoners were shut away. My visit there gave me the idea for A Night in Terror Tower. I wrote the book a few weeks after we got back from London.
10. DID YOU EVER HAVE AN ENCOUNTER WITH WORMS?
When I was a kid, I used to cut worms in half and watch the two halves slither off in different directions. I guess the worms are paying me back—because they keep showing up in my books!
11. FAVORITE ACTORS? FAVORITE ACTRESSES?
Jack Black, Jim Carrey, Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Liam Neeson, Andie MacDowell, Denzel Washington, Reese Witherspoon
12. HOW DO YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT KIDS? WHAT’S YOUR SECRET?
I work very hard at keeping up with kids—what they wear, how they talk, what they’re into. I
listen carefully to the kids I meet during school visits, and I read a lot of the letters I get every week from my fans. I read a lot of kids’ magazines and teen magazines. I think it’s very important that the kids in my books be REAL!
13. YOU’VE WRITTEN ALL KINDS OF BOOKS FOR KIDS AND ADULTS. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE TO WRITE THAT YOU HAVEN’T?
I always wanted to write a picture book—and I finally did! It’s called The Little Shop of Monsters, and it’s about a special pet store where you can buy a monster that’s just right for you. It was so much fun to work with the amazing Marc Brown, the illustrator. It was incredible to see Marc paint the monsters and make them come alive.
14. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO WRITE A BOOK?
About six weeks for a Fear Street. About three weeks for a Goosebumps. I also spend at least a week outlining each book first.
15. HAVE YOU EVER GOTTEN A STORY IDEA FROM A DREAM?
Never! And what a shame. I would love to wake up one morning with an idea in my head. But my dreams are very boring. And almost never scary.
16. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR STAY OUT OF THE BASEMENT?
It all started with a crazy picture that flashed into my head. I suddenly pictured a father taking off his baseball cap, and leaves were growing on his head instead of hair. Then I started asking myself questions: How did the leaves get there? Who is the father? Is he turning into a plant? Is he ALREADY a plant … ?
17. WHO IS ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE GOOSEBUMPS MOST WANTED CHARACTERS?
I love Murder the Clown. A lot of people are afraid of clowns, and this is one clown people should be afraid of. He’s a scary guy, and he has an axe buried in his head. Is it real or not? That’s hard to say. That’s the scary thing about Murder—you never know when he’s clowning around and when he isn’t.
18. WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME WHEN YOU’RE NOT WRITING?
With so many books to write, I don’t have as much spare time as I’d like, but when I’m not writing, I like to take my dog, Minnie, for long walks in the park. I love hanging out with my grandson, Dylan, and I love watching football. In fact, if there’s a game on TV, all writing stops. I won’t even write a grocery list if the GIANTS are playing!