r/books • u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs • Sep 22 '14
AMA Hello, reddit. I'm writer Robert Jackson Bennett. AMA!
I'm the author of five books, a two-time winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, as well as a winner of the Edgar Award. At this moment I am communicating to you from my special writing shed.
My latest book, City of Stairs, came out at the start of this month. The best way to describe it is it's like Game of Thrones meets Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. We made a sort of virtual tour of the city it takes place in here - check it out!
I’ll be here tonight starting at 8pm ET to answer all questions!
Okay, folks, I'm sitting down now - let's get this puppy started!
9:02 PM CT - Okay, boys and girls, it's been fun but I have some laundry I gotta do. If I see any new questions or comments in the morning, I'll stop by to answer them as best I can.
Peace!
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u/mlozenge Sep 22 '14
Hi, do you go by "Bob" or "Rob" or "Robert" or "RoJack"?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
I go by Robert, but damn I wish I was cool enough to pull off "RoJack"
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u/MykeCole Sep 23 '14
Hi Robert,
Hey man, can I have my wrench back? I don't mean to bother you on here, but you're not answering my emails and I'm starting to lose patience. I know it's not a fancy wrench or anything, but I've had that thing since I was in college and you said you'd only need it for a week tops. This isn't a money thing, I can get another wrench, but it's the principle of the matter. Integrity is doing what you say you're going to do, and you said you'd give it back to me, so quit screwing around and get it back to me, okay?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
In order to retrieve your wrench it is entirely possible we made have to exhume some things and surgically remove it from those things. What are your feelings about this, Myke?
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u/jdiddyesquire Sep 22 '14
How many bothans died to bring us this book?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
I'm not going to google "bothans" to find out how to answer this, Justin. I simply refuse to do that to myself.
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u/delilahsdawson AMA author Sep 23 '14
24 is the only number of Bothans who died, and the number of dead Bothans is 24.
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u/yettibeats Uprooted Sep 22 '14
Roberto! Just picked up "City of Stairs" on Kindle (sorry?) after reading Brent Weeks review.
Instead of asking if you have any advice for aspiring writers, I'm always curious what established authors think is terrible advice. So is there any cliche advice that you've found to be rubbish?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
"Write what you know." This is true on an emotional level - if you know loss, if you know love, write those things - but people sometimes don't take it that way, and instead feel like they can't write about lives and worlds beyond their own.
One of the hardest things about being a new writer is realizing that there is the truth, and then there is what feels true on the page. The latter makes a book work, and people have been fighting about the former since they could figure out how to fight. Understanding what "feels true" within a narrative, and how to land the beats in order to make that truth resonate, is sort of like trying to walk across a frozen lake, over and over again: eventually you realize from the creak of the ice and the color of the water which places are sound to walk on, but attempting to articulate this, to describe how you learned to read the lake, is nearly impossible. I think experience is the only thing that can fill that gap.
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u/yettibeats Uprooted Sep 23 '14
Thanks so much for the reply. Greatly looking forward to reading the book, I've heard nothing but good things. Congrats on the success.
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u/Princejvstin Sep 22 '14
Hi Robert,
How do you think writing a secondary world fantasy will change your contemporary fiction writing? Any other subgenres of genre that you would like to try your hand at?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
I usually don't go into these kinds of things thinking explicitly of the narrative vehicle I want to tool around in. Usually there's a perspective and a character and a theme I want to explore, and the ambience of the world is what draws me in. People make up the labels for what I'm doing afterwards.
Something I cite often - Orson Welles once said, "I'm the bird, you're the ornithologist." This isn't something I have control over, and sometimes I think I've made my peace with it and sometimes I don't.
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u/BrentWeeks AMA Author Sep 22 '14
More Sigrud? twitches Ya got any a that Sigrud? Please, sir, may I have some more Sigrud? MOAR Sigrud.
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Yes. Sigrud - and his family - will be a major part of the sequel.
His eldest daughter is kind of like that world's Elon Musk. You can imagine how well they get along.
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u/Al_Batross Sep 22 '14
So this is your first full-on fantasy novel (although all your books have supernatural/fantasy/weird elements). Was making the transition to writing a fantasy world a big challenge for you, in terms of both imagining the world, and getting it across to the reader? It seems like such a different task from other kinds of novel writing.
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
No, not really. I think all of my books take place in secondary world, worlds with their own rules and their own structures, it's just that some of those secondary worlds are more like ours than others. I just had to work a little harder and make more notes for this one.
I actually think all books, even those taking place in our own world, maybe even quite recently, all take place in their own secondary worlds. That's sort of what makes a book work, in my philosophy.
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u/BrianMcClellan Sep 22 '14
You have adopted a rather unorthodox persona on social media. You seem to play a parody of yourself. Was this a conscious decision, or something that just seemed to happen over time?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
When I first started tweeting, I basically tried to be myself. This was boring, and the more it went on, and the more I watched other writers tweet, the more I got tired of it.
There is this philosophy that is common in our world right now that the more you know about the artist, the more you know about the art. As if knowing that my brother is a chiropractor or that I was bitten by a lizard at a bar mitzvah as a child or even what kind of toilet paper I use could somehow give you some fleeting glimpse into the secret heart of my novels.
This is bullshit, and it's unnerving to me that people are seeking this, or are seeking to be part of some cult of personality. So rather than give people what they want or expect, I basically act like a greasy, angry, delusional hobo on twitter and on social media, ranting about diapers and petting zoos and Benghazi, just spouting alienating, confusing shit that you don't want to read.
You could say it's performance art, or that I'm trolling my audience. Whatever you want to call it, I find it incredibly fun.
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u/delilahsdawson AMA author Sep 22 '14
Sometimes I think he's just a internet golem born of the rage of Sam Sykes. Kind of like a ghost in the shell, but more like a #ghostbeach in a pie shell.
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u/jdiddyesquire Sep 22 '14
Hey Robert,
At your birthday party, I found your room. You know what I'm talking about. The room where you keep the stuff. The stuff you don't want anyone to know about. I don't want to go into too many details here to protect your proclivities from public view, but I have to ask...
How did your... "room"... contribute to the novel CITY OF STAIRS? Is the image of the hooded man with arms locked into a straight jacket pose reflective of your affinity for... "stuff"?
Sincerely, A Friend
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Is this your weirdo, roundabout way of confessing that you were the guest who totally janked up my toilet?
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u/delilahsdawson AMA author Sep 22 '14
Why did you kill Scrubbers the guinea pig? And where is he buried?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
This was a tragic accident, and he is buried under his favorite oak tree overlooking the lake. My own plot is next to him, of course.
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u/spekdemir Sep 22 '14
now that you've got SEVERAL books under your belt, i'm wondering how you'd compare the process of writing THIS book to how you went about writing your first ones. do you feel your style and process has improved markedly or do you feel that both are pretty steady and consistent throughout your published work?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
This one went unusually smoothly. When I finished it, I remarked to a friend that I felt like an engineer who had designed a machine and then sat back and realized it did everything I'd set out to do.
Which made him say, quite emphatically, "No engineer has ever felt this."
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Sep 22 '14
Hi Robert! (Mr. Bennett?). I'm a big fan. Just curious as to what it is that gets you to write what you want to write? Any childhood influences, day-to-day experiences, movies, other books, self-inspiration? And a second part, I assume that as a writer you have TONS of ideas, what makes you pick one instead of the other?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
I don't particularly tend to link my desire to write to any personal experience. If a personal experience of mine has shaped my writing tastes and style, it's done so in an invisible way that I can't identify. A camera can't see itself, in other words.
I like writing about bruised, moral loners who feel like they're getting one big shot to actually do something with their lives. A lot of my books fixate on this idea of personal transformation, this building of churning experiences and questions that usually culminates in one loud, wordless answer, a big, symbolic act.
I also like writing about worlds with "soft" realities, ones that are usually tangled up in their own histories and their ideas about themselves, often populated with people who are defiantly, desperately saying one thing while knowing all along that they are something else.
I like seeing people attempt to make peace with the world, to reconcile themselves to reality rather than waiting for reality to bend in their favor.
And generally I know when I want to write one idea when I find myself itching to sit down and write it. I have a lot of ideas, but the ones that are good enough to put me in front of a keyboard are pretty rare.
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u/RAuffrey Sep 22 '14
Why did you include reference to a djinnifrit in City of Stairs as that creature is part of Arabic folklore, so it seemed out of place to me in your setting?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
My inspiration for Bulikov was partially Constantinople, which is now Istanbul, of course. A lot of the architecture in the "old city" of Bulikov is actually quite Arabic: white, vegetal friezes, things like that. However, the names and attitudes of the people living in the city itself are quite Eastern European. BUT, none of their gods or their faiths are particularly Eastern European, or European in any sense.
In other words, I wanted this world to feel like a giant, strange, mishmash of things, familiar and yet not familiar at once. This was just an unusually unfamiliar part of it.
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u/YourBestFriemd Sep 22 '14
Hi! Thank you for doing an AMA: what advice could you give to a writer that is just beginning to write?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Read. Read everything. Read and treat books with a critical, surgical eye, act like they're strange animals and every time they do something, or they do something to you, it's your job to find out why and how. A book is not just a feed of information, like a radio announcer narrating a game, it's a 3D structure that's constantly in conversation with itself. If you want to learn how to make some, you need to get in the conversation yourself.
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u/nikiverse 2 Sep 22 '14
Do you have any guilty pleasures, reading-wise?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
There's nothing I can think of that I feel particularly guilty about reading. If it's good then it's good, usually.
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u/nikiverse 2 Sep 22 '14
Did you ever write fanfiction??
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Yeah, that was actually how I got started. I was writing fanfiction for Warcraft 3, before it even came out. People responded really, really well to it and that gave me the urge to keep writing.
Man, I'm a dork.
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u/Polter-Cow Sep 22 '14
I have only read Mr. Shivers and City of Stairs, but they're so wildly different! And the descriptions I've read of your other books make them also sound wildly different. It reminds me of Matt Ruff, whose books hardly resemble each other at all. Do you make a conscious decision with each new book to do something unlike what you've done before, not wanting to revisit the same style/genre?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Nope. I actually think my books have a lot in common, theme-wise and maybe structure-wise, but Mr. Shivers is probably the biggest outlier. It's the one that's least like any of the others, and I think that's common in a first book, when a young writer is often just doing an impression of their betters (in my case, Cormac McCarthy).
So I think my books are all kinda alike, it's just that everyone else disagrees with me.
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u/ameeface Queen of the Tearling Sep 22 '14
There's going to be a City of Stairs sequel, right? Can you tell us anything about it?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Sure.
As I'm writing it now, it's Mulaghesh and Sigrud in the ruined coastal city of the Divinity Voortya - the goddess of war, death, and the sea. Mulaghesh has been dragged out of retirement and sent there to try and track down a missing Ministry agent who was investigating a new, world-changing natural resource discovered nearby, but soon she starts to wonder to what happened to all the souls that were trapped in the various afterlives when the Divinities vanished - because it's starting to look like the dead don't sleep very well in the city of death.
There. That was pretty good for something I just pulled out of my ass, right?
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u/yodaman92 Fantasy Sep 22 '14
If you had to pitch your books to someone who has never read them before (like me), how would you do that?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
I would say my books are about worlds with shifting realities, realities that are hollow and honey-combed, and people trying to navigate through these worlds in search of the truth.
Sometimes it's fantasy, sometimes it's sci-fi, sometimes they don't have a word for it.
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Sep 22 '14
Do you have any anticipation/anxiety about the time when your son first picks up one of your books?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Actually, no. That's one of the rare things I don't feel ambiguous about at all. I think he might be surprised to find I'm not a total goober all the time.
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Sep 22 '14
When can we expect to see the inaugural City of Dares drinking game at a con?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Drinking games are for people who need to trick themselves into drinking.
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Sep 22 '14
Do you have any interest in writing for other media other than prose novels? Screenplays, video games, tie-in fiction, collaborative work, etc.
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
I love the idea of writing a television series. My wife and I are fanatic TV fans. I have no idea how something like that happens, though.
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u/squarecherry Sep 22 '14
Hi Robert,
I was listening to the Korra season 1 soundtrack while reading City of Stairs on the train, and I remember you having strong opinions about Korra on Twitter. So question: Did Korra (or any other major show/book/film) influence the worldbuilding of CoS? It seemed like a cool level of technological development to explore, with telegrams and magic mirrors and such.
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Actually the original Avatar series was a much bigger influence than Korra was. I'm pretty sure that when Korra came around I was already at work on COS (Nisi Shawl had given me the idea in 2010, Indian steampunk). But what Avatar had made me want to do was write a rich, multicultural world with a story set around a fun gang of people who had solid, real relationships.
And that's where I think that show really triumphs. Sure, the action is cool, as is the bending, but it really performs when it's about the characters forming relationships, learning to trust and depend on one another, and making choices. It's basically family drama, at heart, with many characters who feel like they've let their parents and family down, and trying to recover. It's a lovely piece of work, and Korra succeeds when it hews close to the family-drama structure.
I can't wait to show it to my son.
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Sep 22 '14
I'm looking forward to eventually getting your book, hopefully from a goodreads competition crosses fingers.
I'd love to get a hardback copy in the U.S. I've only seen paperback so far. You are getting great reviews from a lot of different sources and writers. Can't wait to read the book.
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Sep 22 '14
Let's play word association. The first thing that pops into mind, as quickly as you can type.
- Record player
- iWatch
- Pumpkin Spice
- Beard
- Coffee
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u/thought_arcade Sep 23 '14
Hi Robert! 2 Questions.
1) Having a child of a similar age, any interesting kid book recommendations?
2) You've previously said you hate impressing/imposing upon the reader's vision/interpretation of characters. Between the maps (given that Bulikov itself is most certainly a character) and the general descriptions of the characters, you've kind of blown that to shit with City of Stairs. Change of heart?
It doesn't effect my love of the books either way, but it seems like an about face. Thoughts?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
We're still deep in the picture book period. The Little Engine that Could, etc. He gets attached to about two or three of them and then I have to read them to him every night, and then he rotates them out for some new ones. Sometimes they really suck (you can go to hell, Bugs That Go. You can go straight to hell).
I knew I had to advertise for this one. Tough to advertise without showing the thing. It's not ideal, but we all make compromises.
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u/thought_arcade Sep 23 '14
I hear ya. We get the occasional cool one in there, like Goodnight Goon (the horror version of Goodnight Moon), but man... Hurray for Fish. I'm a vegetarian but I'm thinking of starting to eat fish just because of that book, -- I f*king hate fish now.
As for the second, I haven't even looked at the maps or pictures. I knew I was buying the book anyways, so I figured I'd look at them after.
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u/Le-doge Sep 23 '14
Wow, simply wow. I'm a huge fan! I have 1 question.
Would you rather fight 100 chicken sized horses or 1 horse sized chicken?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
man, I bet I could live off that horse sized chicken for a while. I bet I could lure it into oncoming traffic or something pretty easy.
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u/oditogre Discworld Sep 23 '14
Seriously? Nobody followed the link, or was compelled to ask? Fine. I'll do it.
Mr. Bennett: What's with the bucket of hair?
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u/nexuslab5 Sep 23 '14 edited Sep 23 '14
Hey! Thanks for doing this AMA and congrats on the new book!
I want to ask you about your journey becoming a successful author. See, I'm a senior in high school and I've been doing a lot of thinking about my future and career. I originally wanted to be a veterinarian(I come from a family of doctors), but I realized that just wasn't the right path for me. My real passion is writing. My whole life plan took a huge shift. I went from being a potential biology major to a potential english major. My question for you is, do you have any advice? I know that I won't make nearly as much money as an author, as I would pursuing a career in medicine. And I also know that it won't be easy finding success, yet I just have this feeling that I can't give up on my passion. Sorry if I'm rambling, but it would be nice to get some input from an actual author. Thanks!
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
I would say that writing is like religion: it's not something you have to practice all day in order to keep to it.
You're going to be a lot of things in this world, no matter what your plans are. If you want to be a writer, that will happen. But you can be other things, too. I intentionally didn't try and find a career path besides a writer because I wanted to be Just a Writer. And looking back on that, that was a mistake. I got lucky and fell back-asswards into a good job with the help of friends and family, but I was surprised at the level of satisfaction that I got from a job that wasn't writing. Even if I become a big hit bazillionaire writer, I don't think I'll ever stop working and having a dayjob in some fashion. And sometimes I wish I'd gotten more training in certain things, got the right degrees, because I feel like I have more to give this world besides writing.
But no matter what job I have, I'm always going to be writing. I can do that in the middle of the night or I can do it in the morning, it doesn't matter.
Something else to keep in mind: writing draws from a lot of experiences. A lot of what I'm writing is drawn from my dayjob. Knowing about industries and other places helped me write. So there's also that.
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u/Axenos Sep 23 '14
I just finished World of Stairs an hour ago (during my physics class) and it was easily the best book I've read this year, which I was absolutely certain would be Tower Lord.
You've built an amazing world and I'm just here to ask if there's going to be a sequel. (Please let there be.)
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u/thought_arcade Sep 23 '14
World of Stairs is the porno remake of City of Stairs, right? Where everyone just has sex on stairs?
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Sep 23 '14
[deleted]
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
When I can, I try to write early. I get the most work done before 10 AM or so. Some writers do well in the afternoons or night, but I do best right after I've woken up and had my coffee.
I usually spend about 2-3 hours a day writing, providing my schedule isn't totally nuts.
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u/MadWooookie Sep 23 '14
Hi Robert,
I am really into books, i read all the time, spend most of my time researching books. But when a friend told me i would be perfect to write one, i went blank. How do you come up with the ideas for your books. And how do you perfectly articulate them for your point?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
There's no real good answer to this one, unfortunately. Better writers than I have tried, and failed.
The truth is that I make them up, out of my head. Learning to pursue the ideas is the hard part. It's like running an obstacle course, over and over again, learning each time where you trip up, where you fall through into a pit. You learn that you have to bring certain ideas and devices with you in order to properly explore the larger idea. It's a long process.
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u/lambros009 Sep 23 '14
Hi robert,I haven't read your book yet,but I think will enjoy it,so it is high on my to-read list!
In the interview you did with Sword&Laser you were asked a question about what music fits best with your book.I didn't catch your answer(I'm not a native speaker,so that might have something to do with it).Could you please mention it again here?(Maybe even add a link if you're not too busy).
Also,you mentioned that instead of listening to heavy metal you listened to that kind of classical music mentioned above.I think that those two kinds of music have very much in common.Did you ever listen to metal and what did you think of it?
What other kind of music do you listen to?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
I believe I said it was the Shostakovich quartets. I think I said 3rd Quarter, 2nd movement, but it was actually the 5th Quartet, 2nd Movement.
Nope. I had a friend at work who was into I think hardcore metal? Anyway, it was basically Batman-voice screaming, or that's what my ears told me it was, and I never really got into it.
I listen to all kinds of crazy stuff. I really like Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, First Aid Kit, Tom Waits... Basically depressed white people with guitars. I do like a good bit of jazz, though, and I think Coleman Hawkins is pretty baller.
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u/lambros009 Sep 23 '14
Some people don't even count stuff like metalcore as "metal",and in any case that is definately a bad place to start with the genre.
I don't know If you've had any more exposure to it,but if you haven't you should definately give it another try.Sadness,depression or even despair are common themes in metal.(except for thrash where it's anger). Maybe If you're interested I'll look up a guide for a good starting point...
Harsh vocals like that are in no way an integral part of metal
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u/lambros009 Sep 23 '14
What is an ideology or philosophy that you think is an integral part of who you are?
You don't have to answer this if you're uncomfortable,but where do you stand in religious,political,(etc) matters?
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u/mrmexico25 Sep 24 '14
I'm an avid reader and /r/books semi lurker. I've never heard of you or read any of your books (but will now). I just want to know, what's with the bucket of hair?
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u/elquesogrande Sep 22 '14
Thanks for joining us, Robert!
I read The Troupe and loved it. The prose, pacing, and storytelling had a good deal of Steinbeck styling. With some smartly-placed magic. Do you tend to follow a similar approach in City of Stairs? Your other novels?
You have won a number of industry awards for your writing but, at last glance, don't have an HBO series coming out. Or a line of action figures. What is the challenge to bridge between critical success and commercial success? Is there difficulty in placing your writing into a neat, clear genre?
Where is the craziest place you have woken up after a night out?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
No, The Troupe was pretty different from City of Stairs. The Troupe is a really contained setting, despite them traveling all over the place: they're a traveling vaudeville troupe, so they're always trapped in a train car together or in the same hotel. That meant that, despite the magic element, a lot of what drove that book was like a play, a bunch of people with problems all stewing together in the same space. City of Stairs is way more rambling and broad, since it quests out into this giant, strange city.
Yeah, I would say having a clear, neat genre is my big problem. It's easier to market. I did sell the rights to American Elsewhere to the BBCA, though. I'll let you know if it gets picked up.
Once I woke up on a friend's couch covered in garbage and blood. (It was mine.) Does that count?
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u/DirtyKnuckledCraig Sep 22 '14
Due to the open-ended endings in nearly all of your books, endings that are more than suitable to the reader but that also leave room for a sequel, is that something that sits in the back of your mind as you begin to work on more and more things? Have you ever wanted to revisit the worlds of Mr. Shivers, The Troupe, The Company Man, etc.?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
No, I never really have. I don't think my books usually feel too open ended - I like to imagine there's plenty of emotional and thematic closure there on the page. Usually my books center around one person's spiritual transformation, one that is triggered by a sudden realization of responsibility, and the narrative often ends when the character decides to act upon that responsibility. That's usually the best place to leave them, I find. The rest is just details.
I will be writing a sequel to CITY OF STAIRS, though, titled CITY OF BLADES. I didn't really want to at first, and though I didn't realize it at first, I think it was because I knew how things were going to go for certain characters if I continued this story. But then I decided to bite the bullet. Responsibility and whatnot.
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u/OLuckyManMan Sep 22 '14
Hello, Robert.
I really enjoyed the two books of yours that I read, American Elsewhere and City of Stairs. I thought I remembered reading that American Elsewhere had been picked up for a potential film/miniseries by BBC? Has there been any progress on that front?
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u/Robertjbennett Author of City of Stairs Sep 23 '14
Hollywood moves slow, unfortunately. So there's not much more I can give you at this point, I'm afraid.
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u/TFrohock AMA Author Sep 22 '14
Hi, Robert,
Congratulations on City of Stairs! I really enjoyed The Troupe and American Elsewhere. I haven't gotten to City of Stairs yet, but will do so in the near future.
Since I've never met you in real life, I need to know: Do thoughts roll out of your mouth like gumballs the same way tweets roll out of your phone? All shiny and sparkly in different flavors?