WEBVTT

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Hi.

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Thanks for being
here, both of you.

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This is just a technical
question for Charles.

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In the beginning of
the story, I felt

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like it was in
sort of a shifting

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close third between
the two kids,

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and then there was this very
delicate shift into the father,

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and then we stayed there.

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Am I hearing right?

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Is that--

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Yes.

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OK, thanks.

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Good question.

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I mean, my editor,
among other things,

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was very confused by that.

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And as you're reading
it, it gets confusing.

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There's some element of
intentionality in that,

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and there's some element
of just clumsiness.

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But the idea of
that point of view

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is, it bleeds into each other,
that there's a kind of--

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something about this moment
that, before they fall away

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from each other, they're
still kind of entwined.

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But also, if I
workshop that, I think

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it would be a
disaster, probably.

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Thank you both for being here.

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Also, this one's for Kristen.

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I was wondering, also kind
of a technical question,

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at what point did you
start incorporating

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visual imagery as a part
of a narrative, and why?

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And also, do you
draw it yourself?

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Yeah, I do draw it myself.

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I started writing this
as prose, and then it

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sort of morphed into--

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I tried some of it
in illustrations,

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but for a while in
workshop in grad school,

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I would draw something in the
corner of my Microsoft Word

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page.

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And then the entire
workshop would

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be about why I drew something
in the corner of the Microsoft

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Word page.

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And then, slowly I came around
to drawing it as a comic.

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But now, when I [AUDIO OUT]
and then sort of,

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I taught myself how to draw
the comics as I went along.

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But now it's a much
more organic process,

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where I move back and forth
between text and image.

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I just found six earplugs
in my pocket, also.

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I just thought I'd share
that with you guys.

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Why do you have so many--

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I have no-- I
get-- on airplanes,

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I guess, I hate hearing
the announcements.

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Thanks for that question,
sorry about the earplugs.

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This is kind of a related
question, but for both of you.

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So you both incorporate things
that are maybe not always--

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I think more so, but sometimes
have not been super welcome,

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in kind of the institutional
writings here with graphic work

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and science fiction.

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Was that something that was
difficult for you to start

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doing?

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Have you always been doing it?

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How did you end up where
you are now with that?

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I've always been doing it.

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I've been writing
fiction since--

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since I graduated
from law school.

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And so I was very much
autodidact, and it shows,

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I think.

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But I think I don't have a whole
lot of knowledge about things.

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So I draw upon
what I know, which

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tends to be the stuff I grew
up reading and watching.

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And for better or worse,
it's become a thing

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that I find my way
into stories usually

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through some kind of weird
sort of genre twist or layer.

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Comics is a really--
like, literary comics

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is a really interesting space,
because some people are really

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excited about it, and then some
people write it off right away.

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I remember when Roz Chast was a
finalist for the National Book

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Award, people were furious.

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It was just like
this joke that that

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could be considered nonfiction.

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Which I thought was
really exciting,

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because every other
book of nonfiction

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always has, like, a colon in it.

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You know, it's a
title and then it's

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like seven words about
some boring topic.

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There's been great books.

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There's been great
books, and I--

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but I'm just saying it was
a really creative book.

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That was a really
different, creative book,

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and it was, I thought, a
really interesting choice.

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I think she was the
second graphic book

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to ever be a finalist,
because the first one was

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Radioactive by
Lauren Redniss, which

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is also awesome and
doesn't have a colon.

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I don't think.

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Maybe it does.

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But, I don't know, I also think
that's a really interesting,

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fun space to be working from.

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When you're writing in a
form or drawing in a form

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that a lot of people are going
to write off right away, you--

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I don't know, you maybe
have something to prove,

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or you don't.

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And that makes it
more interesting,

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too, at least for me.

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Another question?

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Now I want to write a
book called Colon, colon,

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a Cultural History of--

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The colon?

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The colon.

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I have a question.

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Two questions,
actually, for Kristen.

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So your book, Imagine
Wanting Only This,

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was it based on your experience?

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Yeah.

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And sort of cultural history.

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There's also one more question.

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Did you ever think that the
pictures that you picked up--

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did you ever think that it
belonged to somebody else?

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Yeah, it did belong
to somebody else.

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And that was a
discovery that I made.

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Yeah.

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But before that, did you
ever really think that--

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No, it was an
abandoned place that

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had been empty for like
20 years, so it was just--

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most everything from that
building had been looted.

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So it just seemed like
something that had been--

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had just showed up there,
or had just been left.

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And in sort of an
accidental way.

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All right, thank you.

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OK, We have time for one more.

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Sorry, I'm like in
a difficult place.

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My question is
actually for Charles.

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And as somebody myself who
wants to transfer from fiction

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to screenwriting, did you
find the technicalities

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of screenwriting this story
difficult to transfer to, or--

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I think the overlap is big
enough that it can help.

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I think there's probably--

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I'm sure everybody has a
different experience with this,

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but I sort of sometimes
feel like it's

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like training for a
marathon, and then

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somebody asks you to play
basketball, you know?

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It's like, OK, I mean,
I guess it helps.

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But also, not really.

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I mean, you could be terrible
at either or good at one

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without being good
at the other, so--

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But that said, it couldn't
hurt to be in, I think--

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I feel like the stamina
and the attention

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to detail that it takes to
write fiction and nonfiction

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is a different
skill than typically

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is required in TV writing.

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Probably takes some measure
of stamina, but it also is--

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there's just less words.

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You know what I mean?

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A medium size short
story has more words

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than your average episode
of TV, so in that sense,

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it's kind of--

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it requires a different kind
of discipline and economy.

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But it's not--

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I mean, just at the risk
of offending any TV writers

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or fans, it's not as
demanding in other ways,

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I think emotionally
and psychologically.

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It feels much more like you
develop a certain set of craft

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based skills that,
again, do have

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some overlap with writing prose,
but you're not a prose writer.

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Nobody cares what the words
on the page are in the script,

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really.

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Unfortunately.

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They care about the story
that's underlying that.

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So that's the
biggest difference.

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Well, thank you both.

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I just want to point out--

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