R.L. STINE CLAIMS he doesn’t like scaring kids, but an illustrious career that includes over 300 published books says otherwise.
“Scary is much easier than funny,” Stine says. “Funny is hard because everyone has a different sense of humor, but to me, horror is funny. It always makes me laugh. There’s something missing in my brain, and I don’t get scared from scary books or movies. People come up to me and say, ‘Oh, after I read your book, I had to turn on all the lights and lock the doors.’ I’ve never had that feeling. When something scary happens in a movie, it makes me laugh. I do think there’s a very close connection between horror and humor. It’s kind of the same visceral reaction that you have.”
Stine was not always so ambivalent about scary things. Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, he was introverted and wary of the unknown.
“I was a fearful, shy kid. I would ride my bike through the neighborhood, and when I’d come back in the evening, I thought there was always something lurking in the garage. I would heave my bike into the garage and run into the house. It was a terrible way to grow up.”
Little did he know that his fears as a child would become his bread and butter when he grew up. He began writing at the age of 9 when he came across a used typewriter in the attic. After a short-lived dream of being a comic book artist, he began to condition his funny bone by writing jokes.
“Later on, those kinds of silly fears came into play when I started writing these books. I could remember that feeling of panic and bring it to my writing,” he says.
Stine has since made a career of writing what he knows. His characters, like Slappy the Dummy, the Haunted Mask, and even himself, played by Jack Black in the 2015 and 2018 Goosebumps films, have become icons of the horror genre, children’s literature, and pop culture.
His work has spawned TV series, movies, amusement parks, and more. But he says he still hasn’t gotten used to the success.
“Everything that’s happened to me is hard to believe. When we started Goosebumps, I said, ‘Let’s do two or three of them.’ Now it’s 33 years later, and it’s all just amazing to me. The TV series, the movies, it’s not anything I ever dreamed.”
Over the years, Stine has seen and done it all. From novels for children and teens, to screenplays, to graphic novels. Now he’s hard at work on something he’s only done three other times in his career: Writing a novel for adults.
His newest project, a thriller, is titled Let’s All Kill Rosalie and has a release date to be announced. The scares may be in the same vein as what Stine is known for, but the process is not.
“My rule for Goosebumps is that the kids must know it’s a fantasy. That lets me get pretty scary. But when you write for adults, you have to do the opposite. Every detail and every moment has to seem believable and true. They won’t buy a horror story if they can’t believe it,” he says.
When pressed on why the change of audience, Stine responds with a laugh. “Greed,” he says. “I needed something different. I have a new beginning reader series coming out this year with Arthur writer Marc Brown, and it’s called Tiddly and Winks: Don’t Be Scared. Then, I’ll have this adult novel coming out. Next, I think I’ll do prenatal horror.”
Stine’s writing method is unorthodox: He comes up with the title first and lets the idea and framework develop from there. He outlines each chapter before beginning, a shortcut Stine says lends itself to avoiding writer’s block while also staying fresh with ideas for the plot.
And while many books found in the children’s section are permeated with lessons and morals, Stine’s overall concern has only ever been on one thing: To inspire reading.
