Some of Tim's Stories (7 page)

How closely did you identify with your narrator, Ponyboy Curtis, in
The Outsiders?

Ponyboy Curtis is probably the closest I've ever come to putting myself in a book, even down to the physical description. He had my ideas; he had my personality. And he and I both liked sunsets. My mother would yell, “Why are you taking so long to get the garbage can back in the house?” It would be because I was standing outside watching the sun set.

Wasn't
Different Sunsets
your original title for the book
?

It was, but I had a wonderful editor, Velma Varner, who thought that title would be too “soft” for the story. I agreed.
The Outsiders
encompasses so many different levels. I'm glad I changed it.

Is the novel based on any of your actual high school experiences
?

When a friend of mine got beaten up on his way home from school one day, I began a short story about a kid who got beaten up on his way home from the movies. That turned out to be the beginning of
The Outsiders
, but I didn't base anybody in the book on real-life people.

One story has it that you researched the book and got a feel for greasers by carrying a knife. Fact or fiction
?

Fiction, fiction, fiction. I did carry a knife, but it wasn't like I was researching a book. I thought it was cool. I didn't use it for anything. It did come out in the washing machine once, but I told my mother it was a letter opener.

Why do you think so many myths abound about you and your writing
?

I have no idea. People have written saying they knew my college roommate; I didn't ever have a roommate in college. I've had offers from people who want to do a movie of my life, and the very thought makes my skin crawl. I'm a real private person. That's why I rarely have my picture in the newspapers. I don't like being recognized in public. It startles me when I'm wandering around in the grocery store, usually in sweat pants and without makeup, and someone yells, “S. E. Hinton!”

And I'm sure you get lots of fan letters
.

It's the guilt trip of my life that I can't answer all my mail. I just can't. I live a very simple life. I don't have help; I'm not in a castle with a big staff. I'm trying to keep myself as domestic as possible because I don't want to get isolated from realities. I think that's very important to my work.

Who is Jimmy, the person to whom you dedicated
The Outsiders?

Jimmy is my cousin. We were closer than a lot of brothers and sisters, and I was hanging out with his friends when I was writing
The Outsiders
.

How did Jimmy respond when he found out you dedicated the book to him
?

He didn't say anything. That's Jimmy. He's a quiet person.

One of the book's outstanding achievements is the way you're able to depict your male characters, all close in age and circumstance, so distinctly. How did you avoid teenager stereotypes
?

I'm a character writer. I know my characters' astrological signs; I know what they eat for breakfast. It doesn't matter whether those details show up in the books themselves. I have to become my narrators the way actors become their characters.

What astrological sign is Ponyboy
?

Ponyboy has the same birthday as I do, July 22; he's a Cancer, on the cusp of Leo.

Your characters' names add to their uniqueness. Instead of “Tom” and “Mark,” we have “Ponyboy” and “Soda.” How did you decide on these nontraditional names
?

I don't know where “Ponyboy” came from, but I did know a guy whose name was “Soda.” And I think the name “Johnnycake” probably came from Johnny's last name, “Cade.” Kids love those names. One of my readers saw the TV show
My Name Is Earl
, and a character mentioned hanging out “Ponyboy-style.” If he'd said “Bill-style,” nobody would have known what he was talking about.

After Ponyboy, which character in
The Outsiders
is closest to your heart
?

Actually every character any writer writes is a part of her; writers are the filter. As much as I was Ponyboy, I was every one of the characters in that book.

Johnny's an especially moving character. Did you know when you started the book that he was going to die, or did you discover that in process
?

I discovered that in process. To me that's the way the story happened. I didn't make Johnny die; he died. I didn't have a clear frame for
The Outsiders
when I started it. I just sat down and began writing. I'd get stuck, go to school, and say, “I'm writing a book. This is what's happened so far. What should happen next?” I was taking help whenever I could get it. I came across a Robert Frost poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” in an English class, thought it said what I wanted to say in
The Outsiders
, and so I wrote it into the book.

“
Nothing Gold Can Stay” seemed to give the book a central theme. Is it true that some people actually think you, not Robert Frost, wrote the poem
?

That is true, which is not the worst thing that can happen to a writer! Sometimes I go to speak to librarians or teachers, and they'll introduce me with that poem. I'll get up and say, “I hope everyone knows that was actually written by Robert Frost.” But it is definitely very, very tied into the novel. Even in casual references to the book, people say, “Stay gold.”

That's how you sign your books many times
.

Yes, people ask for me to sign with “Stay gold” all the time. A lot of fans ask Ralph Macchio to sign his autograph that way, too.

Why do you think that poem resonated so much with you and your readers
?

Because it's about the loss of innocence and about how the idealist in you has to come up against the compromise of living in the real world.

Did you ever consider telling this story in any point of view other than first person
?

No. I'm very comfortable with the first-person narrative, but I do have to have the resources emotionally to bring me into the character.

As
Ponyboy, you write some wonderful lines. In the heart of the novel, Ponyboy looks at Johnny resting on the couch and says, “Maybe people are younger when they are asleep.” Do you remember where you were literally and figuratively when that insight came to you
?

I have to admit that I don't know where a lot of that came from.

Also Ponyboy avoids pat descriptions of the people he loves
.
He speaks of Soda's “finely drawn, sensitive face that somehow manages to be reckless and thoughtful at the same time.” Were you seeing Soda through Ponyboy's eyes or was he seeing Soda through yours
?

I was seeing Soda through Ponyboy's eyes. I mentioned somewhere that Ponyboy likes to draw, to draw and sketch. He even talks about how he liked to sketch Dallas because he could get him down in a few lines. He's thinking like an artist.

You mentioned earlier that your editor wanted you to change the title of the book. What sort of editing process did you go through with
The Outsiders?

Velma didn't tell me what to write. She just told me how to deal with what I'd already written.
The Outsiders
is very much my book, but it's a better book because Velma gave me suggestions. She was specific. I've developed lifelong friendships with my other editors—Craig Virden, George Nicholson, Ron Buehl—and they became a great part of my writing life, but Velma was the one who opened up my eyes to the editing process.

As you look back at the book as a more mature writer, do you view the adult characters any differently
?

All kids like to think that their little land is completely off the map for adults. I wasn't ready to do adult characters at that point, so I don't miss them. The kids don't miss them. The one adult character that pops up is the guy at the church who doesn't rescue the kids because he's too fat to get them down.

When the book was first published, critics commented on what they viewed as the religious symbolism in the story, but you insisted that that was just their notion. Do you still feel that way
?

If you want to look for religious symbolism in the book, you will find it. About the third time I got somebody's dissertation on religious symbolism in
The Outsiders
, I re-read the book with that in mind and, by golly, it's there. But lo, I bring you tidings: I didn't do it consciously. So much of my writing is subconscious. I keep hoping to find a way to take a nap and wake up with a chapter done. Johnny Cade is a Jesus figure who dies saving people. He comes back from death with his message of brotherhood for Ponyboy, and he dies between two thieves, Dallas and Bob. I mean, he writes in the dust of a church, “Be back soon,” and signs it “J. C.” The book even opens and closes with the line, “When I stepped in the light from the darkness.”

At one point
, The Outsiders
was the second-best selling paperback for young adults in publishing history, topped only by
Charlotte's Web.
What's your opinion of
Charlotte's Web?

I love
Charlotte's Web. Charlotte's Web
and
The Outsiders
are both about the same things. They're about death; they're about friendship; they're about sacrifice; they're about resurrection.

What do you think of the recent young adult bestseller
Harry Potter?

I haven't read
Harry Potter
. I never was into fantasy. I've seen a couple of the movies, and I've enjoyed them. My reading time is so precious to me that I want to read what I want to read. But any book that gets kids into reading is great.

Earlier you said that you felt you were destined to write
The Outsiders—
it was meant to be. Could you speak a little more about the role you feel destiny played in the book
?

The Outsiders
almost died on the vine because it was published initially as a mass-market paperback, a drugstore paperback. Dell was about ready to stop printing it but noticed it was starting to sell well in several places and did some research. Teachers had found that they could get nonreaders to read it, and they were ordering books for all their classes. Teachers are my heroes anyway, but I'll tell you, they're the best damn advertising a writer can have.

You talked about the hundreds of fan letters you've gotten, people telling you that
The Outsiders
has changed their lives. How has it changed your life
?

Well of course it's changed my life drastically. I've had the luck and the leisure to be able to write and make a living out of it. Frankly I could live off
The Outsiders
, so it's given me a lot of freedom as a writer. I can write what I want to without worrying about the audience. And it's given me a lot of satisfaction to be part of something that has touched so many peoples' lives and hearts. I just had somebody on the radio ask me how it felt being known for my first book. I said, “From what I hear, it beats being not known at all.”

Even though I've learned to expect the ceramic Siamese curled up in Susie's living room chair, it still startles me. The cat is territorial and seems to pounce on any imagination that bypasses it en route to the den, the room where Susie is most comfortable. Susie already has tumblers of wine waiting for us, and we assume the same places on the sofa that worked for us during our first interview. Ours is a relaxed conformity. We know where to plug in the tape recorder—there is an extension cord under the coffee table—but we also allow ourselves “unplugged” time in between questions to top off our glasses. Another Siamese stares at me from a portrait above the large-screen television. Like its ceramic counterpart, it flirts with the notion of being real. “That's Mr. Smithers,” Susie says, but she is referring instead
to an actual cat that has joined us to sit rigidly atop the coffee table. Smitty, an orange tabby, looks porcelain. Susie claims as an aside that she keeps him because he matches her décor—the oranges and browns—but her affection is obvious as she explains he can disco dance on command. He isn't in the mood, so our thoughts grudgingly turn to fiction, real life, and some fuzzy distinctions
.

So many wonderful things came to you courtesy of
The Outsiders:
international recognition, financial security
.

I was making about two cents a book. I'll call it financial help in the first few years, but it certainly wasn't security.

During our last visit, you talked about the writer's block you developed after
The Outsiders
when you were working on
That Was Then, This Is Now.

In the ending of
That Was Then, This Is Now
, when Bryon says he's emotionally drained from caring about people, he reflects my own state of mind. I was emotionally drained from having lived
The Outsiders
and then having it be over. It just wiped me out.

You've said what a help your boyfriend, David, now your husband, was to you while you were writing the book. Did that strengthen your relationship
?

It's funny, because I got the contract on our wedding day. Before, when the contract for
The Outsiders
arrived on graduation day, I thought,
Graduation is nothing; I sold my book!
But when my contract came for
That Was Then
,
This Is Now
, I was thinking,
This is nothing; I'm getting married
.

Many writers—Harper Lee is an example—write such successful first novels, they wonder if they can ever write at that
level again. Did you experience any of those feelings after
The Outsiders?

I still think I can write something better than
The Outsiders
, but I've given up hope that I'll do anything that's as well loved. That doesn't bother me. How can you top something that has touched people the way
The Outsiders
has? I don't even worry about that.

Was there a defining moment for you when you realized that, because of your newfound celebrity, you were going to have to establish some boundaries for yourself and your fans
?

At first I was as accommodating as I could be about giving speeches, but I've learned when to say no. I can be either a writer or a speaker. I hate speaking, love writing, so the choice is obvious.

You realized the story of
The Outsiders
so completely that readers felt as if Ponyboy, Soda, and Darry were personal friends. How much pressure did you feel to write a sequel
?

I felt a lot of pressure to write a sequel. I still do feel a lot of pressure to write a sequel. If you go to
fanfiction.net
, there are more than two thousand Outsider stories, and a lot of them are sequels. I'm fine with
fanfiction.net
if that helps kids get the feel of writing, but to me
The Outsiders
stands where it is. I ended it at the right place. I'm not sixteen, no matter how well I remember being that age. I could not capture that moment again, and I don't want to capture that moment again. But I may write a sequel and put it in my safety-deposit box to be opened after my death, just to keep another writer from doing a sequel after the copyright expires. As much as I don't mind
fanfiction.net
, I'm uncomfortable with the thought of somebody else seriously messing with my characters.

Did the title of your second novel
, That Was Then, This Is Now,
become a personal statement—as well as a great name for your new story
?

My subconscious works so well that, yes, it could be a personal statement, now that I look back on it. But at the time I wanted to use it as a metaphor for growing up and suddenly realizing you can't go on being a little kid. You've got to make some tough decisions. Sometimes they're not going to be the right decisions, but you've got to blunder your way through them.

When we first visited, you said that you feel
That Was Then, This Is Now
is a better book technically than
The Outsiders.
Can you elaborate on what, in your opinion, makes it better technically
?

Because I had a little more control of my emotions; some of
The Outsiders
is over the top emotionally. You've got to control emotion with technique. Talent plus discipline equals art; you can't have one without the other.

In reviewing
That Was Then, This Is Now,
the
New York Times
described it as mature, disciplined. What did you learn writing
The Outsiders
that made you more proficient when you were writing on
That Was Then, This Is Now?

Going through revisions of
The Outsiders
, I learned not to be overly descriptive, but I'd been writing for many, many years and had been teaching myself the whole time.

You were enrolled at the University of Tulsa when you were working on
That Was Then, This Is Now.
Did it seem strange to be sitting in a freshman comp class when you'd already made publishing history
?

It certainly didn't make it easier for me to get through freshman comp; that was a hard class.

In what ways are Bryon and Mark, your lead characters in
That Was Then, This Is Now,
different from Ponyboy and his extended family of friends
?

Oh, they're very different. I try not to repeat my characters at all. When I wrote about Mark, I kept thinking of him as a lion on Bryon's chain. And Bryon isn't Ponyboy in that he isn't as sensitive. He isn't aware of society until it knocks him in the head. He can't just sit and observe.

Did you ever find yourself slipping into Ponyboy's voice when you were writing as Bryon
?

I'd left Ponyboy behind by that time, so I never had any trouble with Bryon's voice.

In
That Was Then, This Is Now
you do allude to Ponyboy from time to time. He's become a local hero of sorts; your character Cathy wants to date him in the final chapters in the book. Did referencing him give you a sense of continuity as a writer
?

It did in that I wanted to mark the time and place for
That Was Then, This Is Now
. It happened a few years after
The Outsiders
, so I have Ponyboy do a walk-through. Also, Bryon, especially in the beginning, didn't like Ponyboy. He thought he was stuck up, thought he was vain because he was so good-looking. I wanted kids to see how easy it is to make wrong assumptions.

I mentioned how much I admired your edgy description in
The Outsiders,
your ability to view your characters beyond stereotypes. In
That Was Then, This Is Now,
you demonstrate that same talent. When Bryon goes to visit Mark in the reformatory, he notes, “He had lost weight but somehow it had stretched his skin over his bones and slanted his eyes. He hadn't lost his looks
but exchanged them.” How distinctly do you see characters in your writer's eye
?

I usually see my characters very, very distinctly. Sometimes I even dream about them. When I do, they're not the actors; I see the characters. I guess that comes through, because usually people visualize my characters when they're reading them.

Why do you think some of your readers were frustrated with the way you ended
That Was Then, This Is Now?

I've always said if you threw the book across the room at the end, you understood it. I wanted to show that there's not a happy ending for every story. In a lot of ways, growth is betrayal. Things change, no matter how much you'd like them to stay the same.

After the surprise success of
The Outsiders,
did the publication of
That Was Then, This Is Now
seem anticlimatic
?

Maybe a little bit, but on the other hand it was certainly validation. The first book could have been called a fluke, but with the second, I could safely say I had a career.

Is it true that your third novel
, Rumble Fish,
actually began as a short story
?

Yes, I wrote it for a creative writing class, but I knew it should be a novel. After David and I got married, we went to Europe and were hippies for a while. When we came back and moved to California so he could attend graduate school at Stanford, I started thinking about writing again and pulled out
Rumble Fish
. Plot is the hardest part of writing for me; I'm good with characters and dialogue. But with
Rumble Fish
, I already had the plot and finished it in about four months.

Didn't you originally write it from the viewpoint of Steve
,
Rusty-James's friend
?

Yes, and I couldn't stand it. Steve is a very observant, articulate, smart kid. Like Bryon and Ponyboy, he could see a lot; he could say a lot. But I'd done that before. So I rewrote the story from the viewpoint of Rusty-James, who is not observant, not intelligent, and yet he still has to convey the identity of the Motorcycle Boy, who is so complex. I'd write a sentence and be proud of it as a writer, look at it again, think Rusty-James could not say that, and cross it out. As a writer, I'm most proud of
Rumble Fish
, because it's very straightforward; there's no foreshadowing.

You've commented in the past that Motorcycle Boy kept haunting you, goading you to tell his story. Did you ever consider telling it from his point of view
?

I haven't got any more clue to what that guy's mind was like than anybody else does. He's an enigma to me. I couldn't tell the story from his point of view. He's way smarter than I've ever been. I was involved in mythology when I wrote this book, and the Motorcycle Boy was doing his community a service by becoming a local myth. At one point he says to Rusty-James, “I'm tired of being the Pied Piper for these people. I can't lead them. I don't know anywhere to go.” When he does finally commit suicide by releasing the fish and liberating the pet store, so to speak, he knows he's creating a bigger myth than if he'd just gotten killed in a rumble.

I've heard that you first got the idea for Motorcycle Boy from a magazine photo
.

That's true. I was flipping through a magazine, cut out a picture of this guy with his motorcycle, and then put it away with the idea of writing a story one day. Years later, when I was getting ready to write the book, I looked at the picture again and saw that I had cut it so close to the edge that I couldn't make out the name of the magazine. After
Rumble Fish
was published and I was on a publicity tour for my next book,
Tex
, I was in Washington, D.C., to appear on a television panel with some high school kids. While I was waiting for them in the studio, their teacher walked up to me and pulled out the same magazine photograph. I almost fainted. I had never mentioned the photo to anyone. The teacher explained that he'd thought it was an interesting photograph, had cut it out, then made the connection when he read
Rumble Fish
. He'd left wider borders, and I could see it came from
Saturday Review
.

You've had so many interesting synchronicities in your life
.
Did
Rumble Fish
become representative of your own changing philosophical views? You'd been raised in the conservative Christian tradition, then suddenly became exposed to differing views through higher education and travel
.

Early on I rejected organized religion. As a child, I went to a very fundamentalist church and saw a man preaching hellfire and brimstone under a sign that said “God is Love.” It turned me against organized religion for the rest of my life. It did not turn me against God. To me, organized religion is like organized social classes, based on exclusion. God is inclusive.

You've described
Rumble Fish
as very stylistic and set in a vague way. Were you concerned at all about how the book would be received? In
Rumble Fish,
there are no allusions to Ponyboy and your anchor characters; it stands on its own
.

Because I was thinking mythically, I wanted the book set in as vague a time and place as possible. When Rusty-James is recalling the good old days with gangs, he might as well have been thinking about when there were knights at the round table. Francis Coppola, who directed the movie version, understood this and told his actors that the story was set two years in the future.