In Conversation with Stephen Chbosky
This week I attended a fantastic event at Topping & Company Booksellers in Bath, where I was able to meet the author of one of my favourite books. I had been looking forward to the event and hoping to get my books signed if there was time, but what I most definitely wasn’t expecting was an invitation to talk with the author more afterwards. At the event, Chbosky spoke about his new book Imaginary Friend and what his writing process was like. He also took a number of questions from the group and finished with a wonderful short reading. Not only did he treat us to a thrilling chapter from the new book, but also an exclusive reading of the new afterword he has written for the twentieth anniversary updated edition of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. In this edition, Charlie has written one final letter twenty years on and it was deeply moving to hear the author read it aloud. I was fortunate enough to speak to Chbosky over the phone the following afternoon, as he continues his book tour here in the UK. In this post I have included some highlights from our conversation. Hope you enjoy reading!
Stephen Chbosky is a novelist, screenwriter and director. Twenty years ago, he wrote the fantastic coming-of-age novel, The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Set in the early nineties, the novel follows Charlie, an introverted teenager, through his freshman year of high school in a Pittsburgh suburb. The novel is told through a series of letters, as Charlie’s unconventional style of thinking details the way he navigates between the worlds of adolescence and adulthood. The book really resonates with me on a personal level and while Charlie isn't necessarily an excellent role model, he does show that being different is okay.
The importance of meaningful friendship is explored throughout, and the relationship between the three central characters is a friendship that endures. In the beginning, Charlie keeps to himself and minds his own business until he meets his two future best friends, Sam and Patrick. The two quickly grow fond of Charlie and begin to show him what friendship is about. It's not all about having tons of friends who surround you; but the one or two close friends who become your partners in crime. It's about having the friends in your life who love you, and not just parts of you but all of you, regardless of what has defined you in the past. This is especially important to Charlie, who has faced many difficulties in his past.
No matter how many times I read it, nothing makes me feel more nostalgic than this book. It so perfectly explores the moments that truly define who we are and what happiness means to us. The book offers an insightful reflection on our teenage years filled with friendship, angst, future planning heartbreak and everything in between.
Both Perks and Imaginary Friend explore experiences of childhood. What inspired you to write such a young protagonist in your latest novel?
Chbosky: You know, when I thought of that first image that memory from childhood that we all share. When you look up into the sky and see these clouds and you see all the different shapes. I was just fascinated by the idea of… the premise of what if a little boy realised that for the last two weeks it was always the same face looking back at him. That’s where it started, and I’m just generally fascinated by that time of life. I think that childhood is such a powerful time of life. It is ripe for so many stories because the stakes are so high, life is so new…and so, the fears are a little bit more pure, the joys are a little bit bigger and the challenges, I think, are that much more challenging when you’re smaller than the world around you.
Everything’s so much more intense at that age.
Chbosky: Yes. The first experiences are brand new and without context they feel so much bigger than they feel when you’re older. Since I like to write so much about emotion and emotional responses to things, I find that writing about young people is a very easy way to do it and have the audience go along for the journey.
I love your books and am also a big fan of your film adaptations. Do you feel that being able to toggle between film work and writing has helped you to become a better or more creative storyteller?
Chbosky: Thank you. Without question making movies has influenced my books in many positive ways in terms of really trying to stick to the story and focus on the characters… and the themes. Whereas, writing novels has influenced my film work in a very positive way in trying to put as much detail into the adaptations as I can possibly fit, without it overwhelming the story. One is more, you know, brief as storytelling, the other one is longer. But I think, when you get them right, they are both equally effective emotionally for an audience.
Would you agree that alongside cinema, the reader of a book brings more of a personal view to the story?
Chbosky: Yeah, when a reader reads a book, he or she is every actor. You’re the cinematographer. You’re the costume designer. You’re everything, and when you’re an audience member for the movie… the director and all the collaborators are giving you a very literal interpretation of it, and so you have to tread more gingerly to have the same level of respect that comes quite easily as an author, because the reader is always in charge.
Chbosky: You know, when I thought of that first image that memory from childhood that we all share. When you look up into the sky and see these clouds and you see all the different shapes. I was just fascinated by the idea of… the premise of what if a little boy realised that for the last two weeks it was always the same face looking back at him. That’s where it started, and I’m just generally fascinated by that time of life. I think that childhood is such a powerful time of life. It is ripe for so many stories because the stakes are so high, life is so new…and so, the fears are a little bit more pure, the joys are a little bit bigger and the challenges, I think, are that much more challenging when you’re smaller than the world around you.
Everything’s so much more intense at that age.
Chbosky: Yes. The first experiences are brand new and without context they feel so much bigger than they feel when you’re older. Since I like to write so much about emotion and emotional responses to things, I find that writing about young people is a very easy way to do it and have the audience go along for the journey.
I love your books and am also a big fan of your film adaptations. Do you feel that being able to toggle between film work and writing has helped you to become a better or more creative storyteller?
Chbosky: Thank you. Without question making movies has influenced my books in many positive ways in terms of really trying to stick to the story and focus on the characters… and the themes. Whereas, writing novels has influenced my film work in a very positive way in trying to put as much detail into the adaptations as I can possibly fit, without it overwhelming the story. One is more, you know, brief as storytelling, the other one is longer. But I think, when you get them right, they are both equally effective emotionally for an audience.
Would you agree that alongside cinema, the reader of a book brings more of a personal view to the story?
Chbosky: Yeah, when a reader reads a book, he or she is every actor. You’re the cinematographer. You’re the costume designer. You’re everything, and when you’re an audience member for the movie… the director and all the collaborators are giving you a very literal interpretation of it, and so you have to tread more gingerly to have the same level of respect that comes quite easily as an author, because the reader is always in charge.
Fans of the book adore your adaptation. The film release of Perks boosted sales of the books upon its release and received hugely positive critical response and commercial success. You must feel really proud of your work with The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Having done such a great job adapting your own book into a film, you were then asked to direct Wonder, a novel written by celebrated children's writer RJ Palacio. Did you find it more challenging to adapt a book that came from a different author?
Chboksy: Well, actually it was less challenging because I had RJ Palacio. So, I was able to bounce things off of her. I was able to ask her for her view of themes and casting and costume and she was such a great partner-
A lot of pressure to get it right then.
Chboksy: I felt an enormous sense of responsibility, but please keep in mind that when I did Wonder I did it as a fan of that book. I loved that book, so to me it was very easy to take a year and a half of my life and devote it to spreading the word about this wonderful book. So no, I didn’t feel pressure nearly as much as I felt with Perks. It was a great joy and a great opportunity to spread the word to all parts of the world. All I want is for Wonder to be taught in every fifth-grade classroom in the world… and so I made the movie. You know, it was almost as if Hollywood gave me twenty million dollars to make a book commercial… for a book that I love.
Chboksy: Well, actually it was less challenging because I had RJ Palacio. So, I was able to bounce things off of her. I was able to ask her for her view of themes and casting and costume and she was such a great partner-
A lot of pressure to get it right then.
Chboksy: I felt an enormous sense of responsibility, but please keep in mind that when I did Wonder I did it as a fan of that book. I loved that book, so to me it was very easy to take a year and a half of my life and devote it to spreading the word about this wonderful book. So no, I didn’t feel pressure nearly as much as I felt with Perks. It was a great joy and a great opportunity to spread the word to all parts of the world. All I want is for Wonder to be taught in every fifth-grade classroom in the world… and so I made the movie. You know, it was almost as if Hollywood gave me twenty million dollars to make a book commercial… for a book that I love.
What is the first book that truly scared you?
Chbosky: The first book that really scared me... aside from Hansel and Gretel and some of the other fairy-tales which captured my imagination when I was very small, was Stephen King’s The Shining. Both the Stanley Kubrick movie and the novel, which are both brilliant and very different from one another. I love them both. That story has influenced me for my entire life, and it continues to scare me.
The two little girls from the movie terrified me. So much so that I remember going to the LA County Museum of Art, where I live in Los Angeles now, when there was a Stanley Kubrick exhibit. They had the dresses and the shoes on display. I had to be in the room with them for a while and just stare at them. I was hoping to make them less terrifying for myself, and it actually made them more terrifying. I don’t know what it is about those costumes.
I’m very excited about tomorrow, as I am going to visit the Stanley Kubrick archives. And I am going to be given access to a lot of his notes that he compiled while making The Shining. I cannot wait to study it.
Chbosky: The first book that really scared me... aside from Hansel and Gretel and some of the other fairy-tales which captured my imagination when I was very small, was Stephen King’s The Shining. Both the Stanley Kubrick movie and the novel, which are both brilliant and very different from one another. I love them both. That story has influenced me for my entire life, and it continues to scare me.
The two little girls from the movie terrified me. So much so that I remember going to the LA County Museum of Art, where I live in Los Angeles now, when there was a Stanley Kubrick exhibit. They had the dresses and the shoes on display. I had to be in the room with them for a while and just stare at them. I was hoping to make them less terrifying for myself, and it actually made them more terrifying. I don’t know what it is about those costumes.
I’m very excited about tomorrow, as I am going to visit the Stanley Kubrick archives. And I am going to be given access to a lot of his notes that he compiled while making The Shining. I cannot wait to study it.
How does it feel to have your latest book compared to authors such as Stephen King, and do you draw inspiration from other writers?
Chbosky: It’s an honour. He’s my favourite writer of all time. I know other authors might be considered more literary or their prose might be considered more lyrical, but for me... page to page I can’t think of a better storyteller than Stephen King. It’s a massive compliment. There are others that I love too. I love Shirley Jackson. I love Joe Hill, especially for The Fireman. And so many of the great, you know, scary films. Because I am a filmmaker, it’s impossible to ignore the influence of John Carpenter’s Halloween, or The Exorcist or The Omen, or Hitchcock’s Psycho, or The Sixth Sense or The Ring. Even most recently, probably Get Out. All these movies…Nightmare on Elm Street, you name it. There’s so many classics. Night of the Living Dead, made by my hometown hero George Romero, because I’m from Pittsburgh and he did his work in Pittsburgh. All those influences are inside Imaginary Friend, just filtered through my style and my emotional perspectives.
I’m so glad you mentioned Hitchcock. I love his work.
Chbosky: There’s a very interesting exercise that I’ve done in Hollywood where you try to think of filmmakers that have made seven indisputable great films, right? There are so few. Five there are many, six there are a few. But seven or beyond… there’s Hitchcock and maybe a couple of others but it is a very rare list. He’s just the master.
After the huge success of Perks, was it daunting to release something so different?
Chbosky: Well I found it daunting in the sense that I was hoping that the readership would come along with me, but at the same time I love the horror genre as much as I love the coming of age genre and so, for me, I didn’t find it daunting in terms of the writing I found it very exciting to try something new.
To mix heart with horror and to mix all of my cinematic influences with my literary influences and write a book that I would genuinely love to read. And eventually, to adapt it into a movie or a television show that I would want to watch, it’s been great fun. For me, I’ve loved scary stories since I was a small child so writing Imaginary Friend was like coming home.
Perks provides hope, understanding and reassurance for those who have felt like outcasts.
Mental Health issues are central to the stories you tell. How do you feel about this in today’s world and do you feel it’s easier now for people to be open?
Chbosky: I’ve definitely seen a change over the last twenty years in terms of people’s willingness to talk about mental health issues. Also, thanks to social media, thanks to the internet, we have access to so much more information, and we have access to each other. People that have struggled with mental illness. So often, I feel that the most detrimental part of struggling with mental illness is the illusion that you are the only one struggling with it. The more people that talk about it and the more people who share their stories the better off the world is going to be. Because people will realise not only are they not alone in terms of their challenges, but they can share solutions. They can give each other hope and blueprints and ideas about how to overcome some of these challenges.
It’s like I’ve said in the twentieth anniversary edition of Perks when Charlie wrote the letter - you know, we all get an ending. Whether or not its happy is up to us. And that begins by speaking of the challenges that we face.
That final letter (from the new twentieth anniversary edition) really is very emotional. It feels like a great way to revisit Charlie’s story and celebrate the book all these years on.
Chbosky: Mhmm, that means a lot to me that you say that because I obviously had a question in my mind of do I leave Charlie in the past at aged sixteen. I thought, you know, I had this opportunity. I had this chance to say to the next generation of young readers who find the book… that there’s a grown-up who knows exactly how they feel and remembers being that kid. They can tell them with absolute certainty that it does get better. That they are not alone, and that they are going to make it just like he did.
Chbosky: It’s an honour. He’s my favourite writer of all time. I know other authors might be considered more literary or their prose might be considered more lyrical, but for me... page to page I can’t think of a better storyteller than Stephen King. It’s a massive compliment. There are others that I love too. I love Shirley Jackson. I love Joe Hill, especially for The Fireman. And so many of the great, you know, scary films. Because I am a filmmaker, it’s impossible to ignore the influence of John Carpenter’s Halloween, or The Exorcist or The Omen, or Hitchcock’s Psycho, or The Sixth Sense or The Ring. Even most recently, probably Get Out. All these movies…Nightmare on Elm Street, you name it. There’s so many classics. Night of the Living Dead, made by my hometown hero George Romero, because I’m from Pittsburgh and he did his work in Pittsburgh. All those influences are inside Imaginary Friend, just filtered through my style and my emotional perspectives.
I’m so glad you mentioned Hitchcock. I love his work.
Chbosky: There’s a very interesting exercise that I’ve done in Hollywood where you try to think of filmmakers that have made seven indisputable great films, right? There are so few. Five there are many, six there are a few. But seven or beyond… there’s Hitchcock and maybe a couple of others but it is a very rare list. He’s just the master.
After the huge success of Perks, was it daunting to release something so different?
Chbosky: Well I found it daunting in the sense that I was hoping that the readership would come along with me, but at the same time I love the horror genre as much as I love the coming of age genre and so, for me, I didn’t find it daunting in terms of the writing I found it very exciting to try something new.
To mix heart with horror and to mix all of my cinematic influences with my literary influences and write a book that I would genuinely love to read. And eventually, to adapt it into a movie or a television show that I would want to watch, it’s been great fun. For me, I’ve loved scary stories since I was a small child so writing Imaginary Friend was like coming home.
Perks provides hope, understanding and reassurance for those who have felt like outcasts.
Mental Health issues are central to the stories you tell. How do you feel about this in today’s world and do you feel it’s easier now for people to be open?
Chbosky: I’ve definitely seen a change over the last twenty years in terms of people’s willingness to talk about mental health issues. Also, thanks to social media, thanks to the internet, we have access to so much more information, and we have access to each other. People that have struggled with mental illness. So often, I feel that the most detrimental part of struggling with mental illness is the illusion that you are the only one struggling with it. The more people that talk about it and the more people who share their stories the better off the world is going to be. Because people will realise not only are they not alone in terms of their challenges, but they can share solutions. They can give each other hope and blueprints and ideas about how to overcome some of these challenges.
It’s like I’ve said in the twentieth anniversary edition of Perks when Charlie wrote the letter - you know, we all get an ending. Whether or not its happy is up to us. And that begins by speaking of the challenges that we face.
That final letter (from the new twentieth anniversary edition) really is very emotional. It feels like a great way to revisit Charlie’s story and celebrate the book all these years on.
Chbosky: Mhmm, that means a lot to me that you say that because I obviously had a question in my mind of do I leave Charlie in the past at aged sixteen. I thought, you know, I had this opportunity. I had this chance to say to the next generation of young readers who find the book… that there’s a grown-up who knows exactly how they feel and remembers being that kid. They can tell them with absolute certainty that it does get better. That they are not alone, and that they are going to make it just like he did.
When did your passion for writing really begin?
Chbosky: My passion for writing started when I was in elementary school. I was in forth of fifth grade. I keep trying but can’t remember which. I had this writing teacher. She was my first writing teacher and I remember writing this one story in particular. it was called Two Killers in Snug Harbour and the story was that there was this place Snug Harbour in this little town and one of the killers was a killer whale and the other one was a serial killer, like Michael Myres from Halloween. They were both terrorising this little town and then the big twist at the end was that the killer whale killed the serial killer. So, I guess it was kind of like a happy ending.
But I remember on my last day of school, completely out of nowhere she asked me to read it in front of the class. So, I remember reading it standing in front of the class with my hands shaking. But once I’d started reading, I got really into it and was kind of editing it on the fly.
Years later, I told that story to a group of English teachers from Western Pennsylvania, where I’m from, and I’m telling the story and out of the blue in the middle of the audience this lady holds up her hand and she says, “that’s me!” I hadn’t even seen her in maybe thirty or thirty-five years. I don’t even remember. But I finally got to ask her about it. I told her how that was such a huge experience for me to read in front of the class. I wanted to know what did she see in me back then? Did she see something special in my writing? Her honest answer was “Uh... I’m sorry I think I was probably just killing time. I don’t remember at all.”
So, you know, sometimes even just a teacher killing time can change someone’s life.
What advice do you have for new or aspiring writers?
Chbosky: To your readers I would say, first and foremost, to never use the word aspiring, and I’ll tell you why I feel that way. To be a writer it comes from the verb. If you write, you’re a writer. It’s not up to an editor or a publisher or an agent or movie studio or producer to tell you what you are. I very strongly believe that. I also want people to know that their destiny is in their own hands. You know, writing is a wonderful art form because you can do it whenever you want. You don’t have to raise millions of dollars and get a crew and actors together to write. You don’t have to buy clay. These days you don’t even have to buy paper. All you need is a keyboard and your own brain and that’s all that is required. So, I would say first and foremost, to just write.
Also, I would say to any young writer to just not be discouraged. There are a few things that people get discouraged by. The main thing is writer’s block, and I want to invite people to take in a belief that I hold: that there is no such thing as writer’s block. I believe that writers block comes from when you’re trying to edit too quickly. You’re being too harsh on your own words, but what you should do is write today, then edit tomorrow. That way you’re free today to create and tomorrow you can edit and cut and make changes.
Imagine this: I am twenty-one years old and I start writing this book. I’m kind of floundering around, it’s not going well, and I don’t know what it is but I’m trying and trying and trying. Then finally, I get to around page seventy-two and I write ‘well, I guess that’s one of the perks of being a wallflower.’ I stop, and I realise that I wrote seventy-two pages to get to those six words. And those seventy-two pages were worth every second it took me to get there. I needed those first seventy-two pages just to find that sentence. That’s what I mean by there’s no such thing as writer’s block.
Also, young writers need to be kind to themselves. It takes time to master things. People have spent a lot more time reading and consuming books, than they have writing them. So, there’s this disconnect that happens, where they can recognise the greatness of a writer or filmmaker, but they can’t duplicate it yet and that’s really frustrating. You need time to write and create, time to allow your writing to catch up to your consumption.
There are four great steps to follow to dedicate themselves to their best ideas. Firstly, I encourage people to write down every single idea they have. Literally every one. Even if it’s just a sentence or something. Write them all down. Then register those ideas with the writer’s guild, so you can claim that those are your ideas. and share them with five or seven trusted friends or family members. Genuine people whose taste you trust. The final step is to listen to them. What happens is, see taste is not the same thing as talent, and very often writers don’t recognise what is most wonderful about themselves. they don’t recognise what is most universal about their ideas. So maybe they are about to spend years on this idea over here, yet six out of seven of their friends might be so much more drawn to one of your other ideas. That’s when you start to see your work in a different context, and I believe that writing and books should bring people together, not isolate them. So that’s a great four step exercise that I hope will help your readers.
How did collaborating with the cast members on Perks change or enhance the way the story was told onscreen?
Chbosky: That was wonderful. Up until that experience all those characters and all those lines of dialogue just lived in my head. Being able to then pass the baton to Emma Watson and say you are Sam forever. And Logan, you are Charlie. I loved it. I loved working with all the people. Also, to work with all the talented craftspeople behind the scenes. It was wonderful to be able to share the story with all these collaborators and it made me a better storyteller.
I could use music, I could use visuals, all kinds of things to make the audience feel what I wanted them to feel when they read the book. I love the whole cast. It was remarkable to watch Ezra take a scene in a totally different way than you expected. It was so remarkable.
In terms of adapting Imaginary Friend, I’m excited to see where it goes. Because we have this new freedom in the visual medium, I’ll let it be whatever it needs to be. If it becomes a television show, I will say it’ll be very cinematic because that’s how I approach things. There have been many authors that have adapted a book of theirs. I don’t think anyone in movie history has ever done it twice. I would like to try to be the first person to ever do it twice. I love directing and I love writing novels, so we’ll see where it goes.
What other genres would you like to explore next?
Chbosky: Well, I love musicals. I did the screenplay for the movie Rent, I co-wrote the screenplay for The Beauty and the Beast: the live action remake, and I’m attached to direct the movie version of a Broadway musical called Dear Evan Hansen. I don’t think it’s made its way to the West End yet, but I know the soundtrack is well known around the world. I’m really looking forward to doing that musical, and actually I’ve always wanted to try to do something for the stage. I have a couple of play ideas that I’d like to explore, so I might do that, but I think for me it’s always going to come back to writing books and making films. I really like to film things that I can see, feel and touch in real life. There’s nothing quite like getting some actors in a real place, a real location and capturing that lightning in a bottle.
Chbosky: That was wonderful. Up until that experience all those characters and all those lines of dialogue just lived in my head. Being able to then pass the baton to Emma Watson and say you are Sam forever. And Logan, you are Charlie. I loved it. I loved working with all the people. Also, to work with all the talented craftspeople behind the scenes. It was wonderful to be able to share the story with all these collaborators and it made me a better storyteller.
I could use music, I could use visuals, all kinds of things to make the audience feel what I wanted them to feel when they read the book. I love the whole cast. It was remarkable to watch Ezra take a scene in a totally different way than you expected. It was so remarkable.
In terms of adapting Imaginary Friend, I’m excited to see where it goes. Because we have this new freedom in the visual medium, I’ll let it be whatever it needs to be. If it becomes a television show, I will say it’ll be very cinematic because that’s how I approach things. There have been many authors that have adapted a book of theirs. I don’t think anyone in movie history has ever done it twice. I would like to try to be the first person to ever do it twice. I love directing and I love writing novels, so we’ll see where it goes.
What other genres would you like to explore next?
Chbosky: Well, I love musicals. I did the screenplay for the movie Rent, I co-wrote the screenplay for The Beauty and the Beast: the live action remake, and I’m attached to direct the movie version of a Broadway musical called Dear Evan Hansen. I don’t think it’s made its way to the West End yet, but I know the soundtrack is well known around the world. I’m really looking forward to doing that musical, and actually I’ve always wanted to try to do something for the stage. I have a couple of play ideas that I’d like to explore, so I might do that, but I think for me it’s always going to come back to writing books and making films. I really like to film things that I can see, feel and touch in real life. There’s nothing quite like getting some actors in a real place, a real location and capturing that lightning in a bottle.
Thank you to Stephen Chbosky for being so gracious in taking the time to talk with me and discuss some of his work during his current book tour. He was such an interesting person to talk to, and a hugely talented storyteller whether it's behind the lens of a camera, or through the power of his writing. An extremely multi-talented guy!
He will be in London for a few more days before heading on to Paris next. Stephen Chbosky’s new book Imaginary Friend is out now in hardback. It's the perfect scary read for Halloween and you can check out my thoughts in my full book review right here.