I had the immense pleasure of meeting S.E. Hinton in Tulsa last month, and not only did I discover that she is a faithful lurker around these parts, she very graciously agreed to an interview. Her debut novel, THE OUTSIDERS, which she wrote when she was sixteen, revolutionized the children’s book world upon its publication with its realism and immediacy, a stylistic shift that is still reverberating to this day. She is the author of six other much-beloved novels, a picture book, and her new linked story collection, SOME OF TIM’S STORIES, was recently released in paperback, so please check that out.
You grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and still call it home to this day. What does it mean to you as a place, and what it is it about Tulsa that keeps you there?
Well, Tulsa is home, I was born here, still have family here, have friends I go back forty years with here. It’s a city that supports the arts, it’s easy to get around, it’s easy to work here. Tulsa gets the same Internet, same magazines, same cable as larger cities, we have a strong film community that brings us the best foreign and indie movies.
I like having a history with the place I live, seeing what is changing and what stays the same.
And the restaurants here are GREAT.
I would have to agree about Tulsan restaurants. “The Outsiders” is sometimes credited with creating and popularizing Young Adult fiction (YA) as a genre. Did you set out to write something new and different when you were writing? What was your mindset?
I guess in a way I did set out to write something new and different with The Outsiders, because I wanted to read something that dealt with teen life as I saw it. There wasn’t anything realistic for teenagers to read back then; I was through with the horse books, not ready for a lot of adult books, couldn’t stand the “Mary Sue Goes To the Prom” books, so one of the main reasons why I wrote it was to read it. Also, I loved to write, and had been writing since grade school, and I was angry about the social divisions in my very large high school (Will Rogers High).
Something I never knew about “The Outsiders” until we met is that even though you wrote it when you were only 16, it was actually your third novel. What did you learn about writing when you wrote those first two novels? What happened to them?
Like everyone else, I learned from my mistakes. I think every book is practice for the next one. At that time I still needed a lot of practice so I wisely never tried to publish them.
“The Outsiders,” “Rumble Fish,” “Tex,” and “That Was Then… This Is Now” have all been made into movies. What is it like seeing actors play the part of characters you created and having someone else’s vision shaping what the audience sees? Was it tough letting go of the control over your stories or did you enjoy it?
I was lucky enough to be very involved in three of my movie adaptions, Tex, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish. Tim Hunter and Francis Coppola made me welcome on the set–I was there every day–and I got to be in on many aspects of film making. It’s a community way of story telling, and I loved it. Luckily, too, the directors’ vision was close to my own. As a rash generalization, I like actors. They think and talk about things writers do. I was very close to the Tex and Outsiders cast, (my horse played Tex’s horse, and he was a star) they were great actors and good kids.
I would love to work on a movie again. Working with the right people feeds your own energy and imagination.
In recent years you have moved from writing for children to the more adult novel, HAWKE’S HARBOR, and the new collection SOME OF TIM’S STORIES. What prompted this shift, and did you have to adjust as a writer as you moved into new territory?
I just wanted to do something different. HAWKE’S HARBOR seems different from my usual writing, an adventure and horror story, but basically it is about relationships like all my other stuff. I let myself go with that one, all over the globe, and all over the map, sometimes humor and tragedy on one page.
After that one, I went to the strict discipline of the Tim Stories, settling into one voice, allowing only a thousand words a story. I just like to shake things up sometimes. Some Of Tim’s Stories is the best writing I’ve done yet. I’m not going to equal that for a while, so I am working on something very frivolous right now.
You were represented for many years by Marilyn Marlow, a groundbreaking Curtis Brown children’s book agent who passed away in 2003. What was it like working with her, and what was your relationship like?
Marilyn was the first “professional” to read The Outsiders. I still have her first letter to me, saying she thought I had “captured a certain spirit” and would try to find a home for it. My age and inexperience did not seem to matter (although I am sure my spelling horrified her). She sold it to the second publisher who saw it, and I remained with her until her death.
Marilyn looked out for me. She was there to meet the plane when my fifteen year old sister and I (eighteen) came to New York for the first time. I think in a lot of ways, she always thought of me as a child needing protection, she certainly was the last person to think that way, and I loved it. I had to look out for myself and other people at an early age, so it was a great relief that I had Marilyn to deal with the business side of things, who was a tough lady (and I emphasis “Lady” because she always conducted herself as such) and a very thorough agent. Nothing got by her.
But Marilyn was also a personal friend, always concerned about every aspect of my life. I miss her very much.
What is your writing process? Do you get it on the page and revise later? Outline? Plan ahead? Let the writing go where it goes?
I think I’ve tried every writing process there is, trying to find an easy way to write a novel. If I do find it, I’ll publish it and retire. Sometimes I revise as I go. Once I used an outline. One time I thought in terms of movies and wrote scenes out of order, as they occurred to me, and stitched them together later. I wrote That Was Then, This Is Now, two pages a day and did almost no revision. I originally wrote Rumble Fish as a short story, did the novel, and threw that one away because it was too easy, and wrote it again with Rusty James as the narrator, which was not easy at all. The Outsiders was forty pages long, single-spaced, typed, in its first draft. The third draft was the one Marilyn saw. The only thing I am sure of in my “process” is that it involves a lot of staring out the window.
You have a reputation for avoiding the spotlight, which in these media-centric days is something of a rarity. Do you find it difficult to maintain a private life in today’s Internet-driven world?
Nope, not really. Just say no to most interviews. I’m not living in seclusion here. Anybody who wants a look at me can go to the Reasoner’s grocery store, it seems like I’m there every day. I’ve been happily married for thirty-eight years, I ride my horses, read books, swim in my pool, not a lot of headlines here.
Sometimes I get recognized, usually if I’m running into a drug store, with no makeup, unwashed hair and desperate for personal items, but it’s not a problem.
How interesting can a person be who spends a lot of her working hours staring out a window?
What advice do you have for writers who are just starting out?
Write for yourself first. Don’t study the market, it will change before you can get a book done. The writing is the thing to concentrate on. If you don’t want to read it, nobody will. Then read Nathan’s blog and figure out how to get an agent. Actually, my teenage cousin wrote a book, studied Writer’s Market for advice, and received some favorable responses (as well as rejections) from a few publishers, and used them to get an agent. She now has several YA books published and is writing more.
God sent me Marilyn, I can’t really advise writers to wait around for that to happen.
Of course, when it did happen, I had my book ready.
The First Carol says
ooooo, I am intrigued, drawn in and mesmerized by her approach to writing and using different processes. A regular life around regular people that allows a talented person to bring forth rich characters–nice. That no make-up thing, I grew out of that a few years ago. Everyone survives.
RW says
I’m so jealous. I grew up in a small city near Tulsa and when I was a kid, stumbling across her books in the library, nothing had ever felt so real-life to me as sidewalks and streets and vacant lots of her stories. As it happens I was in Tulsa last week, for the first time in years, and while I cruised around town, the geography constantly put me in the mind of, in John Updike’s words, “a countryish boy from a little bit east of Kansas” who stumbles across great literature in the hometown library. I also made my regular stop at the drive-in theater where scenes from the Francis Ford Coppola movie of The Outsiders was filmed. I’m sure my reading and writing life would be nothing like it is, if it existed at all, without S.E. Hinton books.
Chuck H. says
Well, there’s my problem, right there. I waited too long to start my career. I should have started fortysix years ago when I was sixteen. Damn the bad luck!
Word Verification: defic–short for deficient = me.
Marsha Sigman says
I was born right outside of Tulsa and lived there for most of my life. The majority of my family is still there. We grew up with S.E. Hinton’s books and loved them passionately. She has an incredible talent for seeing to the heart of things.
Rick Daley says
Thank you both, that was an excellent interview.
Ms. Hinton, I read many of your books in grade school, and I credit you for helping grow my passion for reading, a gift that I value highly.
To this day I am known on occasion to utter “nothing gold can stay” and to yell “do it for Johnny!”
Now please pardon me, my window beckons my gaze…
Mira says
This was a lovely interview. Thank you so much.
Ms. Hinton, I appreciate that you gave us such a grounded and easy-going picture of what it is to be an author. You make the process sound very accessible and ‘doable.’
Thank you for taking the time to encourage those of us just starting out, and to share your process with us.
Jill of All Trades says
Loved this interview, especially since I live in Tulsa. Read The Outsiders in high school some many, many years ago and was so hooked.
Dennis Cass says
Nice pull, Ponyboy!
Alex Green says
She’s the reason that I’ve been on the two-page-a-day schedule. She’s also just incredibly inspirational and this is so cool.
Dawn Maria says
I still have my tattered, worn copy of THE OUTSIDERS (circa early 1980’s) and both my teen boys have read it, which makes the mom/reader in me glow with delight.
As a writer, this interview was fabulous. Write something you’d want to read! Do it for yourself. Great advice.
Yamile says
Great interview! Thanks for the advise Ms Hinton. I think I always write the same words on my comments, but I mean them. I always learn a lot when I come to your blog Nathan, and I get a surge of energy that keeps me writing and writing, for myself for now.
word verification: phypende. It sounds too much like a swear word in “Argentine” for me to expand on it…
bryngreenwood says
This is such a great interview. As an Okie teenager, I always felt that Ms. Hinton captured a lot of things I was feeling. It was nice, too, to feel that even as a teenager it was okay for me to write.
Joy says
Excellent interview. Thanks!
Reesha says
As always, I come away from these interviews with a few writerly tidbits to stuff in a small pocket for later.
Teagan Oliver says
I, also, still have my worn, much-loved copy of Outsiders. I kept it knowing that when my kids got old enough to read it I would pass it along to them. But when the time came I couldn’t part with it. I bought them their own. Thank you Ms. Hinton for giving me the gift of such a great book.
Eric says
Great interview. The Outsiders was one of my favorites growing up, and now it just amazes me that she wrote it at 16. Part of that doesn’t surprise me though, because the voice was so dead-on with life as a teenager, that it makes perfect sense the novel was written by someone that age. Thank you Nathan, this is a great post.
beth says
Wow.
Thank you so much for sharing this.
Marla Taviano says
How did I not know she wrote The Outsiders when she was 16?!? Wowzers.
Jason Crawford says
Great interview.
Jane says
Thank you for posting this. Hinton is a marvel. I’ve taught The Outsiders in schools from Albuquerque to Oakland, and it never fails to resonate.
“Tell Dally there is still good in the world, I don’t think he knows it.”
Susan McKinney de Ortega says
Nathan Bransford,
Thank you for posting your interview. Last year I taught Advanced English to 12-15 year old Mexican kids. I handed them The Outsiders, hoping to get them excited about reading. It worked!
Susan
Justus M. Bowman says
It’s interesting that she experimented with several writing methods in order to find the easy one. I think a lot of us unpublished writers do the same, but as she pointed out, there really isn’t an easy way; writing takes a lot of time and effort. Laziness does not become a writer.
Summer says
Wow great interview! Thank you both.
Other Lisa says
I can only add my kudos – what a wonderful interview. I love the descriptions of Ms. Hinton’s routine and her attitudes about writing.
Thank-you, Ms. Hinton!
Cass says
Great interview – thanks for sharing.
Looking forward to SCBWI WW this weekend. See you there.
Justine Hedman says
Ms. Hinton I’d like to send out a thank you for sharing your processes with us. And though I must sadly admit to never reading “The Outsiders” it along with “Hawke’s Harbor” have made it to my must read list.
My husband teases me because a lot of my writing time is taken up by staring out the window. He says I live in the world inside my head, and most the time he’s right.
It’s good to hear accounts from authors who have made it. Makes the journey a little more real for people like me just starting out.
A sincere thanks to you for sharing, and to you Nathan for doing the interview and blogging with us.
Justine
Bane of Anubis says
Thanks to both of you!
Dara says
Such an interesting interview! It’s always nice to read about the author behind the book.
I remember we had to read The Outsiders in 8th grade. It was one of the few “required” books that year I actually liked 🙂
TKA says
Thank you, Nathan. This is a great interview.
And thanks to S.E.Hinton for saying ‘yes’ to Nathan’s interview request. I still recall the impact of my first reading of The Outsiders many, many years ago. Now, that’s powerful writing.
Trisha says
This is very interesting. I am definitely going to read “the Outsiders.” My first novel is partly set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and paints quite a different picture than hers.
Stephanie Faris says
Wow. I had no idea The Outsiders was written by a 16-year-old. VERY impressive. I read it when I was a teen and just assumed an adult wrote it.
hannah says
I can’t even talk about how much I admire S.E. Hinton. I’ll probably just blow up or something.
Ms. Hinton, thank you for doing this interview. You’ve been my hero ever since I read The Outsiders when I was eleven and found out how old you were when you wrote it. You were my inspiration that teenage writers really could make it. And while I didn’t quite meet your level of success (I sold my first novel at 17) you were a huge inspiration and I’ve loved every single one of your YA books.
Okay, I will stop gushing now and wipe myself off the floor.
MaLanie says
I lived in Bartlesville, Ok when I read The Outsiders at the age of
13. I related to the characters as I lived a hard life similar to theirs.
Now, I am 37 years old living in OKC and writing about characters that live in Oklahmoma. One book I am working on is set during the dust bowl.
I never in a million years thought I would be writing and using Oklahoma as back drop. Somehow I ended up falling in love with my state.
Thank you SE Hinton, for adding a special memory to my life. And thank you Nathan for sharing this interview (you lucky dog).
Anonymous says
Nathan, you have given us many gifts but this is just a treasure. I can’t even express how much Hinton’s books meant to me as a kid. It was an awakening of sorts to the haves and have nots, the injustices of the world, and that death could even happen to us kids.
And..how comforting is it that this great mind takes to staring out the window just as much as me.
This really made my day. Thank you.
Silicon Valley Diva says
S.E. Hinton, just in case you are lurking today–I just LOVED reading your books!! I am such a fan. Your novels really helped me over the rough patches during my turbulent teens LOL.
I have such fond memories reading them, along with watching the movies:-)
I cannot wait to read your newest book.
What a pleasure, reading your interview today on Nathan’s blog.
Thanks to both you and Nathan for the interview. Made my day!
Shakier Anthem says
Great interview — thanks!
Cat Moleski says
Thanks for such an inspiring interview! Every time I panic about not being trendy with my writing, I remind myself that I am writing what I want to write not trying to time the market. Thanks for the reinforcement.
sex scenes at starbucks says
SE Hinton is one of my all time favorite authors. I’m so glad you did this interview with her!
I actually met Ms Hinton in fourth grade. She came to my school. I still remember her very clearly.
She inspired my best friend Sheri (who now teaches Creative Writing at Univ of Georgia) and me in our writing. We traded stories for over a year in regular critique group fashion.
And I still have my OUTSIDERSesque first novel, written with #2 on notebook pages when I was thirteen. Hey, at least I finished it.
reader says
Wonderful interview!
Thanks Nathan and Ms. Hinton!
Litgirl01 says
The Outsiders was one of my FAVORITE books when I was a kid! Thank you for the interview!
susiej says
The Outsiders was my 13 year old daughter’s summer reading requirement last year. Its still as intriguing to them now as it was then.
I thought the bit her cousin was interesting. I’ve always heard not to go to editors first because it puts off agents.
I had some trouble with that myself by speaking to an editor at a conference. She said she was definitely interested and suggested I speak with an agent who was also there. I actually already had; she’d requested a partial. When I informed the agent of the editor’s remark in my follow up email-I never heard from her again. Not even a rejection on my partial.(it was 6 months ago)
kathleen duey says
I had dinner with Ms Hinton once. I was completely charmed,then inspired, in that great get-to-work way which is so much more useful that the dreamy kind. I could not agree more about experiments,new approaches. It’s a very exciting time to be a writer.
must-love-comma says
My query letter says that I wrote my latest novel just because I wanted to read it. I suppose it’s not a particularly unusual sentiment, but the fact that S.E. Hinton said the very same thing the day after I sent out my query…seriously, this is my first brush with coincidental greatness.
I mean, it’s S.E. HINTON! Wow.
Fantastic interview, all fangirl fluttering aside. Lucky Nathan.
Kristi says
The Outsiders was one of my favorite books as a child, and I had no idea at the time that it was written by a teenager – amazing.
I did notice that Ms. Hinton has also published a picture book, so maybe her agent didn’t normally represent PB’s but would do it for an existing client. Hmmmm…
Karen Schwabach says
I loved those four S.E. Hinton books as a kid. I remember, when Tex came out in paperback, going to the bookstore and buying a copy.
It was an independent bookstore. It was a time when a kid could buy a book with the kind of money a kid had.
Anyway, they were great books.
Scott says
Thanks Nathan and Ms. Hinton for that interesting and enlightening little interview. And I found the bit about Marilyn very touching.
Of course, I couldn’t help but wonder what she would think if someone came along and published those first two novels of here after she left us. 🙂
Cheers, and thanks again.
Anonymous says
I heard her speak recently and was surprised by her extremely droll sense of humor.
More so, what she said about her writing process – that she becomes the character – was affirming and encouraging. Sometimes, I think I’m nuts for slipping into the mindset of someone else and hearing her address this was a relief.
The day prior to hearing her speak, I listened to a panel -comprised of five YA (female) authors – who revealed they could ‘never’ write about a boy’s experience. It was fascinating to hear Hinton explain she couldn’t write anything BUT boys’ experience.
In the bigger picture, I think it’s interesting that she successfully forged a career as a young person (writing about her peers) and has continued while branching out into other genres, etc.
I’m curious to read the inevitable thesis written by a grad student about Hinton, Laura Albert/JTLeRoy and Dennis Cooper and how they’ve addressed, in wildly varying styles, the topic of the American adolescent boy.
Thank you, Nathan, for posting this – for me, at least, it gave me a sense of being one among many on a previously tramalled (?) path.
Ink says
– trammelled –
🙂
Merry Monteleone says
Okay, Nathan, now you did it – I’m about to gush terribley.
S.E. Hinton was my absolute favorite FAVORITE writer… actually still is way up there. It was the voice… it was definitely the voice.
I was an avid reader already, but most of the kids in my neighborhood weren’t, and we all loved those books. I love language, but those were the first novels I read that sounded like something we’d say, feel, do… not some faraway and much more cultured place.
Funny, when you think about it, the author from Tulsa is the one that most resonated with the kids growing up in Chicago.
Loved the post Nathan. And thank you, Ms. Hinton, for taking the time.
Anna Claire says
S.E. Hinton gives beautiful interviews. Thanks, Nathan, this was really lovely.