Adam Sternbergh
Author of Shovel Ready and Near Enemy
Discussion
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
I'm the author of two near-future dystopian crime novels set in New York: SHOVEL READY, which was nominated for a 2015 Edgar Award and was a Newsweek Favorite Book of 2014, and its sequel NEAR ENEMY, released this year. I'm also a contributing editor to New York magazine and its culture website Vulture, and the former Culture Editor of the New York Times Magazine. I usually write about movies, TV, celebrity, and the culture of pop culture. You can find me at adamsternbergh.com
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Russ Frushtick
@russfrushtick
@sternbergh What's your favorite book from the dystopian genre?
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@russfrushtick There are a few dystopian books I really like — THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy, for example — but I'm probably more influenced, dystopia-wise, by movies. I think CHILDREN OF MEN, for example, is a great example of an imagined dystopia that feels very real.
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@sternbergh @russfrushtick I also love BLOOD MERIDIAN, which is sort of a backwards-looking dystopia.
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
@sternbergh @russfrushtick what'd you think of The Circle? or the TV Show Black Mirror?
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@eriktorenberg @russfrushtick I did not read THE CIRCLE! I read an excerpt that ran in the Times Magazine. I kept wondering, What would I think of this if I actually worked in that world? It seemed… outsidery.
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
@sternbergh @russfrushtick indeed it was. but certainly had its moments.
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@eriktorenberg @russfrushtick I have it — I will check it out again.
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
http://nymag.com/realestate/feat... This is one of my favorite pieces I've read period. How do you look at this piece years later? Tell me more about this.
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@eriktorenberg Thanks! That is a particular favorite of mine. I can't claim credit for the idea — an editor at New York magazine noticed this particularly effective troll who was just torturing everyone in the comment section on a Brooklyn real estate blog. I was very skeptical about it as a magazine story — until I read the comments, and realized there was a whole novel's-worth of material, right there in these anonymous posts, about people's hopes, fears, dreams, and anxieties, all wrapped up in the metaphor of real estate. I haven't re-read the piece in awhile but I do have a souvenir of it in my home office — the cover of the issue it appeared in.
David T. Cole
@glark · Through Methods
@sternbergh In Near Enemy there is no reference to Wookiee sex in the Limn. When did Lucasfilm get to you? Thanks.
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@glark The Chewbacca sex was very popular! See this: http://www.esquire.com/entertain...
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@sternbergh @glark There is definitely an untapped market there or, more likely, an already tapped market there.
David T. Cole
@glark · Through Methods
@sternbergh May the force be with them. Thank you for your answer.
Rick Chang
@rickchangto
@sternbergh Which "Hey, it's that guy(s)!" would you like to see in the Spademan movie adaptations?
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@glark @rickchangto Clint Howard would make a great Do-Best! I actually thought quite a bit about James Rebhorn as the pastor from SHOVEL READY — he would have been perfect. He is who I was picturing in my mind. Alas, he passed away recently. But he is awesome.
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@sternbergh @rickchangto This is James Rebhorn: http://www.phillymag.com/ticket/...
Rick Chang
@rickchangto
@sternbergh @rickchangto There must be a place for Al Leong!!!
Melissa Joy Kong
@melissajoykong · Content, Product Hunt
Piggybacking on Emily's question above! I'm in the middle of writing a book (non-fiction). I don't often get "writer's block" with blog post-style writing; it usually just pours out of me. But I find myself wrestling intensely with resistance when it comes to book writing. I sense the solution is to not wait to "feel" like writing, and consistently engage in a behavior that gets me in the habit of writing for a significant chunk of time each day (e.g. waking up two hours early to write first thing when I wake up every day without fail).
Do you have a process/habit that keeps you writing?
Do you create an outline first, or just write and see where the characters/story take you?
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@melissajoykong Good luck with the book! I also do the "write very first thing in the morning before you've even read your emails/opened Twitter/allowed the latest headlines to send you into a tail-spin of despair" method. I do think that if the writing feels hard, you're not approaching it exactly correctly — that good writing should flow pretty freely. However, it's getting that flow started that can be difficult. A pretty good piece of advice I've heard is to stop "writing" it and just imagine you're sending a letter or long text to a friend. That will at least free you up and start to allow your brain to do the work of ordering the information, figuring out what is important and what isn't, etc — all stuff we do pretty naturally when we're, say, telling a story in a bar.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
Hi Adam, thanks for joining us today. How do set out to write a book - can you talk us through process? Were these stories you something you always wanted to write, or did they develop as you started writing them?
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
@ems_hodge i'd be curious to know your process for books vs magazine pieces
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@eriktorenberg @ems_hodge WIth magazine pieces, you always have something to start with: It's about corralling all this information, and all these interviews, then trying to winnow all that down to the essential parts of the story that is there to be told. Fiction is sort of the opposite: You start with nothing. From there, it's a kind of a Big Bang — you create this whole universe, full of characters, circumstances, everything is under your control. Fiction is obviously more freeing. But non-fiction is very satisfying as well — ironically, in my experience, it's a lot more like detective work than writing detective stories is.
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@sternbergh @ems_hodge I also think that with narrative non-fiction, you have a certain responsibility to write with style, but to also make sure the language isn't impeding the telling of the story. With fiction you can go to town. Style is one of the primary enjoyments I get from reading fiction.
Jake Crump
@jakecrump · Community Team with Product Hunt
@sternbergh Where did you get the idea for Spademan? More specifically, what made you decide to make him a former garbage man?
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@jakecrump Hey all — thanks for the questions! I'll answer this one first because it's the easiest. When I was a kid, there was a waste disposal company in Canada called Spademan Waste Disposal. As a young Dashiell Hammett fan, I liked the resonance with Sam Spade, naturally, plus it just sounded cool. I always liked the name… so it seemed only fair to make him a garbageman in honor of that inspiration.
Melissa Joy Kong
@melissajoykong · Content, Product Hunt
In the last five or so years, there has been a resurgence of the dystopian genre (both movies and books).
(1) Why do you think us humans are so attracted to dystopian plots?
(2) Do you think our world will evolve to become more dystopian in the next 100 years?
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@melissajoykong This is a good question — I think we're in a golden age of dystopias, which must mean something: Maybe we're anxious about the future, or about our relationship to technology, or the speed at which things are changing. It's telling that dystopias from the early 20th century, like 1984 or BRAVE NEW WORLD, where often about totalitarian regimes, and today's are almost always about civilization's collapse. We all fear the super bug.
Melissa Joy Kong
@melissajoykong · Content, Product Hunt
What books have most shaped your personal literary style?
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@melissajoykong There are some pretty obvious influences — James Ellroy, James Cain, Raymond Chandler, the Frank Miller of Marvel Comics in the 1980s. There are a few poets I really like and admire in their use of language: Anne Carson, Frederick Seidel, Michael Robbins. I really love a Canadian writer named Derek McCormack who writes with incredible precision and economy. His novel THE HAUNTED HILLBILLY is fantastic and well-worth checking out.
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
@sternbergh In tech it's pretty common to copy other companies/business models or even modify them slightly, and, as long as it's recognized, people don't really look down upon it (e.g. Steve Jobs was the great tinkerer, not inventor).
How do you make sense of this as it relates to writing? Is originality important? What does it even mean?
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Adam Sternbergh
@sternbergh · author
@eriktorenberg @melissajoykong Tough question. I think originality is very important — but sometimes that originality comes through in how you tackle material which itself may seem familiar to fans of a particular genre. For example: There are many, many Private Eye novels that start with someone in distress contacting or visiting a private eye. Yet some of these novels are classics, and some are entirely disposable. A smart writer and critic, Lev Grossman, once likened genre writing to a chess game: You often start with familiar pieces, but it's what you do with them that counts. I think that's about right.
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
@sternbergh @melissajoykong @eriktorenberg is work that's deritative inherently less interesting? for example I was inspired by your Brooklyn "What" piece to write a piece on Detroit, but it came out ...looking awfully similar to yours.
Do you ever start pieces this way - by being inspired by another piece and modifying it to fit your goals?