Renowned science communicator, entrepreneur, and author Hank Green discusses his debut novel, “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.” In this special episode of Curiosity Daily, he talks about his writing process, how he approached writing a novel from the perspective of a young woman, some of the themes of the book, and what it was like writing a book as a citizen of the Internet. Plus: get the exclusive scoop on what this book has to do with being a pet detective! Hear the full, uncut interview FOR FREE on our Patreon page. If you support our show as a Patron, you’ll also get exclusive episodes and access to our podcast archives! Pick up “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” on Amazon and everywhere books are found. You can also follow Hank Green and Curiosity Daily hosts Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer on Twitter.
Renowned science communicator, entrepreneur, and author Hank Green discusses his debut novel, “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.” In this special episode of Curiosity Daily, he talks about his writing process, how he approached writing a novel from the perspective of a young woman, some of the themes of the book, and what it was like writing a book as a citizen of the Internet. Plus: get the exclusive scoop on what this book has to do with being a pet detective!
Hear the full, uncut interview FOR FREE on our Patreon page. If you support our show as a Patron, you’ll also get exclusive episodes and access to our podcast archives!
Pick up “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” on Amazon and everywhere books are found. You can also follow Hank Green and Curiosity Daily hosts Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer on Twitter.
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/hank-green-talks-about-his-writing-process-and-his-debut-novel-an-absolutely-remarkable-thing
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi, I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: This is a very special bonus episode of Curiosity Daily with renowned science communicator Hank Green. He created the YouTube channels Crash Course and SciShow, and he co-stars in the super popular Vlogbrothers YouTube channel with his brother and fellow author, John Green. Hank just published his first book titled An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.
Ashley and I had the chance to talk to him about it, and we thought we'd share it with you because Hank is a smart dude. And he's got some really cool insights into what it's like to write a book. If you like it and you want to hear more, then you can find the full interview on our Patreon page at patreon.com/curiosity.com, all spelled out, for free. Enjoy.
What's your elevator pitch for the book? And how do you describe it to somebody who is like, all right, what's this book about?
HANK GREEN: I think it's about a lot of different things, so I have a hard time with that. But it's about a young woman who finds a robot statue and names it Carl, makes a video with it. And then that video goes viral, in part, because she's charming. But in larger part, because that one statue turned out to be one of 63 others that just appeared overnight all across the world. And no one can explain them.
And April gets a little taste of fame. And then works very hard but also has-- also is sort of like-- in part, due to her own ambition and hard work and in part, due to the peculiarity of the mystery that she is in brought deeper into this and becomes a bit of a pundit, a bit of a celebrity, and a bit of a thought leader, all at once, as a 23-year-old, who is not really well prepared for the mental exercise of that.
CODY GOUGH: I think that sums it up pretty well as well.
HANK GREEN: OK. [LAUGHS] Wasn't really an elevator-- hopefully, that was a pretty long elevator ride. We were going to for maybe 16, 22, up there, pretty long pitch.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. That's all right. I used to take an express elevator up to 41 at one of my last jobs. So I understand it can take a while. It's funny, I got the book. I started reading. I came in to work, and I turned to Ashley. And I was like, it's written in first person from the perspective of a female. Is that allowed?
[LAUGHTER]
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
CODY GOUGH: And she kind of--
ASHLEY HAMER: I shared all of the memes that are online of male writers writing women.
HANK GREEN: Oh, god.
ASHLEY HAMER: And apparently, you did-- yeah, it looks like you did a really great job writing as a woman.
HANK GREEN: [LAUGHS] Yeah. I mean, it's terrifying. And I did have a lot of help on the sort of-- like I had a lot of people who read the book with an eye specifically toward-- like me, paying them to say like what-did-I-do-wrong kinds of things. But I also paid a lot of attention to those criticisms that you've seen on the internet.
And I don't think that I would have made some of those mistakes. Some of the things that you see are just really funny, like my breasts felt so cozy in my brassiere. And it's just like, oh, that sounds like how people feel about their bodies. At one point in the story, April closes her boob in a door. And that was my-- that's my favorite-- like me going-- I went on Twitter.
And I searched for closed boob in door to see if this was a thing that had ever happened to a woman. And indeed, it has.
ASHLEY HAMER: [LAUGHS]
HANK GREEN: So I felt like getting comfortable both with trying to understand how you are viewed and how society and culture looks at a female body is different from how it looks at a male body. So that was something that I felt like I needed to try to understand pretty deeply. And then also, there are-- and sort of more-- that more than like character attributes, which I feel can be pretty malleable.
And as we study the science of sex and gender, we see that there are tendencies but no absolutes in those things. So that, I feel like is easier to get right than how you are treated societally. But also, that choice didn't feel like a choice to me, it felt like. I was telling April's story from the very beginning. And oftentimes, I would write something and be like, that doesn't seem like something April would do but have no idea what that meant or where that came from.
CODY GOUGH: Interesting. So what motivated that decision in the first place for you to sit down? I mean, was that from day one, you sat down, you're like, I'm going to write this from the perspective of first-person female? How did the process start for you?
HANK GREEN: So the honest answer is really dumb. I wanted to write a middle-grade story about a pet detective named April May. And then I was like, no, I don't want to write that book. And instead, I want to write a book about this thing that I came up with, this very strange scene that involves grape jelly. And if you've read the book, you will know what that is. And if not, it doesn't sound like a spoiler.
And I had that, and I want to write that book. But maybe, I could take this character that I created to be a pet detective for a middle-grade novel. This is the first time I've admitted to this. Then that will be-- I can combine those two things. And it will be a way to get to this weird scene that I imagined with jelly. And that was kind of it.
And it didn't-- in character creation of April, specifically, I didn't feel like I was creating her. I felt like I was finding her and testing out things and being like, that doesn't seem right. And I know that that is a process of creation, but it didn't feel like it. And I do not understand it. I don't know how it happened, so I have a hard time talking about it.
CODY GOUGH: It's written in such a natural internety modern way, right? Like every little reference you have, all the ways of talking, it's super contemporary. And we're in a world where everyone seems to be reading more, but it's like micro-reading. Felt like Twitters and clips and short articles and Facebook posts. And there's a different linguistic structure, almost.
I feel like you've probably spent-- I mean, you do spend a lot of time on the internet, I would imagine. I wonder if you made that harder to sit down and write a book. Did you have any particular exercises or anything to kind of break out of that Twitter mode and switch into like, I'm writing a book style, where I have to actually finish an entire paragraph and then finish an entire page?
HANK GREEN: [LAUGHING] Well, first, I want to say thank you for saying that. That was something that when I first started the voice of the book and first started to understand it, I was like, this is different because it is written from the perspective of a person who is a citizen of the internet. And my editors and my publisher was very amenable to that.
And I want to be thankful to them for it. That is a little weird. And there are times that it maybe gets in the way of the story a little bit, even. But I think that it's necessary for it to establish the voice and the feel. And I was thinking like, that would be the thing that would make the book stand out. And it has not been something that anyone has mentioned yet. So I'm glad someone noticed because I thought it was a big deal.
[LAUGHING]
But like in addition to writing tweets, probably the majority of the words that I have written in the last 10 years have been video scripts. And they tend to be about 600 to 800 words. And they are short essays. And so that is a structure where there are paragraphs, and there is a narrative structure. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that is, of course, thus, the style of writing that I'm most comfortable with.
And when I found that I could sort of do that in a book form in a way, not entirely-- because, of course, there's also dialogue, and there's scenes, and there's action and stuff. But that allowed me a path to understanding how writing could be possible. Because when I had tried to write in more traditional ways, I had been like, I don't understand. This is very hard. And so it was like me, leaning on a skill that I already had.
CODY GOUGH: Is there a main takeaway you want people to get out of the book? Or is there like a most proud moment you have from this book that you really hope that people notice?
HANK GREEN: I mean, that would be a spoiler, I think. But like friendship-- the moments when I was like, oh, these people really love each other. And you can tell that. And those were big ones for me. And then the other thing that I hope people-- I hope that people have a lot of fun. And I hope that people consider their relationship and their position as a member of sort of like-- as a citizen of this whatever we are.
And the same way that I'm a citizen of a town and a state and a country, I'm also a citizen of these internet platforms.
CODY GOUGH: Well, thanks a lot for spending a few minutes with us, Hank. It was an awesome book. And good on you. And we're going to be following you very closely. We love all that you're up to.
HANK GREEN: Great. Thank you very much.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.