Becoming the creator of one of the best-selling horror book series in the world requires discipline, time and an active imagination; all traits mastered by R. L. Stine, author of the “Goosebumps” and “Fear Street” series.
Stine’s career defining work, “Goosebumps”, has generated approximately 400 million sales worldwide since its debut in 1992. But 40 years earlier, as Robert Lawrence Stine, he began his journey towards literary success. At just nine years old, Stine was writing and self-publishing his short stories to classmates while running his own school magazine column, “Stine’s lines.” While attending Ohio State and working at Scholastic, Stine took up the pen name “Jovial Bob” under which he wrote books and articles. By the time he wrote “Goosebumps”, Stine had already established writing as not just a part of his work, but life in general, one that he enjoyed.
Stine attributes this prodigious work ethic to his working class upbringing; having to wear hand-me-downs to school led to a shy childhood; one mostly spent indoors with his typewriter. “I had to wear my cousin’s old clothes to school,” Stein said. “I think it made me very shy. It’s one reason I liked staying in my room and writing.”
Though many young writers attribute success to luck and talent, Stine’s journey proves otherwise. Stine didn’t miraculously strike gold as a novice; instead, he spent 16 years working an editorial job with Scholastic Books, until he wrote his first book, “Blind Date”, in 1986. Then in July of 1992, Stine signed a six-book contract with Scholastic, after which he wrote a new book every month for 5 years; approximately one book per month. Since then, Stine has written over 200 books in the “Goosebumps” series, with the first one being “Welcome to Dead House” (1992) and the latest, “Scariest. Book. Ever.” (2023). It wasn’t upon timing and a gift did Stine build his success, but through perseverance and consistency.
R.L. Stine’s career as a great children’s book writer, is not just defined by such consistency, but also an extreme imagination that wanders to and from one’s mind and reality. According to this post, Stine writes 2,000 words every morning and that’s it. He repeats this schedule every day, resulting in up to 12,000 words per week or about half a book. Another piece of advice that R.L. Stine gives is to say “Yes,” to every idea that may pop up. This allows writers to get as many opportunities as possible for honing and displaying their craft. One of Stine’s tips being “By saying yes to random opportunities, he stumbled into success.” Experience in any literary medium teaches one the virtue of just spilling it all out, good or bad, because one cant determine whether something is good or bad without seeing it on the page.
In addition to talking about his writing process, Stine also gives plenty of advice to young writers who may be intimidated by the idea of writing. He once said, “If you start out thinking writing is hard, it will be hard for you. If you think about the fun you’re having creating characters, creating a world, your writing will go much more easily for you, ” Stine explained in this article. If a writer isn’t enjoying the writing process then they won’t create writing that engages the audience.
One last piece of advice that Stine offers writers is to enjoy writing the first draft of their work. Doing so allows the writer to not only write out everything they mean to say but also relax with confidence. As he said in the aforementioned article, “And then, you can do the harder work later on the other drafts and shape it up.” He says once you’ve finished the first draft, “you’ve proven to yourself that you can do it.”
R.L. Stine’s life, writing process and achievement as one of the greatest writers of all time is not just the result of being born talented. Instead R.L. Stine attributes his success to discipline, consistency and grit. To Stine, to all writers really, writing should be a fun process that teaches through practice and through practice creates success.
