Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This is Played Forward,
Real People, Real Stories, The Struggle to Play it Forward. Episode
number six sixteen is with author Ridley Pearson. Good morning, how are you
doing today? Good This is Ridley Pearson calling Ridley Pearson. I have waited
a lifetime to talk with you, sir. You are the great exaggerator of
all times. Arrow, I've found you. The way that you bring stories
together reminds me so much of when the musicians say songs evolve. Well,
Ridley, you do the same thing with stories. Stories evolve, and you
are such a master at that. You're very kind. Thank you. And
I was a musician for well, I still am a musician, but I
was a hardcore music when it comes to writing. Are you listening to music,
because I mean my past couple of books have music was so important in
the background. Yeah. No, I often do sort of a soundtrack behind
me, I like classical music or you know, sort of Hans, because
my stuff is generally sort of action related. But yes, I don't always,
but quite often I have music playing and sort of setting a tone for
the scene I'm writing. Wow Wow, the name of the book that we're
talking about today is Kingdom Keeper's Inheritance Villain's realm. You like to kind of
push that envelope a little bit, don't you take it to a level where,
yeah, it's for ya readers, but you know, adults like this
kind of stuff too. It's really fun that adults like it so much.
It surprised me, but we Disney. We've sold a couple million copies of
the various Kingdom Keepers books, and Disney finally did a study on it and
they found that half the books are bought by adults for their own pleasure.
Yep, So it's fun. I mean, we're mainly aimed at sort of
ten eleven, twelve thirteen, that middle grade sweet spot. But I think
because the books have so much back stage Disney information in them, the Disney
allowed me to see and share that the adults who really love Disney sort of
can't resist the peak behind the curtain. What is it like for you to
work so close with Disney, because I mean they've always been such a you
know, we're going to protect our image and our storylines. We're going to
keep it original. Yeah. Yeah, and they're still that way, and
you know, I still hit speed bumps with them, but they they sort
of invited me to do this. They I through a real bizarre set of
circumstances. It actually happened because I wrote a thank you note, but I
wrote a fank you note because Disney treated me like a VIP at their parks
years ago. And that eventually led to a phone call with Disney Books,
and I pointed out to the editor I was speaking to that when you're on
some of these theme parks, they just sort of want to make you nauseous.
But in Disney, each attraction, I could see a beginning, middle,
and end to a story. And I told the editor this, and
she said, so you want to write for Disney? I said, sure,
what do you got? And they had been looking to write a thriller
inside their theme parks for young readers, but without violence, without weapons,
you know, in the most magical place on earth. So something that was
kind and gentle but really thrilling. And that's a challenge. So I submitted
five different outlines to them, and finally, in one I turned the kids
into hologram guides in the future. And once the kids were holograms and nothing
could happen to it Hologram, the attorneys said, great, go with that,
and now we're twelve books in. Wow. See that's one of those
things where you relied so much on stream thinking, you trusted your your creative
process and then you set it free and people bit I did, and I
got turned down four times before that. I had some good ideas but they
said, no way brother doing that one. Yeah. So I mean,
and part of my process is when I when I speak at middle schools,
I talk about not only beginning, middle, and end, but I observe
and write and edit. Yes, and I need to observe. So for
my crime novels that I write for adults, I talk to the police.
I talked to forensics, I talked to medical examiners, I talked to criminal
psychiatrists. And for this this series of books, I said that Disney,
the problem here is I need to be inside your parks after hours when no
one's there. And they said, and they said, as if you know,
we just do not allow that. And I said, well, that's
when the kids are going to be there. The kids are going to be
there at you know, three in the morning, as these holograms trying to
fight Disney villains. How can I do this if I don't do that.
So a month later they agreed, and I still carry a VIP pass that
gets me into their parks around the world for free, and if I call
ahead, they give me a Disney imagineer and I go inside their attractions at
like four in the morning, and it's so spooky I couldn't just write about
it, you know, it's verifying. Yeah, I've been to a Renaissance
festival way late at night and walking through there because in the daytime, you
know, it's all vibrant with music and fun. Yeah yeah, yeah,
oh, but not at night. MMM's axis falling on your neck during that
hour? Well what did you learn as being that student of being, you
know, being there at three four o'clock in the morning because you didn't go
into this thing as an adult? Yeah, I mean when you go in
there at four in the morning and you walk it takes about an hour to
walk the attraction and have them tell you how they pull off the magic and
the illusions and then they turn them on. But for instance, when I
went into It's a Small World on my very first of these thirty trips,
they let me into Small World and we walked it for about an hour hour
and a quarter and then they brought in a crew at five in the morning
to turn it on for me so I could ride it. And I asked
them, could I ride it with the lights off, the music off,
and the dolls turned off? And Small World, for those that don't know,
is a It has this song that goes Once you hear the song,
you can't forget it for three weeks. And it has these crazy dolls dancing
around to that song and singing in all these languages. It's really a wonderful
ride, but when the dolls are turned off, it's spooky. And I
got about three two or three scenes into that ride and two of those dolls
that were turned off they stepped forward. I just jumped off my seat and
the boat and this, you know adult I was being toured by. I
said, what's wrong with you? Two of the dolls moved and they said,
Ridley, you're an adult. Two of the dolls did not move.
I am going to go to my grave telling you two of those dolls move.
And I wrote down a note that said, Small World, two of
the dolls move. Scared me to death. Yep. And then I just
wrote a chapter about that. You know, so so I mean, really,
you just have to observe and it's all right there for you in this
new book. I love Cinderella's Godmother. And first of all, where were
you at mentally and physically when you came up with notorious IMG? What an
original idea? No, it was it was just to Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
you know. I just I could see that fairy Godmother was going to be
the notorious FGM. And you know that because she's so legendary, but we
don't see her very often. And I met her. I met the Fairy
Godmother in an undisclosed location inside Cinderella's castle, and it was like the coolest
thing that ever happened to me. Is completely by mistake, and it probably
shouldn't have happened, but there I was speaking with her, and I just
invoicing this character for Inheritance Villain's Realm, I just had so much fun.
You when you write, you don't know where you know, so much is
unexpected, and in this case, she was going to be in the book
for about two pages, and I just fell in love with this gal.
She she talks in her itty bitty bittity boop stuff. She's got her little
blue hair, she wants her cup of tea. She's very proper and so
sweet, and I just I loved writing her. So now she's fully in
all three books. And hear, do you think that your books will change
the park in a way to where they kind of create like a little dark
area, you know, and you know, to kind of inspire kids that
it's like, oh my god, it's just like the book. I would
love it. They do, I have heard, and they've said this for
years now, but I have heard that at some point they may dedicate an
attraction just to the villains. Yes, and that's kind of the premise of
Inheritance and the Villain's Realm book. All the books stand alone, but this
is the second book, Villain's Realm, and it's about the fact that the
Villain's Realms built in the parks where a wonderful idea until all the villains ended
up in them and started turning the parks really creepy and dark. So the
kids have to stop that. I read a story recently about one of the
reasons why Disney likes the Villains is because viewers and readers like the villains.
They see a little bit of themselves. But at the same time they like
that that's spooking us about them, and the way they look is so important,
like Ursula right here on this front cover. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't doubt that. I think you know, in all literature,
I mean takes Silence of the Lambs or something. You know, in literature,
the dark characters are somehow more interesting yep. Because they're conflicted. You
feel somewhat sympathetic sometimes for them, and then you don't like yourself because the
person is a murderer. How can you feel sa pathetic for a murderer?
But dark characters and antagonists are really tricky to write, and if you get
them right, they seem to have more depth and more resonance with the readers
than the best of heroes. Go. Figure, where can people go to
find out more about you, your writing and everything else, especially your music.
If they go to find out about my music era they'll give up on
it. No, I mean I'm on social media as Ridley Pearson r I
D L E Y P E A R S O N. And we have
a website Ridley Pearson dot com where you can see all sixty three of my
books. Wow, and bookstores should have this I do have sort of a
special treat for your listeners, which is there's a bookstore called Left Books in
Saint Louis, Missouri, and if you call or email Left Bank Books,
I will autograph not only autograph a book. You can get autograph book,
but I will personalize it for you or your child or whoever for the next
week or two. So Left Bank Books in Saint Louis, Missouri. Oh
my god, dude, you've got to come back to this show anytime in
the future. I love where your heart is and I love where your imagination
is always growing. I love your questions. Thanks for this. You're awesome
man. Well can you be brilliant today? Okay, okay, you too,