Neal Shusterman Revisits The Scythedom In Gleanings

This interview is a personal win for me because it is with the brilliant mind behind the Arc of a Scythe series, Neal Shusterman! The original trilogy explores a world where humanity has done away with bureaucracy, corrupt government and even death. All of that has been replaced with the benevolent AI Thunderhead, who takes care of the living, but for the immortal masses who still need to die, there exists the Scythedom. A collective of humans chosen to be the hand of Death and take the lives that no longer end. Gleanings is a collection of stories of Scythes we’ve already met and a couple of strangers who pull back the curtain and show us more of this fantastic futuristic utopian world.

Keshav Kant  

While I was prepping for our chat today, I found an interview with Liri and Eva of Book People, that you wanted to dive more into a lot of the stories that we see in Gleanings to do with, you know, Faraday and also about like Scythe Curie becoming the woman she is. 

That was almost three years ago. So how do you feel now, having written how Susan became the formidable Grand Dame of Death?

Neal Shusterman  

It feels fantastic! It’s wonderful to get the chance to spend time with these characters at different points in their lives. I already had their backstories in my thoughts, but flushing out them and experiencing those things with them is a great deal of fun from a writer’s point of view. Especially Scythe Curie and also Goddard when he was a teenager. You know, what kind of creepy teenager was he that led him to become the man he became?

Keshav Kant  

Absolutely! I love that you also expanded upon the universe there. Especially because we saw sections about these dogs that are now on par or even more intelligent than humans. 

And this was a question I had for later in the interview, but I’m just going to bring it up now. I found it hilarious that in Gleanings, there’s a community that essentially denied the existence of the Scythes, especially with the past couple of years of just denialism of people refusing to accept COVID as a thing and climate change and everything. What compelled you to have that addition?

Neal Shusterman  

Exactly what you said! The deniers, the climate change deniers, the anti-vaxxers. I just wanted to be able to tell an allegorical story that dealt with that. That whole idea of saying that it’s not real, and then people still deny it even when it’s proven that it is. And just the entire last paragraph of the story is the gist of it. That you know, no matter how much you prove it, there’s always going to be those who will refuse it and find an excuse that defies science, defies logic, because to admit they were wrong, they have to upend their entire belief system. So ultimately, the problem is that the energy it takes to unearth your belief system is much more energy than is required to accept something untrue. 

And unfortunately, it’s a problem with society, and that’s what we’re facing right now. It’s something we need to address, something that we’re dealing with in our society in one way or another.

Keshav Kant  

Absolutely. That is what makes Arc of a Scythe one of my favourite series. One thing I was curious about is that you mentioned in past interviews that entire sections of the books were edited out. Was there anything left on the cutting room floor that you got to revisit with Gleanings?

Neal Shusterman  

Yes, yes. The story of Citra’s brother was originally a subplot in The Toll. But the deeper into The Toll I got, the more the character faded into the background. I realized that his story simply didn’t fit into the narrative, so I pulled it out.  But as soon as I decided to write a collection of short stories in the Scythe world, I immediately came back to Ben Terranova’s story–and I added to it, fleshing it out and making it one of the key stories in Gleanings! I think readers will really like it!

Keshav Kant  

Absolutely, I remember catching that as well. You’d mentioned that it was to do with the fact that the Scythedom wanted a figurehead to represent who Citra was, so they picked her brother. Getting to view that from the other perspective was a fascinating read. I think that’s the best part of books that are set up this way. It gives you multiple views of a story you’ve already seen. I remember reading that in the interview, there was this whole subplot. So now, reading the story from the other side was nice because you’re getting more insight into this world that you’re already familiar with from entirely different perspectives. So that’s always a fun experience.

Neal Shusterman  

When you’re writing a story like this, the worlds just continue to build, and you find out more about it, but not everything you realize about the world is things that you can use within the story if it doesn’t necessarily apply directly to the story. Sometimes, beginning writers have trouble figuring out how much of the world to tell in their story. So often, the story becomes overwhelmed by the world because the writers are so enthralled by the world they’ve created that it ends up having too many details too quickly, and then it becomes less about the story and more about the world. So that’s always a challenge. But you always have to be very judicious about how much of the world you put in. But there’s all this stuff you know about the world, and it’s really fun to have a collection like this where you get to explore all these other things about the world that you didn’t get to dig into in the first books.

Keshav Kant  

I know for a fact that’s a pitfall I fall into myself. I was recently speaking with my own agent about that. And their advice was, hey, remember, this is kind of like your own movie. There’s a certain amount of pages, a certain amount of words you get. You can’t just be waxing poetic about everything. You got to cut it down. You need to bring relevant information, so I think that’s a good lesson for new writers.

Neal Shusterman  

I always deal with it, and my editors always tell me the same thing. This is really nice; we don’t need to know this.

Keshav Kant  

That’s true, but that’s the fun part of being a writer because you just get to paint your own world. And then we have editors to handle all the fun stuff of the cutting and the editing.

Neal Shusterman  

Yeah, like you mentioned about the dog. I want to tell us something specific about that. Fans constantly asked me, do pets get to live forever? I tried to figure out a way to work that into the books, but it was one of those things that were never relevant enough to the story to put that in.

So, as soon as I decided to do a story collection, I decided right away, okay, there’s definitely going to be a pet story, and we’re going to see how that works. And there’s a friend, Mike Payne, whose specialty is writing animal stories. Mostly he does Redwall kind of stories with anthropomorphized animals. So I thought, well, let’s have a story from a dog’s point of view. We sat together, talked about this story, and came up with it. I think all the stories that I worked with people with, I mean, were co-written, but a lot of the impetus from this story came from the collaborators. So the concept I gave him was of a Scythe who has a dog that’s smarter than him and ends up being in charge of the Scythe, and that’s the story he came up with. I think it’s just a wonderful story. I enjoyed working with him on it.

Keshav Kant  

It was a fascinating story, especially when, as a reader, you’re thinking, okay, is this Scythe Lucifer, is this retribution? And then you’re like, oh, no, it’s the dog! The dog has an agenda here too. Then you just sort of leave the story with the dog being like, I’m the master of this house. You have to sleep in the dog bed, and you’re like, that’s hilarious. I would have loved an entire book on that alone. 

A quick side tangent: I came across some interesting tidbits when I was doing interview prep. I read that you write with a fountain pen and buy a new pen and a new notebook for every new book. Can I ask, what is your favourite fountain pen that you’ve ever bought? And then what was the book you wrote with it?

Neal Shusterman  

Well, the pens I use now are the Lamy fountain pens, and I discovered those when I was travelling. I was in Helsinki, and I came across a Lamy store. It was a store that sold fountain pens exclusively, and I thought, this is just cool, so I bought one, and now when I travel, I tend to be able to find really cool pens. 

So I’ll always buy a new pen, so I have multiple, multiple pens. Some of them are fountain, and some are not, but I enjoy writing with those Lamy fountain pens. As for notebooks, I always have dozens of notebooks that I’m working on, that I’m working in for different projects. But I do like that writing by hand. It gets me away from the computer because if I start on the computer, my whole life will be in front of that screen, and I don’t want my life to be in front of a computer screen. So I like being able to go to the beach with a notebook and a pen and just sit and write, not having to worry as to whether or not sand is getting in my device, you know?

Keshav Kant  

That is a decision I wish I had made.  Between running Off Colour and writing my own book, I am on a screen for 13 hours daily. So I’m now reconditioning my brain to write using a typewriter I found just to break up the monotony of staring at a screen all day. So this question is of my own personal curiosity. We know that we’re getting an adaptation of the Scythe books with Universal and Amblin, and you’re a producer on the film. Is there any news you could share? Have there been casting decisions as a script done or anything like that?

Neal Shusterman  

The script is in the works; it’s in the same situation but with a new writer this time and they’ve gone through several different drafts. They have a new writer, and Steven Spielberg is personally shepherding the project. The fact that even Spielberg knows the book and is excited about the book and wants to do it is like a personal dream of mine because, 

Keshav Kant  

I can only imagine! For my last question, is there anything you’d like readers to know before they dive into Gleanings or venture into the original series? Or any news on upcoming projects?

Neal Shusterman  

Well, for Gleanings, you do not have to read the other stories to appreciate it, but it’s an added benefit if you have. The story is very in style, from being serious to being humorous. So I think, a little bit of something for everybody in the stories. I was having fun while writing these stories, so I hope you get that sense of fun while reading them. Regarding other projects, I have a book with Eric Elfman, a middle-grade book coming out in April called I Am the Walrus. It’s the beginning of a new book series. I have a graphic novel coming out next September called Courage To Dream with Scholastic; it’s Holocaust-themed, and that’s been one that I’ve been working on with artists Andrés Vera Martínez for over 10 years now. So that one is really close to my heart. And then I’m starting a brand new book series with Simon and Schuster. That’s the first book that will be coming out just a little over a year from now. I can’t talk about that one too much yet, but I’m actively working on that right now. So there’s going to be a lot of new stuff coming out.

Keshav Kant 

That sounds amazing, so I will email everyone immediately and ask for review copies. That’s our time, but I want to thank you again for timing the time, especially during your vacation! I appreciate it and cannot wait to grab my copy of Gleanings in November. 

Neal Shusterman

It was my pleasure! Thank you for having me on.