...CHRISTOPHER WALTZ!
Chris is the writer, editor, and occasional voice talent of the mystery horror podcast Dead Oaks. He also writes for Channillo, and dreams of Buffy/Wolverine and Dead Oaks/NIte Vale cross-overs. Here’s his 7 Questions:
1. Dead Oaks follows a tradition of creepy mysterious series set in small town America. Twin Peaks, Gravity Falls, Stranger Things… which creepy fictional small town, if any, influenced the town of Dead Oaks the most?
Dead Oaks was really inspired by two different things, one a town in a podcast and the other a movie. The town that inspired Dead Oaks was Night Vale from the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. I think there are some obvious homages to Night Vale in Dead Oaks, but I definitely wanted to make Dead Oaks a lot more sinister, whereas Night Vale is sort of creepy-fun. If I could choose one thing in the world to happen, it wouldn’t be to end hunger or war, it would be to do a crossover episode with Welcome to Night Vale.
The movie that actually gave me the idea for Dead Oaks in the first place, however, is Trick ‘r Treat. Basically, the movie revolves around one Halloween night where all these awful things—werewolves, ghost children, a crazy guy who puts razor blades in candy—are happening in the same town. The movie is broken into different segments, and throughout the movie, each segment overlaps with the others at some point. Back in 2014-2015, when Dead Oaks was originally going to be a novel instead of a podcast, I wanted to use this idea of having five or six different stories that overlapped with each other because they were all taking place at the same time, in the same town. Eventually Dead Oaks evolved into something completely different, though I’d still like to play with overlapping stories at some point. I might have some ideas for season three…
2. What do you enjoy most about writing? When are you having the most fun?
I enjoy the idea of having created something genuinely good and worth-reading (or in the case of the podcast, worth listening to). I’m also very meticulous about the layout of my writing, so I think my favorite part of the entire process is sitting down to plan out the entire story. Whether it’s a season of Dead Oaks or a layout for a novel, I’ll often fill an entire spiral notebook with ideas, plot points, character, traits, etc. I’ve even gone so far as to Google photos of what I want my characters to look like and taped them into my notebook, because that way I can simply look back to the picture and know what kind of physical traits to write for the character. It sounds weird, and I think if anyone happened upon one of my notebooks, they might think I have stalker-tendencies, but I swear it’s all for research and writing purposes…
3. You’ve been hired to reboot the X-Men movie series and the executives have decided that they’re going to populate the movie not with Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, or Professor X, but with the entire cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which mutant powers do you give to Buffy and each of her allies?
Did you write this question specifically for me? Because this question was created specifically for my 90s-obsessed heart.
Okay, so I’ll probably put WAY too much time into this, but here goes:
Buffy: Buffy already has super-strength in her own show, so I feel like she could easily be assigned Wolverine’s powers. She can heal; she’s agile and strong, so why not throw some adamantium claws (or wooden claws to better stake vampires with!) in for the hell of it? Now, I’m strictly opposed to Wolverine being the star of any X-film (other than Logan), but I’ll make an exception, since I’m going to assume Sarah Michelle Gellar will be playing Wolverine/Buffy… Buffyrine… Wolffy… Whatever.
Willow: Since Willow is a witch on Buffy, I think it would be fair for her to have Jean Grey’s powers—Also, it makes sense with the whole Dark Willow storyline being based (at least partially) on Dark Phoenix. I honestly think Joss Whedon had Jean Grey in mind when he created the character of Willow. I think it also works well with how Willow grew into a leader on Buffy as she has in some versions of the X-Men comics. Her time was cut sort of short in the films, what with her dying in the second and being evil in the third, but I think it would be cool to see this comic book Jean portrayed on the big screen as someone growing into the role of one day taking over the Xavier School.
Xander: This is a bit tough. As a teenage boy, Xander was one of my favorite characters on the show, but he never really had any extraordinary gifts. I never bought the whole “he’s the heart of the group” stuff, because, honestly, everyone was the heart of the group, and the group would not have been whole with anyone missing, but I digress.
I think Xander would get the powers of Jubilee, and I know that sounds odd, but let me explain. 1) We have never gotten to see Jubilee use her powers on the big screen, and I don’t think that’s fair, especially with how the audience was teased with the character being added to Apocalypse, only to have her edited into a glorified cameo. 2) I think it would be wholly within the realm of believability for Xander to be assigned the power of a mutant who has always been seen as female. He’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t really care if he got the “girl power,” because he’d be happy just to have a power at all.
Plus, Jubilee’s power is badass. Who wouldn’t want to shoot fireworks from their hands?
Giles would obviously be Beast, because his extremely-smart-older-gentleman-ness perfectly lines up with Beast’s character, who I also feel we have not really seen a great depiction of in the X-Men films. I also think Anthony Stewart Head could definitely pull off the character, with or without blue fur.
Lastly, and this one is a doozy, I would give Cordelia the same power Colossus has in the comics. I feel like Cordelia always had this figurative armor surrounding her because she knew what people expected her to be and didn’t let many people know who she really was. It would make sense for her to have a physical armor, too, even though she wasn’t much of a fighter on Buffy.
As much as I’d love to assign every major and minor character on Buffy with an X-Men power, I’ll stop there.
4. Do you have any blogs, column or non-fiction projects you’re working on?
I actually don’t. I’d love to start a review column/blog of some kind, but I haven’t decided what it should be on yet. But, you know, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know!
(Also, it’s still WAY in the works, but I’ve been trying to create a web-series or vlog or whatever the kids are calling them these days where I research and give information about and maybe visit semi-local urban legends locations. I have no idea if this will pan out, because, you know, money, but I’ll keep everyone posted.)
5. Any works of fiction you’re writing, in addition to Dead Oaks?
I just—as in like, yesterday—finished editing the first YA novel I’ve written in a long, long while. I tend to flip-flop between horror and YA, and I got the idea for this one and just ran with it. I’m not going to give away too many details because I’m trying to go the traditional route with publishing, but it was something extremely outside my comfort zone, in every way imaginable. I’m hoping all the work and research pays off in the end.
I’m also working on a couple of different series for the serialized fiction website Channillo.com. The one I’m most proud of is called Hellion, and it’s about a teenager who is sent away to a very religious private school around the same time in his life he’s figuring out he might be the antichrist. It’s a follow-up to my horror-comedy series Hellbound, so it’s got some creepiness to it, but it also falls more into the funny, coming-of-age-but-in-an-evil-way category. As funny and goofy as the story is, I think it’s honestly one of the most politically-charged things I’ve ever written in my life.
6. With all your different commitments and projects, how do you manage your writing time? Do you have a scheduled block of time or
word count you commit to each day? Do you lock yourself inside a bomb shelter with nothing but a laptop? What’s your strategy?
Oh man, I wish I had an answer for this. I really try my hardest to write something every day, but if I’m not feeling it, then I’m not feeling it, and forcing myself isn’t going to make me write something I’m proud of. I know that is the exact opposite advice most writers give, but I’m a firm believer that you’re not going to be happy with what you write unless you let it happen organically. And to be honest, the times in my life when I’ve forced myself to write are the times in my life when I started to question whether or not I should be writing—yeah, it’s happened a couple of times.
The one thing that really helps is deadlines. I know if I have an episode of Dead Oaks that still needs written or edited, then I have to have it finished by the day it airs, obviously. But when it comes to more lax deadlines, I’m just going to let the words come to me when they feel like it, and as hippy-esque as it sounds, I’m totally cool with that.
7. Where can we find what you write?
You can find my Channillo series here: http://channillo.com/user/4606/
You can find all-things Dead Oaks here: www.soundcloud.com/deadoakspodcast or www.deadoakdspodcast.com
And most importantly, you can follow me on Twitter @Christoph_waltz
1. Dead Oaks follows a tradition of creepy mysterious series set in small town America. Twin Peaks, Gravity Falls, Stranger Things… which creepy fictional small town, if any, influenced the town of Dead Oaks the most?
Dead Oaks was really inspired by two different things, one a town in a podcast and the other a movie. The town that inspired Dead Oaks was Night Vale from the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. I think there are some obvious homages to Night Vale in Dead Oaks, but I definitely wanted to make Dead Oaks a lot more sinister, whereas Night Vale is sort of creepy-fun. If I could choose one thing in the world to happen, it wouldn’t be to end hunger or war, it would be to do a crossover episode with Welcome to Night Vale.
The movie that actually gave me the idea for Dead Oaks in the first place, however, is Trick ‘r Treat. Basically, the movie revolves around one Halloween night where all these awful things—werewolves, ghost children, a crazy guy who puts razor blades in candy—are happening in the same town. The movie is broken into different segments, and throughout the movie, each segment overlaps with the others at some point. Back in 2014-2015, when Dead Oaks was originally going to be a novel instead of a podcast, I wanted to use this idea of having five or six different stories that overlapped with each other because they were all taking place at the same time, in the same town. Eventually Dead Oaks evolved into something completely different, though I’d still like to play with overlapping stories at some point. I might have some ideas for season three…
2. What do you enjoy most about writing? When are you having the most fun?
I enjoy the idea of having created something genuinely good and worth-reading (or in the case of the podcast, worth listening to). I’m also very meticulous about the layout of my writing, so I think my favorite part of the entire process is sitting down to plan out the entire story. Whether it’s a season of Dead Oaks or a layout for a novel, I’ll often fill an entire spiral notebook with ideas, plot points, character, traits, etc. I’ve even gone so far as to Google photos of what I want my characters to look like and taped them into my notebook, because that way I can simply look back to the picture and know what kind of physical traits to write for the character. It sounds weird, and I think if anyone happened upon one of my notebooks, they might think I have stalker-tendencies, but I swear it’s all for research and writing purposes…
3. You’ve been hired to reboot the X-Men movie series and the executives have decided that they’re going to populate the movie not with Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, or Professor X, but with the entire cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which mutant powers do you give to Buffy and each of her allies?
Did you write this question specifically for me? Because this question was created specifically for my 90s-obsessed heart.
Okay, so I’ll probably put WAY too much time into this, but here goes:
Buffy: Buffy already has super-strength in her own show, so I feel like she could easily be assigned Wolverine’s powers. She can heal; she’s agile and strong, so why not throw some adamantium claws (or wooden claws to better stake vampires with!) in for the hell of it? Now, I’m strictly opposed to Wolverine being the star of any X-film (other than Logan), but I’ll make an exception, since I’m going to assume Sarah Michelle Gellar will be playing Wolverine/Buffy… Buffyrine… Wolffy… Whatever.
Willow: Since Willow is a witch on Buffy, I think it would be fair for her to have Jean Grey’s powers—Also, it makes sense with the whole Dark Willow storyline being based (at least partially) on Dark Phoenix. I honestly think Joss Whedon had Jean Grey in mind when he created the character of Willow. I think it also works well with how Willow grew into a leader on Buffy as she has in some versions of the X-Men comics. Her time was cut sort of short in the films, what with her dying in the second and being evil in the third, but I think it would be cool to see this comic book Jean portrayed on the big screen as someone growing into the role of one day taking over the Xavier School.
Xander: This is a bit tough. As a teenage boy, Xander was one of my favorite characters on the show, but he never really had any extraordinary gifts. I never bought the whole “he’s the heart of the group” stuff, because, honestly, everyone was the heart of the group, and the group would not have been whole with anyone missing, but I digress.
I think Xander would get the powers of Jubilee, and I know that sounds odd, but let me explain. 1) We have never gotten to see Jubilee use her powers on the big screen, and I don’t think that’s fair, especially with how the audience was teased with the character being added to Apocalypse, only to have her edited into a glorified cameo. 2) I think it would be wholly within the realm of believability for Xander to be assigned the power of a mutant who has always been seen as female. He’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t really care if he got the “girl power,” because he’d be happy just to have a power at all.
Plus, Jubilee’s power is badass. Who wouldn’t want to shoot fireworks from their hands?
Giles would obviously be Beast, because his extremely-smart-older-gentleman-ness perfectly lines up with Beast’s character, who I also feel we have not really seen a great depiction of in the X-Men films. I also think Anthony Stewart Head could definitely pull off the character, with or without blue fur.
Lastly, and this one is a doozy, I would give Cordelia the same power Colossus has in the comics. I feel like Cordelia always had this figurative armor surrounding her because she knew what people expected her to be and didn’t let many people know who she really was. It would make sense for her to have a physical armor, too, even though she wasn’t much of a fighter on Buffy.
As much as I’d love to assign every major and minor character on Buffy with an X-Men power, I’ll stop there.
4. Do you have any blogs, column or non-fiction projects you’re working on?
I actually don’t. I’d love to start a review column/blog of some kind, but I haven’t decided what it should be on yet. But, you know, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know!
(Also, it’s still WAY in the works, but I’ve been trying to create a web-series or vlog or whatever the kids are calling them these days where I research and give information about and maybe visit semi-local urban legends locations. I have no idea if this will pan out, because, you know, money, but I’ll keep everyone posted.)
5. Any works of fiction you’re writing, in addition to Dead Oaks?
I just—as in like, yesterday—finished editing the first YA novel I’ve written in a long, long while. I tend to flip-flop between horror and YA, and I got the idea for this one and just ran with it. I’m not going to give away too many details because I’m trying to go the traditional route with publishing, but it was something extremely outside my comfort zone, in every way imaginable. I’m hoping all the work and research pays off in the end.
I’m also working on a couple of different series for the serialized fiction website Channillo.com. The one I’m most proud of is called Hellion, and it’s about a teenager who is sent away to a very religious private school around the same time in his life he’s figuring out he might be the antichrist. It’s a follow-up to my horror-comedy series Hellbound, so it’s got some creepiness to it, but it also falls more into the funny, coming-of-age-but-in-an-evil-way category. As funny and goofy as the story is, I think it’s honestly one of the most politically-charged things I’ve ever written in my life.
6. With all your different commitments and projects, how do you manage your writing time? Do you have a scheduled block of time or
word count you commit to each day? Do you lock yourself inside a bomb shelter with nothing but a laptop? What’s your strategy?
Oh man, I wish I had an answer for this. I really try my hardest to write something every day, but if I’m not feeling it, then I’m not feeling it, and forcing myself isn’t going to make me write something I’m proud of. I know that is the exact opposite advice most writers give, but I’m a firm believer that you’re not going to be happy with what you write unless you let it happen organically. And to be honest, the times in my life when I’ve forced myself to write are the times in my life when I started to question whether or not I should be writing—yeah, it’s happened a couple of times.
The one thing that really helps is deadlines. I know if I have an episode of Dead Oaks that still needs written or edited, then I have to have it finished by the day it airs, obviously. But when it comes to more lax deadlines, I’m just going to let the words come to me when they feel like it, and as hippy-esque as it sounds, I’m totally cool with that.
7. Where can we find what you write?
You can find my Channillo series here: http://channillo.com/user/4606/
You can find all-things Dead Oaks here: www.soundcloud.com/deadoakspodcast or www.deadoakdspodcast.com
And most importantly, you can follow me on Twitter @Christoph_waltz