Scott Thomas is the Stoker-nominated author of Kill Creek, which was selected by the American Library Association's reader committee as the top horror book of 2017, and of Violet, which was praised by NPR. Originally from Coffeyville, Kansas, Scott attended the University of Kansas, where he earned degrees in English and Film. He is the Executive Producer/Showrunner of Disney Channel’s Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, Best Friends Whenever and Raven’s Home, Netflix’s Malibu Rescue and Syfy’s Day of the Dead. Scott has been nominated for Emmys for his work on R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour and Raven’s Home. He lives in Sherman Oaks, California, with his wife and two daughters. Midwestern Gothic is his third book, and he recently talked about it with Daryl Maxwell for the LAPL Blog.
In your acknowledgments, you describe how you began writing the novellas that comprise Midwestern Gothic during the pandemic. What was your inspiration for these stories? Did you know when you started writing that they would be novellas (rather than novels or short stories)?
Honestly, the original plan was to write a book of short stories with one or two novellas thrown in. But the deeper I got into each story, the more I enjoyed exploring the characters and the landscape, and they all turned into novellas. Wear Your Secret Like a Stone was intended to be the shortest of the bunch. Obviously, that didn’t happen. After my second book, Violet, which is a slow burn, I wanted to write some stories that moved more quickly and got to the horror sooner. So I wrote The Boy in the Woods. I was up in Vancouver making a Day of the Dead series for Syfy and writing Boy in whatever time I had in the evenings and on weekends. Writing horror for me is always like recess, just a bit of time for me to run and play. I enjoyed writing Boy so much that I decided to write more.
Did you have an idea that they would touch on the characters from Kill Creek when you began?
No. The first version of The Boy in the Woods did not have any connection beyond a small blink-and-you’d-miss-him character from Violet. But the next novella I wrote was The Door in the Field. That one had a very strong connection to Kill Creek from page one. Maybe it was just comfortable to drop back into that world, but the connection was completely intentional. When I started writing One Half of a Child's Face, I knew it was going to be about a book editor, and I liked the idea that she would be editing a manuscript about the subgenre of Midwestern Gothic, so who better to have written that than Sam McGarver from Kill Creek? At that point, I decided that each novella would reference one of the Kill Creek authors, so I went back and revised The Boy in the Woods and gave T.C. Moore a cameo in Wear Your Secret Like a Stone.
How did the novellas evolve and change as you wrote and revised them? Are there any characters, scenes, or stories that were lost in the process that you wish had made it to the published versions?
The novellas didn’t change that much. Just a lot of fine tuning and reworking to focus the themes. The biggest change was the ending to The Door in the Field. In the first draft, it got very cosmic horror. It was like the main character was stepping into some alien version of a Salvador Dalí painting. Serious "old gods" territory. But it ended up feeling too literal. It was better to have Ray experience something a bit more grounded (but still clearly fantastic) so April, his daughter and the narrator of the framing device, could assume maybe, just maybe, he imagined it. This helped the ambiguity of the ending.
You’ve written screenplays, novels, and now novellas. Is there a format that you prefer over the others?
They’re all fun and challenging in different ways. I love the freedom of writing novels and novellas. You can go off on an unmarked trail and explore. There’s so much more discovery. So yeah, that’s probably my favorite. But screenplays are great because the narrative is driving every single scene, every line of dialogue. It’s like getting on a train. Even though it’s a straight shot to the destination, you can enjoy the ride.
Your previous two novels, Kill Creek and Violet, and now all of the stories in Midwestern Gothic, are set in Kansas. What is it about Kansas that keeps drawing you back as a setting for your stories?
Having lived in LA for 20+ years, I think it becomes more and more exciting to return to the Kansas of my youth. I grew up in a small town in the 80s, riding my bike everywhere with my friends, spending almost every day down at the creek by our house, scaring each other with ghost stories and local legends from Kansas and Oklahoma. It’s just such a rich setting for horror. People on the coasts think of Kansas as a “flyover state.” But what if these terrifying things were taking place there, and no one else in the country knew about it? There’s a sense of isolation that makes the horror much more troubling. Also, having grown up devouring everything Stephen King wrote, I connected with his ability to take an ordinary, average setting and make it the epicenter for a showdown between good and evil. Weaving my own Midwestern mythology takes me back to those days of telling ghost stories with my friends while also reminding people that evil doesn’t care where you live. It’ll find you…
I know this is a bit off the topic of Midwestern Gothic, but I have to ask...you co-wrote the screenplay for The Banana Splits Movie (which I Loved!). What was your inspiration for it? Did you watch the Banana Splits when you were growing up? If not, how did you learn about them?
That one came out of left field, and we just couldn’t pass it up! Jed Elinoff and I ran a series for Syfy based on Day of the Dead, and we also had a good relationship with Blue Ribbon Content, who was trying to do out-of-the-box projects based on Hanna-Barbera properties. They got together and decided The Banana Splits was fertile ground for a horror movie, and when they called to see if we wanted to write it, we jumped at the chance. I didn’t grow up watching The Banana Splits (the Sid and Marty Krofft series I loved growing up was Land of the Lost), but I knew what it was and what could make it demented and creepy. We were thrilled with how it turned out.
If one of the novellas in Midwestern Gothic could be adapted to the screen (motion picture or television), which one would you choose? Who would your dream cast be?
If I could only choose one, it would probably be The Boy in the Woods. That story was obviously inspired by 80s camp slasher movies like Friday the 13th, The Burning, Madman and Sleepaway Camp, but also by coming-of-age stories like The Body (and of course its adaptation Stand by Me and Robert McCammon’s Boy’s Life. It was always meant to be a twist on the legend of Jason Voorhees, told from the point of view of the innocent, bullied kid. Even though it’s set in the present day, it has an 80s vibe that could make a very cool, scary, gory, but ultimately heartbreaking movie.
The last time we spoke, you were working on adapting Kill Creek for a Showtime series. A lot has happened since October 2019. Any news/developments?
Yeah, the Showtime thing fell apart. Showtime was great and very encouraging for the short period where I was involved with the project. Then, others took control, and I was cut out of the process. I’ll leave it at that. The good news is that since then, the rights to the book have reverted to me, and I’m currently working on a new adaptation. Hopefully, I’ll have news on that soon.
What’s currently on your nightstand?
I just finished reading Come Close by Sara Gran, which blew me away, and Ripley Under Ground, the second book in Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley series. That character is just so much fun to root for, even though he’s a complete psychopath. Now I’m reading Revival by Stephen King. I've read most of King’s books, but this one fell through the cracks, so I’m correcting that mistake now.
What is the last piece of art (music, movies, TV, more traditional art forms) that you've experienced or that has impacted you?
When I’m writing, I listen to a lot of horror and electronic scores, in particular work by Ben Lovett, Cliff Martinez, and Clint Mansell. Or I shuffle Nine Inch Nails. But I seem to always go back to music by the late composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. His work is phenomenal. We lost him way too soon.
What are you working on now?
Right now, all my professional time is devoted to my work for Disney, particularly the Wizards of Waverly Place reboot. But in my "spare" time (what little there is), I’m working on two new novels: a demon infestation set at a small Kansas college and a sequel to Kill Creek.
