Joe Hill - The One With the Dragons
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
This episode features acclaimed horror novelist Joe Hill discussing his latest work, King Sorrow, a modern Faustian tale about six college friends whose pact with a charismatic dragon unravels over decades. (00:59) Hill explores how different creative forms—novels, comics, screenplays—inform each other through what he calls "crop rotation" writing. (04:26) The conversation delves into horror's evolutionary purpose as rehearsal for worst-case scenarios, comparing frightening stories to children playing hide-and-seek as practice for avoiding predators. (08:11) Hill candidly discusses his relationship with his famous father Stephen King, revealing how he initially wrote under a pseudonym to establish his own literary credibility before embracing his family's influence. (20:08)
- The episode explores horror as evolutionary rehearsal, creative cross-pollination between different writing forms, and the complex dynamics of literary family legacy while analyzing King Sorrow's themes of moral compromise and friendship under supernatural pressure.
Speakers
Joe Hill
Joe Hill is the bestselling author of multiple horror novels, comic books, and screenplays spanning over twenty years of genre fiction. The son of Stephen and Tabitha King, he initially published under a pseudonym before revealing his identity, establishing himself as a first-rate storyteller across prose, comics, TV, and film. His works include Sunday Times bestsellers that have been adapted for screen, with King Sorrow being his latest novel following six friends through a decades-long pact with a dragon.
Vas Christodoulou
Vas Christodoulou is the host of the How To Academy podcast, London's home of big thinking. He conducts biweekly interviews with notable authors, thinkers, and creators, focusing on extracting actionable insights and exploring the craft behind creative work.
Key Takeaways
Practice "Crop Rotation" Writing to Maintain Creative Vitality
Hill emphasizes working across multiple forms—novels, comics, screenplays—to avoid creative stagnation. (04:26) Like a farmer rotating crops to maintain soil health, writers can rotate between different creative mediums to keep their skills fresh. Each form teaches unique lessons: screenplays focus on dialogue and action, creating aerodynamic narratives; novels develop deep characterization and emotional complexity; comics explore explosive visual possibilities. This cross-pollination creates a "virtuous circle" where each medium enhances the others, preventing the creative equivalent of killing the soil through repetition.
Horror Fiction Serves as Evolutionary Rehearsal for Life's Challenges
Drawing from Dutch theorist Matthias Claussen's work, Hill explains that horror serves an evolutionary purpose similar to children playing hide-and-seek. (08:07) We're drawn to frightening stories because they allow us to rehearse responses to worst-case scenarios in the "safe playground of imagination." (09:16) Vampire stories, for instance, metaphorically prepare us for real threats like cancer—invisible adversaries that drain our life force. This rehearsal function explains why horror flourishes during anxious times, from 1950s nuclear fears spawning giant monster movies to current political and technological unease fueling contemporary horror.
Balance Personal Artistic Ambitions with Life's Primary Focus
After thirty-five years of making writing his primary focus, Hill shifted to making family the center of his life when he remarried and had twins. (02:30) He quotes the principle: "Life is not a support system for art. Art is a support system for life." (03:03) This reframing led to a more sustainable creative practice and personal happiness. Rather than daily writing obsession driven by unhealthy mental patterns, he embraced a healthier relationship with his craft while maintaining professional success through strategic project selection, particularly screenwriting for essential health benefits.
Create Characters Readers Love to Hate Through Moral Complexity
Hill's most despised characters aren't pure villains but people who "know better" yet choose wrongly anyway. (46:06) Unlike King Sorrow the dragon, who remains true to his monstrous nature, human characters become hateable when they possess moral awareness but ignore it for personal gain. (46:36) Effective antagonists aren't cardboard cutouts but complex individuals across the political spectrum who readers can understand even while disagreeing with their choices. This approach requires finding something lovable in each character while showing how their life experiences led to their current beliefs, creating three-dimensional people rather than strawmen.
Use Fiction as Moral Education Through Multiple Life Experiences
Hill argues that fiction serves as moral instruction by allowing readers to experience multiple lives beyond their own. (48:18) Rather than neat moral lessons, the best stories explore complex questions without easy answers, helping readers understand "how to live well" and "be good people who add value to the world." (48:02) This multiplicity of experience through well-told stories constitutes moral education itself. Hill suggests that many wealthy, powerful people lack moral compasses partly because they don't engage meaningfully with literature, missing the underlying ideas in classics like The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Rings.
Statistics & Facts
- Hill wrote every single day for thirty-plus years without breaks—not for Christmas, birthdays, or vacations—before shifting his priorities when he remarried and had twins. (15:03)
- His wife's cancer surgery alone cost $60,000 in the American healthcare system, but only cost them $700 due to his screenwriters' union health insurance. (31:52)
- Hill wrote four unpublishable novels before successfully selling his first collection "Twentieth Century Ghosts," demonstrating the persistence required in professional writing. (22:23)
