Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - HTDE: The Perfect Christmas Present with James Patterson and Gillian Flynn

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

On today's episode, Charlie needs help writing a children's book for his wife. So, Mike and Ian call up some of the greatest minds in modern literature, Gillian Flynn and James Patterson. Plus, a slippery way to stay warm on your run and a cool trick to avoid saying "you guys".You can email your burning questions to [e-mail]. How To Do Everything won't live in this feed forever. If you like what you hear, scoot on over to their very own feed and give them a follow.Both How To Do Everything and Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! are available without sponsor messages for supporters of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me+, who also get bonus episodes of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! featuring exclusive games, behind-the-scenes content, and more. Sign up and support NPR at plus.npr.org.How To Do Everything is hosted by Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. It is produced by Heena Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message comes from Autograph Collection Hotels with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com. Hey there, wait, wait, listeners, it's Peter. We have a new episode of How to Do Everything hosted by our very own Mike Danforth and Ian Chilag. Today, Mike and Ian recruit some of the biggest names in literature to help a listener

with a perfect Christmas present for his wife. Oh, the things we do for love. If you like what you hear on that show, make sure to follow them at their very own feed. But in the meantime, enjoy the latest How to Do Everything. It's December and it's cold, which leads to the question, how do you stay warm? Burn something. Ed Eistone just coached the BYU cross-country team to a national championship in freezing

cold temperatures, and he has a tip. Yeah, we have a little bit of a hack. Prior to the start of the race, there's that five minutes where you will strip down, take those sweats off, and you're just standing there shivering in your short shorts and your singlet. So the little hack that we found, and it's very old school, and our trainers and coaches will just coat the runner's arms, exposed shoulders,

and legs with a thin little layer of olive oil. And that tends to give them a little buffer from the cold, and particularly if it's a windy day and if the temperatures are, you know, for fusing, it just kind of bridges that gap until the gun finally sounds and then they are on their way. And is this this like a special sports performance olive oil or is this just go to the grocery store? Yeah, you know, it's just whatever's on sale that day, that particular day or whatever our trainer comes back with, you know.

And it's interesting though, because I've been contacted from a olive oil company out of New York. I won't give you the brand name because we haven't inked the deal yet, but they wanna be our sponsors. So, yeah, it's kind of funny. If I were to go back and watch this race, the footage, would I say, you know what? BYU looks shinier than all the other runners

on the start line. Well, I don't know that that would have been that dramatic. I think more than anything, it's interesting because I've got a couple of mechanical engineering majors in my program that actually ran. One was in particular, they said because of the viscosity of the oil, it can kind of trap a thin layer of air between your skin and the oil itself. So it's kind of multiple layers there. And that provides some insulation from the convection that you would normally have from the cold air.

Wait, so Ed, did any of the other teams that were competing say anything? Did they notice and react? No, and I don't think it's really that unique. I think the older coaches had probably seen it done before and many of them, if they were runners in a previous life, had actually experienced. I was a runner before going into this coaching gig and I actually won the NCAA championship back in 1984, so that was a 40-year anniversary. The race was in Penn State, and we had a little snow flurry that morning.

And my coach had me don to olive oil, and I crossed the finish line smelling like a plate of spaghetti or whatever. Stay greasy Ed. All right. Hey, Charlie. What can we help you with? Yeah. So, my wife is really good at telling bedtime stories to my boys.

Well, just out of nowhere, she'll just kind of make a story and they'll give her really good ideas and I've tried. I just can't land it. I am trying to figure out how to kind of write an ending to a bedtime story that I want to give my wife for Christmas. I've got the story idea that I wrote my boys, but I do not know how to end it. And every time that they try to help me, it always ends in just like little boy humor about like ghosts or ninjas or zombies or farts.

I'm hoping to get a good ending, a solid ending that means something. Yeah, but ninja farts on a zombie. That's not the ending you're looking for. That is literally one of the endings. My voice made up for this book. Can you give us a synopsis of what you what you do have, I guess of the first couple acts? Sure. Um, it's Bella, the umbrella, and she's a happy umbrella who loves being outside and loves stormy skies and rainy days.

But then her family doesn't like the rain. So they go on a vacation and then that's where it kind of diverges. In one version, they go on a vacation to the desert and then she gets lost and then zombies attack. That's what the boys made up. Yep. With that set up, the zombies, it really, it is Deus ex machina, I think. It's a real twist. That's true. Okay, so Bella, she's an umbrella, she likes the rain, her family doesn't, they go on vacation.

And is her family also umbrellas or is it a human family she lives with? Great question. So when I'm writing it out, it's literally just an umbrella with a human family, but you don't see the humans. I don't think the humans know. I clearly have not thought that through. Well, no, our job, Charlie, is not to poke holes in the story. Our job is to help you land the plane, and we are here to do that. Yeah.

Okay, I think, Charlie, I think we can help you. What we're going to do here is we're going to go to two of the best-selling authors of all time. First up, a writer who's written some incredible endings, incredible twists, Gillian Flynn. Gillian is the author of Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, Dark Places. So, Gillian, you have the story. You've got this umbrella, this family that doesn't want to go outside. Where does this take you? Okay. They don't like going outside as like they're agoraphobic or they just don't like.

Yeah, I don't know if it's a pathology, but they definitely wants to be outside. They don't just want to check for plot purposes. And he sort of doesn't know where to begin. Do you do you begin with an ending or do you begin with something? You know, where does it start for you? I never ever begin with an ending. I never know what the ending is going to be. And personally, I think that's the best way to write. So I think he's onto something right there. I think you start with who your character is. I write character-based books that happen to be mysteries, but I think the initial conflict is beautiful,

and it's there, which is Bella, an umbrella, obviously needs to get outside. I mean, that's only to her nature. It's almost cruel to keep an umbrella inside for too long. When you put it that way, it's almost cruel to keep an umbrella inside for too long. When you put it that way, it's almost as if Bella is a prisoner in this home. And there's something dark about this family, actually. It is dark.

It's like, you know, telling a captain he can't go to sea. I'm sorry, I get seasick. You got to stay home. But I'm a captain, but no, stay here. Pete So, we're moving this from like a children's story, now it's maybe become a young adult novel. Julie Maybe, maybe might be. Pete Yeah.

Julie I think I would, you know, go with your idea of she's being sort of kept prisoner, go with your idea of she's being sort of kept prisoner and here's this family resisting and actually rejecting who she is innately. I mean, that's a horrifying thing that you're trapped with people who really dislike who you are inherently as a umbrella. And, sorry, I'm from Kansas City, I say umbrella, umbrella. Yeah, sorry, I'm from Kansas City. I say umbrella. Umbrella. Yeah, you really do. Umbrella. And, you know, does Bella, you know, what do you think? Does Bella start getting a little angry as she's got that pointy end that most umbrellas do? I mean, I don't want to end with something too dark, but you know, she could really hold

them by umbrella point and, you know, force them to take her outside. Also, I'm sure Bella is aware that opening an umbrella inside is terrible luck for the humans. I love that. She could curse them by just opening herself. Oh, they have a series of really unlucky and unfortunate events, and they can't figure out why it is. And then suddenly they realize they see this umbrella that they've previously neglected in the corner, mysteriously opened. I love that. No, that's fun.

Not entirely a holiday spirit. No, I feel like we've lost it completely at this point. I like it though. I mean, I really do like the idea of her hopping up the stairs one night, her unsuspecting family flapping umbrella arms. She's like a furious bat and she just takes them by, points them right at the throat, her little pointed umbrella and says, take me out of here. You're getting me out of here.

Out they go and then maybe they get outside and they see the rain. If you want a hopeful moment, there's like, well, and then, you know, then maybe they get outside and they're, you know, they sort of see the rain. And if you want a hopeful moment, there's kind of like, well, thank you, Bella. You know, you did use force, but ultimately I'm less scared of rain. So I learned my lesson. But also you can't have a rainbow without rain. So maybe there's a happy ending that happens where there's a rainbow. They've never seen a rainbow because they've never gone out.

Yes. They've never gone out. I do like that. I do like that. And she's like, you know, that goes maybe back if we want the magoraphobic again. That they're really not leaving their house. I think umbrellas are like women in erotic thrillers. They're both beautiful and scary

at the same time. Remember that, Charlie. Okay, now we're going to move on to our next bestselling author, James Patterson. Oh my God, it's National Public Radio. Is this James Patterson? Am I being punked? His new book is The House of Cross, It's Out Now. You're gonna give me the prompt or did I just rock and roll?

I'll bring you in, yeah. Okay. James Patterson, you heard what Charlie has, you heard the beginning, and we understand you have taken this on and written him some endings. Can you walk us through them? Well, they just came through, you know, I have this, you know, prolific or prodigious imagination or whatever the heck it is, I call it a sickness. So number one, I want to go with Charlie's kids ideas. I know he wasn't keen on, but this is called Bella and the Farting Ninjas.

Oh, perfect. Okay. Bella is on a boat from Japan. She's with her person and she calls her person her hold me. Okay. And they meet the farting ninjas on board Bella thinks they're vulgar uncivilized juvenile and stinky of course much later she's she's very lonely in New York she's being kept in an

umbrella stand more than she'd like to and one day her hold me pulls her out of the stand and outside a New York cop has turned on a fire hydrant in the street. What's this? The farting ninjas are dancing in the hydrant spray. It looks like stinky fun. Bella Henner, hold me, join them. Bella dances with the farting ninjas. Maybe they become briefly hold me for her life is good, but stinky. Okay. Number two, this takes place in- Well, hold on. That's fantastic. What a beautiful story. But we're gonna keep going. This takes place in Brooklyn, number two.

Oh, all right, all right. Heavy accents, Bella the Umbrella, and Bella's person, her hold me in this one is Luca. So we got Bella the Umbrella and Luca. Okay. And Luca's grumpy and gloomy because it's a rainy day and they walk the gloomy street to brooklyn until they end up in in coney island and they see hundreds of kids here and all the kids the hold me's have umbrellas and they all dancing singing the rain on the beach at coney island so that's number two in brooklyn okay or number three

died a hundred percent bellas hold me dies a sweet old lady, beautiful death, her time was up. Bella goes to the funeral. She goes with her new hold me, the old lady's granddaughter. She's already liking this hold me so much, life goes on, until of course Bella's canopy or metal ribs start to break down, but we won't go into that. The fourth one, and this is the one I would do as the feature movie, it's a beautiful rainy day, Bella couldn't be happier. This is heaven for her.

Cars and trucks are coming by and splashing Bella and her hold me. Her hold me is not as happy about this as Bella. Then suddenly out of nowhere, a heartbreaker for Bella. The sun is coming out, blue skies, sun. Bella doesn't know what to do. But her hold me heads to the beach. What's this? Suddenly Bella has a new purpose. She's what comes between her hold me and the damaging rays of the Sun. Beautiful Bella,

just beautiful. Now I'm skipping a few. I'm skipping Bella and the Blizzard, Bella and the two tsunami, and Bella and the Blizzard, Bella and the Two Tsunami, and Bella and the Deadpool episode. But there's so many ways to take this story. Wow. That's incredible, James. All right. That's what we do. That's what we do here in the little workshop. My goodness. I understand how you have written more than 200 novels. That is- Yeah, I could write another hundred about Bella. We could probably do this about Bella every

week we could come on and tell another Bella story. You think we have a series here? The whole, yeah, Deadpool, I want to do that one. The tsunami, big one, blizzard, big, unexpected. So, maybe we should, well, Charlie now has- Charlie's got a choice. So many rich ideas, yeah. All right, well, good for Charlie.

Would you ever, like you've worked with some incredible people, you've co-authored books with Dolly Parton and Bill Clinton, you're working on one with Viola Davis? Yeah. Which is great, I love working with her. How does that process work? Just like this, I just do all the work and they take credit on their cover. No, it varies with whoever I'm writing with. Jared Sussman

Would you, do you ever work with, so like Charlie is working on this book? James Bolling I'm not going to work with Charlie, no. With all due respect. Jared Sussman Well, James, thank you so much for helping out Charlie. This is great. James Bolling Okay, we look, yeah, Charlie, good luck and keep coming up with those wonderful Yeah, Charlie, good luck and keep coming up with those wonderful ideas. And yeah, Stella the umbrella is her sister. Yeah. Okay. Be good.

If you would like us to answer your question, send it to us at our email address, which is howtoatnpr.org. That's where we get email from you when you write in to howto at npr.org. And we should say we're coming up, hurdling towards the end of this season of How to Do Everything, just two episodes after this one. Two episodes left. So if you have a pressing problem, now is the time to get it to us. We will be back for season two, but if your question is urgent, get it to us quickly. Get it to us now and we can maybe, if, oof, I think we can, we'll do our best.

Your welfare between our seasons, between seasons of this show, is not our responsibility, as much as we would like it to be. Once again, that email is howto at npr.org. This message comes from Wyse, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com, T's and C's apply. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, offering over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else.

Hand-selected for their inherent craft, each hotel tells its own unique story through distinctive design and immersive experiences, from medieval falconry to volcanic wine tasting. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of over 30 hotel brands around the world. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Ho, ho, ho! Santa here. Coming to you from the North Pole, we're the elves in our podcast division of just completed work on this season's best gift for public radio lovers, NPR Plus. Give the gift of sponsored free listening and even bonus episodes from your favorite NPR podcasts, all while supporting public media.

Learn more at plus. npr dot org. The indicator is a podcast where daily economic news is about what matters to you. Workers have been feeling the sting of inflation. So as a new administration promises action on the cost of living, taxes and home prices, The S&P 500 biggest post-election day spike ever. Follow all the big changes and what they mean for you. Make America affordable again. Listen to The Indicator, the daily economics podcast from NPR.

These days, it can feel like the news is fighting for your attention wherever you turn, but staying informed shouldn't be a battle. Everything you need to navigate the stories that matter to you is at your fingertips. The NPR app cuts through the noise, bringing you local, national, and global coverage. No paywalls, no profits, no nonsense. Download the NPR app in your app store today, or you can go to npr.org slash app. We're still in the midst of our you guys fast. We're attempting to eliminate you guys and hey guys from our vocabularies. All of us here at how to have been failing. It's more of had mixed results.

Yeah. But I think we've each we've each at least had one failure in front of the others, which has been humiliating. And we've gotten several emails from you out there. And here's Alyssa. Alyssa called in with a different take on this whole concept. My thoughts on the You Guys Fast, I appreciate the good intentions of You Guys Fast to be more inclusive, but my feeling is that the unintended potential consequences of it may be worse. By eliminating you guys from our vocabulary, we reinforce the notion that only male persons can be guys, which could lead to an increase in the use of the traditionally used female equivalent term, girls, to refer to adult women. In my

view, any reference of adult women as girls is far more harmful and offensive than being included in you guys. Moving you guys to a more gender inclusive term may be more helpful. It's a really interesting point. And we sort of neutralize it by using it more. Yeah, exactly. Is that the solution to this? We kind of hinted at it in the last episode that maybe what we do is we go on a You Guys Fast for 30 days or for a month, and then we follow that up with a You Guys Rampage. Maybe.

Maybe that's the solution and see what works better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jeff called in with a tip to help eliminate you guys from your vocabulary. Yeah. So I use the text replacement feature on my iPhone, which lets you type in, you know, whatever word or phrase, and then it just auto corrects into whatever you want it to be.

So yeah, I have guys in there and I have it auto correct to folks. Oh, man. That's great. How long have you had this set up like this? Probably about three years or so. And how often do you think it auto corrects for you? Well, it's less and less because the other great thing is that it's kind of like a gentle reminder anytime I do it. It's like having someone, you know, kind of following you around, reminding you.

Yeah. Has it ever caused problems? Have you ever written something where you needed it to say guys? Yes, all of the time. That's right. Yeah, so like, you know, like proper names of things is challenging, like the five guys. I don't know if you have that. I love a Five Folks burger. I remember, Ian, do you remember when I changed your autocorrect on your phone so that this

is, this is true story, Jeff. Years ago, we learned that you could do this, and Ian would sign his emails, I feel like I'm revealing too much, Ian would sign emails, he would just say, hugs, Ian. And I went into his phone and I changed it, so every time it said hugs, it would say, I love you, Ian. And did it ever, it happened once, right? Were it almost? In my memory, you didn't change hugs. Oh, what was it? You changed whenever I typed Ian.

Well, that does it for today's show. What we learned today, Mike. Well, I learned that next time I have trouble writing something, today, Mike? Well, I learned that next time I have trouble writing something, all I need to do is ask James Patterson. He came ready with like four or five different ideas there. I like the idea that James Patterson could just help you with anything. Well, like a holiday card. Like that's always a tough thing to write. Like that's the kind of thing where I do feel like, yeah, all right, James, what, you punch this up? Mike, this is boring about your job. Let's have it where you're kidnapped. How to Do Everything is produced by Hina Shravastava with technical direction from

Lorna White. Our intern this week is Suzanne Weiss. Suzanne, look out, there's someone with a plate of very sharp knives behind you. Thanks Suzanne, thanks for Suzanne, look out. There's someone with a plate of very sharp knives behind you. Thanks, Suzanne. Thanks for all your hard work. Get us your questions for this season while you still can at howto at npr.org. That's Ian and I'm Mike. Thanks. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and

economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. kauffman.org