Year 5 Communicate With Author Louis Sachar

Year 5 were very engaged by their Spring Term class book, 'Holes', the story of Stanley Yelnats and how he succeeds in overcoming the curse that has plagued his family for generations. Ms Penston contacted the book's author, Louis Sachar and he very kindly answered some of the questions that Year 5 students had about the writing process, the characters and how the novel was adapted for filming. Here are his responses to their questions:

  Thanks for the questions. It is impossible to say how I came to write Holes. As with all my books, I just start with some vague sort of idea. For Holes, I thought of Camp Green Lake first, and later came up with the different characters.  I didn't know what was going to happen, and pretty much made it up as I went along. I remember I never made it through the first draft. The story was all over the place and had lost all momentum.

Then I started again. This time I had a better idea of where the story was going, and I got new ideas, and rearranged or threw out old ideas. I wrote about six or seven drafts, each time transforming the old, and coming up with new parts. Some chapters were probably rewritten a lot more than that. The whole process took about two years.

 Yes, I also wrote the screenplay for the movie, and I'm in the movie, too. Sam sells me onion juice to pour on my head so my hair will grow back. I'm wearing a fake moustache in the scene. I'm also twenty years older now.