SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to beat the prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia Criminal Defense and DU My Lawyer, Jonathan Kenneth, where we are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Nothing on any of our media sources, such as our PomodCats or website, is legal advice. John Kennetz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Kennetz.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hello, everybody. This is John Kennetz of Beat the Prosecution. I am a criminal defense and DWI defense lawyer in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. Now, I've told you this before, but I don't think I've meant it as much as I do today. I am having extreme trouble containing my excitement today about today's guest. This is Danny Schnitzlein. He is an author. His website is danyschnitzlein.com. We're going to talk about this book and more. Danny Schnitzlein, S-C-H N E I T Z, L-E-I-N. Danny is responsible for years and years of fun, excitement, and enjoyment with me, my son who's now 19, my wife, and little did I know at the time they had other books as well. And how did he end up accepting my invitation? Now maybe without the British accent, he will still come on. Are there any accents that he can say without offending people? We'll get right into it. We started the book here, which I've read hundreds of times to my son. Eat your peas, said my mom, or you won't get dessert. I said, Before peas, I'd rather eat it. I know you don't want to, she said with a glare. But until they get eaten, you'll stay in your chair. And then what happens? A monster shows up and he makes a Faustian offer, and the stakes get higher and higher. The first thing is he gives up his some ball, I think his soccer ball and for the monster eat the peas. Then the next one is harder. The boy gives up his bike for the monster eat the peas, and then face with the morality play. Oh, I'm giving up the story, aren't I? The boy's faced with giving up his dog. Danny Schnitzlein, please introduce yourself and tell us how did you become a storyteller? And what are your other books and what's your initial promo?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Well, let's see. Uh I'm Danny Schnitzlein. I uh write children's books. I've also written and still sometimes write uh for children's television. Um I worked on a couple of uh, let's see, I worked on a show called Salsa for Georgia Public Television that teaches Spanish, and I worked on Ira Shai, which teaches Japanese to uh high schoolers, and then I also worked on the organ wise guys, which teaches uh good health stuff to children. And um I also got to write songs for that, uh for that show. So that was very fun for me. And I I enjoy getting to do that whenever I whenever I get to the uh I'll I don't know. Let's see what else you want to know. So I I have uh four books, four picture books for children. Um The Monster Who A Might Peace is the first one that you just read from. And uh do you want me to kind of go through each book and tell you the background?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

I am at your service for you to tell us everything that you're gonna tell us before you do say, do answer Anatawa Oni Anatawa ni Hongo Ohana Shimasu.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

So so I only wrote now. I am starting to learn Japanese, but I only wrote uh for the host who was speaking in English, so I only wrote those parts, but uh but I am but I'm tot very interested in uh learning Japanese. In fact, I just ordered a workbook to uh to learn it, and I'm planning one day to go to Japan. I I really hope to. So what did you just say?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

And do you speak Japanese?

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Do you speak Japanese? So the answer is no, no, I speak a few words, but uh anyhow. Um so I'll just start with the monster who ate my peas and tell you kind of how that happened. Um when I was a kid, my parents would make us eat everything on our plates, you know, we like a lot of kids, and uh, so I would be sitting there at nine o'clock at night, you know, just looking at the peas and wishing they would disappear, and kind of remembered that horrible feeling as an adult, and decided to kind of write something about that and came up with a monster idea. And uh I guess it all started because my older brother and sister didn't like peas. So when that you know just came about because of that, they didn't like them, and so I just followed suit and uh and I wrote the manuscript. Let's see, I sent it to like over 30 different publishers, got rejected by all of them. Uh one of only one like wrote me a tiny note that said, Read peas by Nicholas Heller. So I read peas by Nicholas Heller, and it wasn't like my book. Um, so I kept on sending it out, and eventually um Peach Tree publishers here in Atlanta uh got interested and they had me change among publishers who don't recognize brilliance. You know, it it happens to to lots of books that eventually get published, and they probably don't even remember you know seeing the manuscript, and you never know like uh who read your manuscript. It could just be in a slush pile and somebody they hired, you know, read it and then rejected it. So you never know who's reading it. Um so let's see. So Peachtree uh had me make some changes, and I sent the changes in, and then they called me one day and said, Congratulations, we're gonna we're gonna publish it. So that was like one of the best days of my life. And um, I I remember like being on the phone and kind of jumping up and down in the kitchen, uh, like being so so excited that that it was actually happening. Um and I had uh I had sent uh some pencil colored pencil illustrations that I did. I should have brought some of those to show you. Um that that because I was hoping to illustrate it, but they got Matt Faulkner, and you know, he's one of the one of the best. Um and he also illustrated my third book that I'll show you in a little bit. Um, but so I'm I was completely happy. Like once they told me it was Matt Faulkner, and I looked at his work and I was like, this, you know, I can't even come close to this. I I'm a I'm an artist, but I'm not a professional illustrator. I um I I do other kinds of art. I I like to make uh imaginary landscapes, is the stuff I like to paint. I used to paint a lot of jazz uh people and stuff like that too. But have you?

SPEAKER_01 7:03

I can show you my Coltrane on the wall.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Nice. Uh one of my favorites. I I painted him uh as well as as well as many others. Um so let's see, and what about that? So then it took about two and a half years after the the manuscript was accepted um to do all the illustrations, get all the copy work done, and then have it sent off to uh Taiwan or Singapore or wherever it was printed, and then uh they the boats the books come on big boats in boxes, you know, back to the United States. So it takes a while. So whenever they would have to do a reprint or something, it would take you know a long time to get the re reprint done. Uh so let's see. You want me to keep going with the books?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Oh, I I'm I'm enthralled. Yes, yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Okay. Uh is there anything else I can tell you about peas before I go on? Um I don't know. Uh the boy was modeled after Matt's son uh when he was a when he was a boy. Um, I don't know about the dog, maybe the dog was modeled after whose son? Uh Matt, the illustrator. It was okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Uh I got it. Okay, for for the images.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Yeah, so he just drew his son uh in those pictures. Um let's see. So the second book was um well let me preface this. So before The Monster Who Ate My Peas was published, when I was trying to get it published, um a friend of ours said, Hey, I know this guy who illustrates children's books. Do you want to do you want to talk to him? So I uh got his phone number, called him up. He lives in Atlanta area, and uh talked to him, and he was super nice, gave me lots of advice and everything, and then I kind of forgot about him. I didn't even remember his name. And then uh he became the illustrator of my second book. There you go. And I didn't even realize it until I looked back in in my phone, you know, book, and and I had written down Bill Meyer. Um, and so uh that was kind of cool that he uh gave me advice on my first book, and then he ended up by just however, uh, to be the illustrator for the second one. Um, so this book came about, the monster who did my math, because I had trouble with math as a kid. Um, and I would get my dad, he was a college professor, I'd get him to help me with it, but he wasn't good at like showing me how to do it. He would just get his calculator out and push buttons, and I would take his answers to school, and a lot of times they would be wrong. And I thought, wow, my dad's a college professor and he can't get the answers right, so math must be way too hard for me. But uh, I'm not afraid of math anymore. I like math. Um, let's see if I can show you any of the illustrations in here that are kind of cool with the and I'm gonna get all these books.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

We just set this interview yesterday before I could read them. That is great.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Monster appearing, and so this monster, the the monster who might a character out of Alice in Wonderland.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I forget which one that was.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Kind of does, and and and they're you know, they're a little bit scary, but also cart cartoony, you know. You can see uh pointing at the boy with his he has pencil, pencil-y fingers, so he sharpens his fingers before he starts doing the homework, and and he gets paid uh in money to to do homework. So like every kid would love to have a uh a monster to do their homework. Now they just call that AI. Uh anyhow, uh, what about the monster who did my math? Um let's see. I think it won a gold medal for the for illustration for it. Um, it was named a book all Georgia children should read. Um it might have got something else. Uh The Monster Who Ate My Peas actually got uh it became part of the Georgia Um Department of Department of Education's Read More program. And uh it was read for a DVD uh for schools um by John Smoltz. If you just watched the World Series, you know, as you saw Schmultz doing the um, you know, uh you know, the the play-by-play and all that on the on the world series. So he's you know, he that was a long time ago. Anyhow, so that was cool, and uh it became is part of the Atlanta Mayor's Summer Reading Club. It won uh two state awards from two different states, Indiana and uh Virginia. Uh so your state.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

My state. And um Monster Ate My Peas was made into a musical.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

That's correct. Yeah. Um, so I meant to print out a picture or something from that, but you can you can find that stuff on my website, which is danyschnitzlein.com. Um, but yes, it uh there's a company called Arts Power in New Jersey, um, and they adapt children's books into plays that travel, and uh I think all of them are pretty much musicals, as far as I know. Um, and so they wrote songs for it and um and it traveled the United States about three different times uh before COVID hit. And um, I don't know if it's if it's traveled again. It came to my uh younger daughter's school, which was fun. I got to go see it there and uh one other time. And then it also got adapted into a ballet, which is very weird and surreal.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Something uh by the ballet monster.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Grand Rapids Ballet Company, yes, in Michigan. So it's it's had a kind of a miraculous life, and I'm and I'm very lucky for all.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

And for the for the lores listening, wondering, uh, you know, why am I slipping in uh talking to this author just because uh my family loves the book? Well, of course, for us char lores, we know that storytelling is so important uh to persuading in court, and with that, I'm still listening because you still have what whatever you're gonna say about those two books. You got two more books.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yep, two more. So the third book uh was trick-or-treat on Monster Street. That's also illustrated by Matt Faulkner. I'm going the wrong direction. That's very timely, and so yes, um, and so uh that came about because I have always loved Halloween, it's my favorite holiday, and so I just imagined uh what if monsters celebrated Halloween, but they did it backwards from humans, so they dressed up like humans, you know. Why are they doing that? And I thought, well, they're they're because they're afraid of humans, so they're that's why they do it. And then I thought, well, what else would they be afraid of? And I thought things that we think are cute, like bunnies and kittens and puppies and stuff. So that's what they in their scary houses that they go to, that's what's in their scary houses.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

So center of universe.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Exactly. So this a boy finds who's a scaredy cat, he finds his way through to uh the monster world on Halloween uh on a full moon. So um when there's a full moon, a portal kind of opens up, and then they're able to go back and forth. And I looked it up, and uh, there aren't very many full moons on Halloween. It's kind of it worked out perfectly for my only about once every 18 years or something like that, is when it occurs. So um, so he goes through and uh ends up making friends with monsters, and the the monsters come back and scare his brothers, his mean older brothers that are always kind of taunting him. Um let's see, and then uh unfortunately I think trick-or-treat on Monster Street is out of print at the at this time, so I don't know if it'll be striking.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

I I'm gonna find it by hook or crook, even if it's on eBay.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yep, yep. Uh you can probably get it there. And then the newest book is New and True, which is uh about, and this is uh a different book from my first three books because first of all, it doesn't rhyme. All my other books are in verse, and uh, and this one was illustrated by a woman, a lady named uh Anka Sandu. Let's see if I can get her there. She is she looks like she's from Romania, but she now lives in Oregon. And uh this book, I kind of I wanted to write something that was like a fable that was kind of like a uh maybe like a Caribbean or African folk tale or something like that, because I love the language of those stories, and that's where this came from. Um, and it's about a new who is uh he's kind of like the dreamer, so he's all he's coming up with ideas that there's these diamonds that are across the river, and uh they want to get to the diamonds. New comes up with ideas about how they could possibly do it, but he's not very good at carrying through with his ideas, which uh is a lot like me. And uh and Shrew is uh he works day every night, he's going home and building a new part of this boat that he's gonna uh use to cross the river. So and I didn't realize that I was writing the book to myself until I actually uh like finished writing the story, and I'm like, oh, this I wrote this book for me because I need to I need to hear, I need to be doing that day-to-day work like Shrew and and making that happen. And it became a uh, I didn't even know this was an award, but a STEM book, a best STEM book for science, technology, engineering, mathematics. Um great by the National Science Teaching Association, which my dad would have been happy because he was he was a scientist, so um uh so that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

For me to understand the storytelling process more. Uh, are you a full-time writer? Do you do other uh other things professionally beyond that? I know I think I read on your website that you actually go to libraries or other places to uh actually uh present to children.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Sometimes, yeah. And I and I visit schools uh occasionally. I don't do as much as I used to, but um my uh I have my oldest child has special needs, physical special needs, and is in a wheelchair. So that's kind of like my first job. I'm a I'm a caregiver, you know, and that takes a lot of time. Um, and so I when I can, I write where we hire people. Um there was a lady within today, so I was able to do some writing. And uh so I kind of balance my time between those two things, and I probably don't do a good job at either one.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

That's interesting that you mentioned that. Herbie Palotto, who was on the show two weeks ago, who's the main chronicler of the Kung Fu book, said that when his uh uh parents were uh very old, he actually left Hollywood, went back to be with them in Rochester, New York, and figured he was writing a book. I think it was about Bewitched the Time or Elizabeth Montgomery. And he figured, you know, I can write anywhere. He wrote a biography of her or something. He wrote a biography about her called uh Twitched. Oh my gosh. It's uh Twitch something. He he wrote a lot of books. He wrote about Kung the Kung Fu show, about uh Diana Rigg and and on and on.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Nice. Yeah, I was a huge fan of the Kung Fu show when I was when I was a kid also. I I had one friend who was so into it he would take notes while he was watching the show.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Maybe you and I are contemporaries. I was I was uh going on soon to be nine years old when the when the pilot showed for Kung Fu.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Okay, uh I don't know how old I was. Um I was born in '64, so we're probably somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

You're a year younger than I am. Oh, his book was called Twitch Upon a Star. Twitch Upon a Star for the way that uh Samantha from Bewitched would would twitch her nose. Right, right. Um why don't I just jump into the lawyer part of it, okay? Because there's different aspects of being a storyteller. So, what started you out as a storyteller? I take it that there was oral storytelling. And even if you don't know uh lawyers or have been in the in a courtroom, I have to assume that at some point during this talk, you're gonna have some suggestions for us trial lawyers about how to be not just good storytellers, compelling storytellers, but persuasive storytellers.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Okay. Um I was thinking a little bit about what I do, and um I don't know if this applies to lawyers or not, but uh since I write a lot in verse, I have to be two things. I have to be a poet and a storyteller, which are two very different things. And sometimes if I let the poet part take over too much, it ruins the story. Because I'm just like uh if you just write a rhyme and then you're like, well, what rhymes with that? And then you go write the next line, that's not really can controlling the story, that's letting the rhymes control the story, and usually it goes off the rails when you do that. Um, so you you have to do both, you have to uh do both of those things. Um the other part about creating for me uh is that um let's see, I was trying to I I made notes about this stuff, but um I want to talk about the poet storyteller thing, and then I also wanted to talk about oh yeah, about um I write for kids, so uh a lot of my thinking is childlike, you know, and I think that's part of why I like to write for kids, is that I like to play.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

And for me, I like thinking.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Right, writing is play for me. So um, but again, you can't let that child part control everything. You have to have structure, you have to have the adult part of your brain that looks at what the child is coming up with and then kind of uh figure out what to do with it. So uh recently I just wrote a uh first draft of a middle grade story that's about a caveman who uh bucks the system, he does not want to be a hunter or a gatherer. This is too good, he wants to be a scientist instead. So I wrote a whole first draft and then I realize it's it's not quite working. I'm gonna have to go back and I there's probably I'm gonna have to cut a lot of pages. But that may be necessary, that might have been necessary to write it that way just to get it done and figure out what's working and what's not working. It it is a lot of wasted time, unfortunately, but um. Um that's one way of of writing is to just get it out there, play. You know, I would sometimes just write a scene because I thought it was funny, you know, not because it it uh worked in the story or not. Um, so so play, you know, I think play is really important to me. And it also makes me not have writers' block. If it feels like play, then I want to do it. You know what I mean? Uh if it feels like work, I don't want to sit down and write. So I have to make it fun for myself. So that's probably why I did those, you know, wrote scenes that may not end up in the story, but you know, they're funny and I had fun writing them.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Almost like perhaps with uh J.R.R. Tolkien apparently created Tom Bombadil, not intending him to be in Lord of the Rings, but I think he slipped uh Bombadil into uh Fellowship of the Ring. But the makers of the movie didn't seem to think the Bombadil uh uh sho was was gonna be good to fit into the screen.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Right, right. I think they I think they filmed those scenes, and I they weren't I don't think they re they were on the movie version, but they're on like the extended cut. I haven't gone back and and uh watched the extended cuts, but I think the scenes with Tom Bombadil are in there.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Oh, great. So that's something else for me to buy now.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Okay, then watch it. I think I'm not positive. I know that he's in the the uh Amazon Prime uh Rings of Power show that that he's I think Bombadil's on that, yeah. Yeah, okay, thank you. Yep, yeah. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I've I've always I probably would count The Hobbit as one of my favorite books, you know. I just loved that as a kid and I loved reading it to my kids.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Um okay, so let's go further back in your life. Anything you don't want to talk about, go ahead. Uh at what point did you enjoy reading all these books? At what point did you become a storyteller? Did you have a uh uh a side you that spent a lot of time by yourself?

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Yes, definitely. Uh you know, I had friends and good friends, but I did enjoy you know time by myself and reading and all that kind of stuff. I was really fortunate, and I don't know if we're still in a time period that does this, but um our teachers read stories to us, you know, like chapter books, long, long books. My fourth grade teacher uh read a story to us called The Lion's Paw, which was about some kids that kind of took a sailboat and took off with it. Um, and then my fifth grade teacher read The King of the King of the Wind, which is about a horse. Um, and I have really just amazing memories of those stories, you know, just sitting there at my desk, like maybe closing my eyes and kind of like having that come to life. So as I got older, uh I had teachers that praised me on my writing. I got a a medal for writing from my the high school English department, and then that made me kind of crazy enough to think that maybe I could do that as a as a job. So I took writing classes. I went to Eckard College in St. Petersburg and uh started taking writing classes, and then at some point my dad, who was a scientist and a teacher, he taught anatomy, said, I don't want you to major in English. So it kind of pulled the roll, pulled the rug out from under me. I switched gears, ended up going more for television, so I got a uh television degree for television production, and then but like this was all in Georgia? This was in Florida. Um, so yeah, I grew up in I was born in Birmingham, grew up in Tampa mostly, and uh and went from there. But you know, as I tell people, um, my dad, who kind of said, don't want you to do that. Who was more proud of me when the monster who ate my peas was published was my dad. Yeah, I'm sure he'd forgotten all about any of them. But at the time it was very distressing and disturbing to me that you know he didn't feel like I it was almost like him saying, I don't have enough faith in you that you could do it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

You're not the you're not the first great creator who was told that by a parent. And and how about how about Dave Pilke? I mean, uh he he had to really go against the way where where his teachers, they you know, the cap creative Captain Underpants was telling him, you know, you're just wasting your time doing these comics, these comics, he showed them.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Wow, yeah, yeah. I mean, you have to have some kind of you uh maybe one of the most important qualities of a writer is that you have to believe in yourself because if if you don't, you know, you're you're it's not gonna happen. Um, you got to believe in your ideas, uh, believe that they're worth telling. Because if if you feel like they're worth telling, then then they are. So you just have to keep at it.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

So were you doing much uh oral storytelling as you were growing up, or was this mainly all in in writing?

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Uh um, I don't remember a lot of oral storytelling. I remember in sixth grade, my teacher to get work done, she would give me a book to read to the class. So I did that. I remember reading House with a clock in its walls uh to the class on different days so that she could do teacher busy work, um, which was very fun for me. I enjoyed reading stuff out loud, but um, I'm trying to think about any other oral storytelling. I was um in fifth grade, I was a narrator for uh a school production of Journey to the Center of the Earth, um, which was kind of cool. So I guess I was narrating there. And then I one of my high school jobs uh and college jobs was I worked at um Bush Gardens in Tampa um on the African Queen boat ride. So I was uh the narrator on the boat ride telling, you know, about this Tarzan story that they're covering as it goes along. So I guess you know you look back and you're like, okay, I can see how those things maybe affected affected my career.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

So if I give you a short vignette of a story I told to a jury to get an acquittal for my client uh being accused of trafficking eight pounds of marijuana in his back seat, maybe that'll uh be the jumping ground for you to suggest more things to us. So when I went to Jerry Spencer's trial aura's college, well, they called it that because it was at his ranch, but then a lot more people got involved in the entire month of August of 1995. Uh the big focus there was persuading by storytelling and uh incorporating psychodrama, which was you may know about that. It was developed by the famous uh Austrian psychiatrist uh uh JL Moreno, uh Jacob Moreno, and that's about solving problems through role-playing and reverse role-playing. And it doesn't only have to be through psychotherapy, uh, lawyers use it. And related to that is using uh scene settings. So a big part of this is to take away the legalese, to take away the lawyers, had to take away the arguments and bring the audience to the circle of the story, to bring the audience to the present, speak in the present. So, for instance, I don't say to the person that I'm uh direct examining, what did you do next? It is what do you what do you now do? So here the whole presentation, uh, you know, well, the first thing is let's say, you know, we see the other side story, and I do the counter story. So the first story I saw here is the police report, and I'm saying, oh, S-H-I-T, how am I gonna win this case? The police report says, my clients stop for going through a stop sign. They uh one of the cops smells marijuana in the back seat, opens up the package, and lo and behold, is eight pounds of marijuana. Now, the cops have been tracking the package starting from the uh uh the airport where it arrived from San Francisco because what what they do to this day is there are great operations for packaging marijuana in uh California, vacuum sealing it, and there's a shelf life of about 24 hours or so before it stinks to high heaven. And so I just said to the jury, well, you know, you go to the post office like my client does, and there's a package in your name. So what do you do? You pick up the package, and you're not necessarily going to open it up right then and there. You got to get the stuff to open it. You put it in your backseat. I mean, if someone sends me a diamond ring, a stolen diamond ring in the mail, uh, that doesn't mean I'm responsible for having a stolen diamond ring. I don't know what it is until I open it. I think I think there may have been some jury nullification there, too. So part of storytelling, good storytelling for lawyers is feelings. So I think I appeal to the uh jury's feelings about what do they care? It's marijuana, you know, free enterprise. This is in the time of the time uh when marijuana possession itself in that state wasn't lawful. Uh so they they acquitted him. And this is after the judge said, when I asked the judge to dismiss the case, saying, okay, so after the prosecutor put on their case, and and the prosecutor, she was so nasty in accusing my client to my advantage. I think she pointed at them to the jury. The first words out of her mouth almost in her opening statement was that man over there is a drug dealer. And instead of my objecting, I figured, you know, the jury's just gonna pick up this is like overkilling it and overdoing it. And um so the the judge said when I asked him to dismiss the case, saying there's not enough evidence to even go to the jury, he said, Mr. Katz, there's enough evidence in this case to blow a battleship out of the water. So this also brings to it, Danny, then uh for um for storytelling in court, the best audience, usually, not always, depends on who the judge is versus the jury. The best audience is the jury. So have I given you some stuff maybe to talk about relating appealing to their feelings, appealing to the jury versus a judge, because sometimes you're forced to have a judge, it may be a non-jury trial, uh case first under the law, and on and on.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

I guess um if I can find a connect there to feelings, uh a lot of my books are just based on the most primal thing, which is fear. Um, and that's what uh all of my except for new and true, um, they're they're all pretty much about kids who are afraid to do something and um and they just keep getting faced with that over and over again, and then they have to figure out uh finally that it's just the the uh the easy way is not actually the easy way. The the hard way is the better way to actually face the thing that you're afraid of. Um I don't know if I don't know if that connects to what you were saying or not.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Yeah, fear fear is a big part of it. The jury uh fears making the wrong decision, for instance.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Uh the and and they fear also if they let the guilty person off, uh that then maybe they're gonna do some crimes again, even to their loved ones.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Right. So you could appeal to you know to that to that emotion, I guess, in people to kind of put them in that in that place, in that same place. Uh I don't know. Trying to think if there's any other thing. I guess that's it took me a long time to realize that's pretty much what I'm writing about in almost every book is just kids who are afraid of stuff because I guess I was afraid of things and still have anxieties about certain things. I don't like to drive on the highway um just because I've been in like pretty bad accidents on the highway before. So I kind of have PTSD from that. Um but uh yeah, so fear, fear is a big a big thing. I think everybody's afraid of something. So you that you that appeals, you know, everybody can identify with that.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

You have actual PTSD over uh uh uh possible traffic or actual traffic accidents?

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Yeah, like um driving on the interstate. I was in a really bad accident uh coming home from uh for Thanksgiving one year and uh got up to the top of a hill. Couldn't we were going at a good clip, couldn't see, but traffic was at a dead stop at the top of that hill, so couldn't see it until I got up there, swerved over the meet the concrete median stopped just in time for me to swerve over into the grass median, and I would I slowed down as you know as fast as I could. A guy on a BMW followed me, he was going so fast he hit me and uh it kind of messed up the back of my car. Uh my car was still drivable, but that I don't I have a hard I don't like uh when people follow too closely to to cars that are in front. I I'd prefer to be the driver, so I'm in control.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

I understand that. Well, okay, so also I mean you're already uh without without saying the word therapy, or maybe you did. I mean, so storytelling can be therapeutic, including with talking about the fears and and what the therapy is for that.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah. So just and then because I guess these books are about you know repeatedly putting yourself in that in that fearful situation, and then finally discovering, oh, you know what, it's just easier to to face it than it is to to run away from it.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Well, no offense to Dave Pilke. I think then you go deeper than he does. He you know, he he deals me with some scary things, but he's mostly on the silly stuff, including putting uh ketchup packets uh uh right below the toilet seat to make the ketchup splurt onto people. You go you go much deeper than that, uh, with with uh talking right to children.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

I I guess so. Yeah, I mean that's that's what I enjoy, you know. That's those are the stories that came out of me, you know. I uh hopefully I'll think of other stuff to write about. Um, but those are those are the things that I wrote about first.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Uh I will say that before my son was ever born, before I had children, I don't know what it is that made me uh know about Captain Underpants, but I think I read every Captain Underpants book before my son was ever born.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Great. No, they're hilarious. I mean, he he's he's really captured something there, and and he's got the you know, all the the the words that make kids laugh, stuff like that. I I like I think all of my stories have a little bit of humor in them, and I like stories that um are kind of like mashups of spooky or scary and humor. I I love anything that's like that, like the Adams family, you know, stuff like that. So I like something that's a little bit scary, but also a little bit funny too. So to kind of balance it out.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

One of the interests my wife had in addressing with you is the extent uh to which you have childlike perceptions to this day, and um and the extent to which you look uh at things through ch through child's eyes. So how much of a child are you still?

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Very much. I feel like I'm you know, I I don't know what age I am in my brain, but I don't I don't really feel like an adult, you know, most of the time. Um I like silly stuff, I like to be silly, be goofy and stuff like that. So I I appreciate all that kind of humor. So I love Captain Underpants and anything that's like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Well, you know, getting to the the martial arts, I do the Tai Chi Chuan martial art every day, and and uh I I think it may have been the man who created my form of Tai Chi Chuan talked about uh to be powerful as a martial arts practitioner, you have to summon uh the child within, the best child you have within.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

That's interesting. So how do you do that? How do you how do you summon a child while you're doing doing Tai Chi?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

It's it's e it's easy for me because I, like you, have never uh totally left my childhood to to the point that you know I was I was um uh I was 40, I was almost 43 when my son was born, and I and I used to think before, now if I have a child, it's gonna be almost like a child having a child. And then I finally realized, well, I'm not gonna stop being a child, so I'm not gonna delay having a child. For that reason, I I mean, you know, we'd I I've I've been obnoxious, uh trying to tell jokes to be able to make the milk come out of their nose when when they're laughing. And and you know, then my my son was was almost the uh you know the excuse for me to continue to be obnoxious and to relive child. But again, so if you have never lost a child, uh that's a lot easier. But I mean, a big part of the child, though, in martial arts is the fearlessness. So we're getting back to this theme of fear. I mean, there's a saying, for instance, that the uh baby um who's abandoned in in the woods because maybe there was a plane accident and he's the only survivor, that he can't be harmed by uh by the spear of a soldier because you can't be harmed without having the fear in the first place. Now, of course, in real life he can be harmed, uh, but but without his fear of the harm, he's less likely to be harmed because then the person who has the spear won't consider him to be a threat in the first place to have to spear.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Right, right. That that makes a lot of sense. I can see that.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

So how do you have any kind of standard stages or progressions that your uh creative process goes through? It is more like happening you wake up at 2 a.m., you have an idea, you write it down, you figure out how you're gonna incorporate it later on, just like you said about that scenario, maybe about the cave or whatever, about figuring out where you're gonna uh put it in from there.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Right. Um, I guess uh my process is probably wasteful as far as time. I because I generally start writing, I'll come up with an idea I'm excited about, and I'll just start, I'll just jump into it uh without any planning or structure or anything like that, and then I'll go back and look at it and see, well, now what do I do? How do I make a uh a beginning, middle, and end? I know what the beginning is because I wrote the beginning, but what's the middle and end? So I kind of have to go through and and uh and figure those things out. Um with the caveman story right now. I'm I am replotting it. Uh I'm using um actually have the book right here. So um there is a there was a writer uh who wrote a book called Save the Cat, which is about um writing movies, writing movie scripts. And then uh this other writer took that and took his advice and turned it into a um Save the Cat writes a young adult novel. So uh you can kind of go through this and look at that, there's different uh every great story has the same elements if you go through it. There's there's certain things that happen, whether it's a movie, a book, or what, there's a point uh where somebody tells the the hero or the main character uh something that's gonna be significant. So uh and and if you're pay attention, you'll see that in a movie or a book, you know, somebody will say, Well, you're you're uh whatever it uh it is, and then that the character is unaware that they are like that or that sort of thing. That's that's one of the points. Um, so I go through, let's see if I have a um so for so for the caveman story, so I printed out my uh worksheet. Um now I've got the boot. So, you know, and it's like I don't know, this is like five or six pages long, and so you're kind of trying to map out the story and figure out what are those points uh in the story. And I I'm still figuring it out. I haven't I haven't figured it all out yet. But um, having written the first draft, I at least know some things that can work and uh and that sort of thing. So I've generally you know there's two kinds of writers, maybe three, because there's there's pants, people that write by the seat of their pants, there's planners, and those are the ones who structure everything out first, and then there's people who kind of do both. I guess I'm the third kind where I do a little of all of that. I like to be a pantser, but now I'm learning the importance of planning. So uh if if that if that works.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Well, you had a form that you filled out. Is that a form that you developed?

SPEAKER_02 43:14

No. Um, this how did I find this? So the book Save the Cat, and this is available online. Um, there's a save the cat uh beat sheet sheet, and you can just download it and and fill it out. Um, you don't even have to read the Save the Cat book, but uh it's it's interesting, it's worth reading, especially for people that are trying to write movies or stories of of whatever kind. Um, I I recommend it. Blake Snyder was the author. He's I think he's not alive anymore. Um anyway. So that's my question.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

What are the elements of a great story?

SPEAKER_02 43:49

Uh let's see. So um the opening image is the first thing. So, like you're seeing the character uh in the world that they live in. And maybe that opening image is showing you the horrible situation that they're in or the life that they're in. Um, so all stories kind of have that. And generally, a lot of times, the end of the story will somehow circle back to that opening image, but it will be changed, and and we'll see how the character changed in the course of the story. Um, let's see, the setup, which is where you introduce your protagonist's world, their flaws, what's missing in their life. Uh then um the theme is stated. That's what I was just talking about, where the somebody will say to the character whatever it is, and that's kind of the theme of the story that they will need to learn in the course of the story. Um, then you have a catalyst or an inciting incident, so something that knocks your protagonist's world off balance, um, and that's what sets them off on whatever journey or um thing that they're gonna do. Uh, but first, then there's usually a debate. So the protagonist questions whether to pursue the new path or challenge. Uh, you remember in Star Wars, you know, Luke Skywalker kind of has that moment where he's like, Well, I'm not sure I want to, you know, go off on this path, that even though I've that's that's what I've always wanted to do, but I'm not sure I've got the guts to do that. Uh let's see, introduction of a new character or relationship that will carry the theme. Then there's fun in games, the promise of the premise, where fun stuff starts happening in that new world that they've kind of opened up by following that path. Um, the midpoint is a major turning point where stakes are raised and the protagonist either gets what they want or doesn't. So false victory or false defeat. This is I know this is long. Maybe you maybe you don't want to hear all this.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

I am soaking it all in.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Okay, then the bad guys close in, uh, external pressures intensify while internal doubts and character flaws resurface. Um, then there's an all is lost moment, lowest point where the protagonist faces their greatest fear and all seems lost. Um then dark night of the soul, protagonist's moment of deep reflection where they must find a new solution, and then break into act three. A new insight or solution emerges from the darkness, inspired by the beast story. And then the finale, uh, we're gathering the team, executing the plan, highest stakes, confrontation, uh, proof of change and character growth, and then the final image where we circle back and see how that image contrasts with the one that we started with.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

So am I correct that I am far from the first person who has told you how amazing an impact your work has had on my life and my family's life?

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Uh I've had other people tell me I I had one person uh who I think he was a guy who worked at a prison and he dealt with um with drug addicts and stuff, and he and he was using the monster who ate my peas as a like a template or some kind of a story mechanism to help them understand addiction and why that's the easy way is not the best way.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

That's something um I don't know, I've gotten letters from other people. Uh I don't know. That's that's the one that kind of stands out to me. But I appreciate it that you that you've enjoyed the story and that your family has and your son has. That's that's a cool thing because uh because when I write in my cave, you know, I don't I don't see people. I only really get to see them when I visit schools or something like that. And and then I go, oh, there's actual real people out there in the world that that it may have been your book that when I went when we went to the Aladdin bookstore, you know, when they had more children's bookstores.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

So this is about like 12 years ago or so in Arlington, Virginia. I think we first bought your book, we saw it prominently enough displayed, I think, at a children's bookstore, maybe in Alexandria, Virginia. And I asked her, Do you have monster Amy P's? Because I think I wanted to buy it for a gift. Oh, I bought it as a gift from numerous people. At least I can get it on Amazon. Uh, and she said, I don't have it. I said, Why don't you have it? She said, If a s if a book doesn't sell uh uh at least once every year, I don't carry it anymore. I said to myself, the only reason you're not selling it once a year is you don't have a bunch of these uh books you know stacked up for there for the kids to love.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

That's right, yeah. And if it's face out, that helps people to find it. Um, something I should tell you about the Monster Who Ate My P since you're a fan of it, is that next year, uh in probably March, not sure exactly, but there's gonna be a new version of it. So there'll be a new because it's the it's the 25th uh anniversary, so it will get a new cover. And my editor and I went back through the story, we sifted through the words, we spent a couple of months doing this, and I got to change things that I didn't think were quite perfect. Oh wow. The illustrator said this one page spread, he said no, the illustrations were supposed to be this way, so they've changed that. Um, just you know, different things. Uh, so it so it's the same book, but just tweaked a little bit. So that that'll be fun.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

So on that theme of the children's bookstores owner who said, I don't even care anything. Does it sell more than once a year? What is do you have some sort of mechanism to to to get your uh your your books into the hands of the readers rather than just like collecting uh proverbial dust online?

SPEAKER_02 49:52

No, it's pretty hard. It's pretty hard to do, and I I don't have I don't have much power to do that. The the way that a lot of children's authors keep their books in print is to visit a lot of schools and um and then they have the kids do book orders and stuff from the schools, but I haven't I haven't been able to do that much uh in the last years um because of being a caregiver and stuff, because I have to when I go to a school, I have to replace myself. I have to hire somebody to replace myself at home. So um that that's that's been tougher. So I feel like the children's book business is like a very lakey, flighty thing. Like a book is out, it gets noticed for a few months, and then there's a whole new bunch of books that are out. So you know, I've been fortunate that the Monster Who Ate my Ps has kind of kept on going. Um, but it's you know, it's you're not gonna find it in most bookstores. It's not it's not out there unless you request it or whatever and have them order it.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Um are there any um have you done any of your books uh what do they call it as audiobooks to have your voice on there? That would be tremendously excellent. Or anywhere. Can I find you reading your books uh loud anywhere uh that's recorded?

SPEAKER_02 51:19

Yeah. I'm trying to remember if they've ever done an audio version. I don't think they have. Um, I might on my YouTube page, I might have me reading uh The Monster Who Ate My P's. Um, and I might have the John Smoltz thing might be on there too. It might be him him reading it because uh because we got to go to Turner Field and see him uh read it. That was very fun. Um when that happened as part of the the readmore program. Um and I'll tell you one other story about the um about the monster who ate my peas. So after it was published, um Ray Bradbury's always been kind of a hero of mine since since high school. I'd wrote a paper on him and I bumped into somebody who knew his address. So I wrote him a letter and uh telling him what he's meant to me over the years, and sent him a copy of the book, and he wrote me back. He he wrote at the bottom of my letter and he made a blurb uh for the book, which I never used because I felt like he was he thought I was asking for a blurb, but I wasn't when I I was sending him a fan letter, yeah, but but he sent me a you know my blurb, which is going to be used on the new book, uh, and then he sent me a signed study guide for um Fahrenheit 451. So wonderful. Some prized uh possessions of mine.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

What do you think makes you continue to have so much of the child in you when so many of our peers don't have that or don't uh don't admit it or evoke it?

SPEAKER_02 53:01

Uh I guess I just I love stories, you know. I love and and they say, you know, the same stories are told over and over again. Well, they are, but um, you know, there's a there's ways to make them new. And you know, I watch I read a lot of books, I watch way too much television because there I feel like we're in not just like a golden age of television, I feel like we're in like a platinum diamond age of television. There is so much really good, amazing television out there if you know where to look.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

Um what TV do you like to watch?

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Oh man, it's all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

Um any tips for me of things that I may not have thought of watching?

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Um, I've really enjoyed recently The Lowdown, uh uh with Ethan Hawk, which I think is on the FX and Hulu channel. Um, it's kind of like a noir thing. Um, I love um, and that's not a children's show, but um neither one of these is uh Slow Horses on Apple TV, I think is one of the best shows on television, British spy show. I love The Last Kingdom on Netflix, which is a kind of a medieval uh uh drama um about the formation of England. Uh really good. Um, but I there I could write you a list of 50 or 100 things. I'm watching a since I got interested in Japan, I'm watching this show called uh uh Midnight Diner.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Oh yes, we watched all of those on Netflix, right?

SPEAKER_02 54:31

Yes, I I wish uh or I know that there's more seasons, but I don't know how to see the other seasons. Well, there's only two seasons on Netflix, so I gotta find those.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

You might have just learned Japanese to understand the rest that have not been subtitled yet.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

That could be, yeah, yeah. So uh yeah, we my wife and I both enjoy um uh that show, but that we watch so many different shows, and so she watches some of her own shows. I watch some of my own, and then we have ones that we watch together as well. But um, so your question was, you know, how do you keep that childlike thing going? I think it's just because I I l like to be entertained, and uh writing is of I always say like um reading a book is like being on a tour bus um in a place you've never been. Uh writing is like being the driver of the tour bus, and you get to decide where it goes and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

Um and you say you do art as well. So did you are you self-taught? Have you been formally trained?

SPEAKER_02 55:37

Mostly self-taught. I did take uh classes at the Atlanta College of Art, like night classes for a while, and uh I ended up kind of using my teacher, uh his style of teaching, and I ended up teaching a little bit myself acrylic painting because I really like acrylic painting. And uh I I I need to get back to it. Right now I don't have an art space, I don't have a place to make art. My my art space became my eldest child's bedroom. So uh right now I have no place to make art, so I gotta I need to make that again because I really enjoy doing it. Um but I like making stuff.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

You were saying I interrupted you.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

No, I just say I like making stuff, whether it's writing writing a song, painting a picture, telling a story, whatever. And I think that's a lot of creative people are just the same. We just like to make things.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

My son's creative, he he was he he was doing great uh uh great handwritten pictures for me from early on, and and he does a cappella singing, and because I don't have such great hand-eye coordination, I taught myself to do origami, including on small pieces of paper, and I actually figured out how to do a pretty cool calligraphy one day that was worth framing. Wow. That's this has been amazing meeting you. I would love to go on and on, but I told you we'd go until 8 p.m. Eastern time. And what I'm gonna do with you is what I do with all my guests that I like, and I'd be on like you. That goes with that saying. I want you to feel free to tell the audience anything you haven't already said, including definitely remind them of your website. I mean, this is danny schnitzline uh schnitzlein.com. I I recommend buying all his books. I'm gonna buy them within the next 24 hours that I don't have. This is your floor.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

And there's uh there's all kinds of stuff on my website. There's teacher lesson plans, there's uh word searches for words that are in the books, there's uh background on stories, all kinds of things. Um, let's see, I wrote down a couple of notes of just stuff that I thought was funny. Um uh when I visit schools, I talk a lot about revision and the importance of rewrites. And uh the monster who ate my peas definitely benefited from rewrites because the monster at first was just had a lot of tentacles and a lot of eyes. But then in one of the rewrites, I thought, well, he could be made out of uh, you know, yucky food foods that kids don't like. So that was part of the, you know, that wouldn't have happened without re rewriting. And teachers always like it when I when I say that. Um, so I had a kid uh raise his hand and ask a question, and he said, Um, why don't you just do it right the first time? So that was my favorite, favorite question uh that a kid ever said. Um I um since I wrote the pea book, uh I've become kind of like uh this uh like a priest of pea confession because people that also hated peas will come up to me or ever uh if I'm at a signing or whatever and tell me the ways that they would get rid of their peas when they were a kid. They would uh put them in their mouth and then leave the room and go spit them out somewhere else, or they would put them behind the the nook where they were where they were eating, or hide them in their mashed potatoes, and then just not finish the mashed potatoes. So it's kind of funny that everybody wants to tell me how they got uh got rid of their peas.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

Confessions of a former pea eater.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

Yes, so that's that's a that's been a kind of a funny part of my job. Um, I guess that's that's mostly it.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

I think that's most of my and I'm going to read to uh Danny's uh orange, so it's danny schnitzline.com, d-a-n-n-y, s-c-h nitz-l-e-in- dot com. You will thank yourself for buying and reading Monster Eight My P's, and I'm sure the other three books are great as well. I'm looking forward to your fifth book. I'm looking forward to the reissue of Monster Eat My Peas. I'm feeling sadder than ever about signing off, but we have to. This is John Kantz, I'm a criminal defense and DWI defense lawyer in Northern Virginia. This is Beat the Prosecution because there is no other way. Thank you so much, Danny.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a leg up against police investigations and prosecutions. Nothing discussed on our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Capit only provides legal advice to current clients or to individuals who have paid for a consultation. We welcome you contacting us via email and info might be theprosecution.com by calling our office at 703 383 1100 or texting us at 571 406 7268.