Suzanne Collins

On the eve of the publication of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, author Suzanne Collins spoke to David Levithan, her publisher and one of her editors, about the making of the book.

 

 

DL:  One of the first things you said to me about this book was that I'd better brush up on my Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau to best understand what you were doing with it. That feels like a great springboard for this conversation, since I know these philosophers and their conflicting constructions of human nature were key to what you wanted to explore. Did the novel start with these questions, and then find its story, or vice-versa?

 

SC: This novel began in a philosophical swamp that my brain swam around in until the narrative came to me. With the two series, The Underland Chronicles and The Hunger Games Trilogy, my goal was to tell stories for young audiences that examined aspects of just war theory. If you focus on that topic long enough, you naturally arrive at the question of human nature and why we tend towards conflict.

 

I'll do my best to boil down some complex ideas here, but they all bear far more discussion. The state of nature debate of the Enlightenment thinkers--Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau--addresses the human condition before we had societies or political associations. Your opinion on who we were in the state of nature defines the form of government you think we need. 

 

During my work on the two series, I kept running into Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan, and his war "of every man, against every man." He wrote that in the state of nature life was "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short" and that we require a common power, a sovereign or absolute political authority, to rule us. In return for protection, we agree to give our obedience.

 

John Locke had a gentler view of humanity. He wrote that "men living together according to reason . . . is properly the state of nature. But force . . . upon the person of another . . . is the state of war."  He's very big on reason, which "teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. . . ." 

 

DL:  That sounds very familiar. . . .

 

SC:  Yes, much of it was used by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence less than a century later. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Locke believed in limited government. The government was there to protect the rights of the people, and if it failed to do so, they could put another in its place.

 

DL:  And Rousseau?

 

SC:  Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that human beings in the state of nature were motivated by amour de soi, a naturally good form of self-love or self-preservation. When we entered society, amour de soi evolved into amour-propre, a destructive form of self-love that depends on the approval of other people and is associated with vanity, contempt, shame, and envy. Rousseau wrote about the rule of "the general will" or the will of the people as a whole. In The Social Contract, he says, "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole." His thinking influenced the French Revolution, socialism and a wide range of political theory.

 

DL:  And how do you see the Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau positions on human nature in relation to your characters?

 

SC:  The principle characters in Ballad embrace elements of the different philosophers' arguments and carry them into Panem. Volumnia Gaul passes Hobbes's basic worldview on to Coriolanus. Sejanus fights the good fight for Locke, as does Lucy Gray, who picks up the mantle for Romanticism as well. Rousseau is lightly sprinkled over the Covey, usually by way of his influence on the Romanticists, as he was an early one himself.

 

DL:  Why is the state of nature debate timely?

 

SC:  Here in the United States, we spend a great deal of time attacking each other for our liberal or conservative views, left or right, blue or red. But I think we've lost sight of a deeper issue, which is about democratic versus authoritarian rule, and what it requires to sustain a democracy. 

 

DL:  Another influence on the book is Wordsworth, whose "Lucy Gray" influences both your character of that name and one of the ballads she sings. Did you know from the start that the poem would be the basis for her ballad, or was that something that came after the story was set in motion?

 

SC: Romanticism emerged in the late 18th century and celebrates individualism, emotion, nature, free expression, and the form of nationalism embodied by the Covey. Wordsworth was a key figure in the movement with his Lyrical Ballads, where he describes poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." When I read his "Lucy Gray" poem, I thought, That's it. That's my girl's ballad.

 

The character was already fairly well developed, but with a different name. I had to find her name the way I had to find Katniss's. I was drawn to the poem by the mystery of Lucy Gray's fate.  Being able to echo that in the novel seemed perfect, leaving the reader to wonder, leaving a question that I can address if I decide to fill out more of the world of Panem. Also, the name Lucy Gray seemed designed for the Covey, with the built-in color. I liked the idea that the Covey, as lovers of nature, would honor all colors, not just the flashy ones. Taupe and ivory and gray like a winter day. Then there's the ambiguity of the color gray. I don't think that was an accident on Wordsworth's part. And the obliteration by snow. And the easy adaptation to a song.  It met so many needs.

DL:  And what happens when Coriolanus's Hobbesian worldview encounters Romanticism?

 

SC:  They're like oil and water; they don't mix well. Ultimately, Romanticism is a factor in bringing down Coriolanus and the Hunger Games. Katniss does it with the help of Lucy Gray's music. Conversely, the katniss plant lends a hand to Lucy Gray in a time of need.

 

DL:  Jumping from the derivation of Lucy Gray's name to the derivation of Coriolanus's . . . as you note in the acknowledgments, one of the serendipities that occurred during the writing and editing of this book was that it happened to coincide with the first Shakespeare in the Park production of Coriolanus in decades. In the trilogy, particularly when it comes to Snow's finale, the connections to Shakespeare's Coriolanus are clear. What do you see as the points of connection between eighteen-year-old Coriolanus and the leader in Shakespeare's play?

 

SC:  Shakespeare's Coriolanus owes a great debt to "The Life of Coriolanus" in Plutarch's Lives. Like the protagonist in the play, he had anti-populist views.  Here Plutarch describes Coriolanus's reaction to a dispute over grain distribution in the senate. (Coriolanus is referred to by the name given to him at birth, Caius Marcius.) "But Marcius rose in his place and vehemently attacked those who favored the multitude, calling them demagogues and betrayers of the aristocracy, and declaring that they were nourishing, to their own harm, the evil seeds of boldness and insolence which had been sown among the rabble; these they should have choked when they first sprang up, and not have strengthened the people by such a powerful magistracy as the tribunate." 

 

Shakespeare makes his Coriolanus's loathing clear from his entrance, where he greets the citizens with: "What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, / That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, / Make yourselves scabs?" He follows that up with a whole string of insults, driving home his contempt for them. 

 

This anti-populist position would be the key character trait to carry over to the book. Young Coriolanus's sense of superiority to the district citizens of Panem is absolute.  He believes them to be almost subhuman, barbaric, and goes to great lengths to separate Lucy Gray from them when he begins to fall for her. Exposure to the districts only reinforces his position. And while he recognizes their advantages, he doesn't have a particularly high opinion of his neighbors in the Capitol either. Ultimately, he embraces the Hobbesian worldview that humanity needs an absolute authority to rule at the expense of personal freedom. 

 

DL:  And, for better or worse, each Coriolanus has the counsel of a Volumnia. . . .

 

SC:  In the play, Coriolanus is influenced by his mother, Volumnia. In Ballad, Coriolanus's philosophical mother is Volumnia Gaul, not the gentle mother who dies when he's five. She educates him and is clearly a fan of Hobbes' state of nature philosophy. Both Coriolanuses come from the upper class, lose their fathers at a young age, serve in the military, and live in the Rome of their worlds. But they're not meant to be identical; in fact, in some ways they're polar opposites. For instance, Coriolanus of the play thrives in war, but Ballad Coriolanus struggles to find its appeal. In this, he's much more like Hobbes, who developed his ideas having lived through the English Civil War.

 

DL:  The one epigraph that surprised me, because we hadn't discussed her influence or her thinking, was the one from Mary Shelley. Although in her most famous novel, she was also investigating the boundaries and inclinations of human nature. How does her influence or her treatment of the themes apply to Ballad?

 

SC:  Mary Shelley embodies the ideas of Romanticism but incorporates Locke and Rousseau's earlier ones as well, which makes her most representative of Lucy Gray and the Covey. Look at the quote from Frankenstein: "I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him." When I read it, I'm reminded of Locke's tabula rasa, or blank slate, theory, in which all we know comes from experience, as well as of Rousseau's state-of-nature human beings, who were capable of pity and compassion. She seems to be saying that naturally good creatures exposed to an abusive world result in monsters. You can apply that to Frankenstein, Coriolanus, or anyone you choose. 

 

DL: Did you always plan to return to Panem after the trilogy with a book set sixty-four years earlier? And if not, what made you return to the story in this way?

 

SC: Here's how it works now. I have two worlds, the Underland and Panem. I use both of them to explore elements of just war theory. When I find a related topic that I want to examine, then I look for the place it best fits. The state of nature debate of the Enlightenment period naturally lent itself to a story centered on Coriolanus Snow.

 

Focusing on the 10th Hunger Games also gave me the opportunity to tell Lucy Gray's story. In the first chapter of The Hunger Games, I make reference to a fourth District 12 victor. Katniss doesn't seem to know anything about the person worth mentioning. While her story isn't well-known, Lucy Gray lives on in a significant way through her music, helping to bring down Snow in the trilogy. Imagine his reaction when Katniss starts singing "Deep in the Meadow" to Rue in the arena. Beyond that, Lucy Gray's legacy is that she introduced entertainment to the Hunger Games.

 

DL: I have to ask—when you wrote that reference in the first book, did you have any sense of who that fourth victor might be?

 

SC: Yes, but she's evolved a lot since then.

 

DL: What was it like to rewind the world you'd built by sixty-four years? What were some of the touchstones you used to understand what this version of Panem would be?

 

SC: I really enjoyed going back in time to an earlier version of Panem and visiting the reconstruction period that followed the Dark Days. I thought a lot about the period after the Civil War here in the United States and also the post–World War II era in Europe. People trying to rebuild, to live their daily lives in the midst of the rubble. The challenges of food shortages, damaged infrastructure, confusion over how to proceed in peacetime. The relief that the war has ended coupled with the bitterness toward the wartime enemy. The need to place blame.

 

DL: What about the early Hunger Games?

 

SC: Even as the victor in the war, the Capitol wouldn't have had the time or resources for anything elaborate. They had to rebuild their city and the industries in the districts, so the arena really is an old sports arena. They just threw in the kids and the weapons and turned on the cameras.

 

The 10th Hunger Games is where it all blows wide open, both figuratively and literally.

 

DL: What was it like to have to dial back a character you created in his late maturity and then to rethink him as an eighteen-year-old?

 

SC: Well, I'm back to Wordsworth, who wrote, "The child is the father of the man." The groundwork for the aging President Snow of the trilogy was laid in childhood. Then there's Locke, who's all over this book, with his theory of tabula rasa, or blank slate, in which we're all products of our experiences. Snow's authoritarian convictions grew out of the experiences of his childhood, as did his complicated relationships with mockingjays, food, the Hunger Games, District 12, District 13, and women. So, you rewind and plant the seeds.

But given all that, you still need to leave room for Snow's personality. Is a he a product of nature or nurture? Everyone of his generation experienced trauma, loss, and deprivation. And yet Sejanus, Tigris, Lucy Gray, and Lysistrata turned out very differently.

For whatever reason, Snow has a very controlling personality. Then he experiences one of the most out-of-control emotions, falling in love. It turns out to be a bad combination.

 

DL: I'll confess it was hard for me to get Donald Sutherland out of my head (because he's a masterful Snow). How is he different from how you pictured Snow in the books?

 

SC: I agree, he is a masterful Snow! He's such a talented actor; I could watch him in anything, really. Physically, Donald's bigger than Snow in the novels, but his interpretation of the character is dead-on. In one interview, he talked about how he didn't think of Snow as a villain but as a tyrant. He said, "And he doesn't think he's a bad person. He thinks it's the only way that society can survive. And whether you think he's right or wrong, he doesn't think he's bad. He likes himself." That's exactly right. With his Hobbesian worldview, Coriolanus Snow believes he's all that's keeping Panem from chaos and destruction. With that grasp of the character and that snow-white mane and that remarkable voice, it's hard to imagine anyone being better as the trilogy's president.

 

DL: One of the things that struck me the most when I read the opening of Ballad for the first time was your decision to shift from first person to close third person. What was it about this particular story or character that made you decide to write in third person?

 

SC: The first series I did, The Underland Chronicles, was in close third person. You basically ride through five books on Gregor's shoulder, and you're privy to his thoughts. When I sat down to write The Hunger Games, I intended to use the same point of view, but Katniss insisted on telling the story in first person. For Coriolanus, it seemed natural to step back a bit again. It's enough to know his thoughts, I think, without being entirely in his head.

 

DL: Because the trilogy books were written in such quick succession, you didn't really have to deal with the feedback loop that a lot of series writers face, where readers' expectations and reactions filter into the authors' consciousness of the story and the world. But certainly in the past decade, there have been countless essays, posts, and memes written about the Hunger Games. How much of that were you aware of when you were writing the new novel? Or did you manage to block it out?

 

SC: I've read some things over the years. I'm grateful there's a conversation, but I can't spend too much time there. Ballad was a complicated book for me. It was enough trying to stay on track to accomplish what I set out to do. And as a stand-alone, the book can't be influenced by the response to it.

 

DL: I know where Coriolanus's name came from. I know where Lucy Gray's name came from. But what about Sejanus Plinth's name?

 

SC: Sejanus is named for a famous Roman, Lucius Aelius Sejanus. He rose above his equestrian class to a position of considerable power and then was executed for conspiracy against the emperor Tiberius. Historically, he's been featured a fair amount in literature. More recently, Patrick Stewart played Sejanus in the BBC Production of I, Claudius. I thought that the Roman Sejanus's social position and end made him a good match for this novel's Sejanus.

 

The father of the real-world Sejanus was Lucius Seius Strabo, so that's where Strabo Plinth's name comes from in the book.

 

As to his last name, Plinth, Sejanus is from District 2, where they mine stone. A plinth is a base for a statue, vase, or column. I was thinking of Locke as the foundation of our democracy, and since Sejanus is my lead Lockean, he's a plinth.

 

DL: Were all the linkages to the trilogy preplanned or did some characters pop up as you were writing?

 

SC: Given the passage of time between Ballad and the trilogy, only a handful of characters make an appearance in both. Coriolanus and Tigris are principals. Clerk Carmine is the fiddler who plays at Finnick and Annie's wedding in District 13. Other than that, a few family names pop up—Heavensbee, Cardew, Crane, Flickerman—but these people lived one or two generations before the trilogy characters. In Ballad, I establish a tradition of Hunger Games hosting by the Flickermans, reinforce the hatred of the Cranes for the districts, and lay in the Heavensbee wealth which facilitated Plutarch's rebel activity.

 

DL: Of all the authors I work with, you are one of the firmest believers in structure. Three parts, ten chapters each. Where did this structure come from?

 

SC: The first eight novels I did were three parts, nine chapters each. For this new one, I needed that extra chapter in each part, possibly because it's a stand-alone and I couldn't use the following book to fill out the story. It all had to be contained between the covers. The structure is based on a three-act dramatic structure. I use elements that I learned in both playwriting and screenwriting.

 

DL: When you're mapping out the story before you write it, do you do it chapter by chapter, story beat by story beat, in terms of character beats, or some other way?

 

SC: At this point, I decide on the dramatic questions of the story for the outer, the inner, and the emotional journeys of the protagonist. Then I find the inciting incident, act breaks, crisis, and climax points. After that, I work out the principal beats with Post-its and create a chapter grid. The outer, inner, and emotional journeys should climax at around the same time. So, for instance, in Ballad, the outer journey is Can Snow get to university, or some form of higher education in the fall, thus securing his future? The inner journey is moral: Will Snow maintain his integrity? Basically, will he break good or bad? The emotional journey is Will the lovers end up together? These all converge and climax in the final chapter.

 

All the principal structural points are in place before I start writing, but that leaves plenty of space for things to evolve, especially between the characters. The unplanned scenes are often some of my favorites.

 

Here's the thing about structure though. You can set everything up so it meets all the designated requirements and still have a dull, lifeless piece. You have to have compelling characters with real emotional lives for people to want to engage with a story. But often there are really promising stories with wonderful characters that fall apart due to some very basic structural shortfalls. It's a real challenge, getting a story to work on all levels. And then when, for better or worse, you finish one, you're back to the blank page again. That's the life cycle.

  

DL: I know, down to the very title of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, that music was a huge influence when it came to writing this book. So I will start with the most basic question: How do you see this book as a ballad?

 

SC: A ballad is a song or poem that tells a story. This is a story about humans and the Enlightenment state of nature debate largely between Hobbes and Locke. The melody is provided by the titular creatures, the songbirds and the snakes. At first glance, the songbirds are the Lockeans and the snakes are the Hobbesians, but it's never that simple. We're all mixed up in this big stew of feathers and scales. I took great care to show the overlap and the mutual attraction between the two. Lucy Gray, the lead songbird, has an affinity for mockingjays and snakes alike. Coriolanus, a budding Hobbesian, has a fascination with both Lucy Gray and jabberjays.

 

The political climate in Panem can also shift to favor one or the other. A Lockean pushback to restore inalienable rights and create a government in the service of the people triggered the recent civil war known as the Dark Days. Dire circumstances, like those Coriolanus encounters during the siege, can make things feel Hobbesian very quickly, and we see authoritarianism win the day. Sixty-four years later, Katniss Everdeen will be the spark for another revolution against the repressive state. The pendulum swings back and forth.

 

DL: There are a number of original songs within the book, as well as adaptations and variations of some centuries-old poems and ballads. Can you talk a little about these?

 

SC: Ballads are often kept alive by an oral tradition, passed down from generation to generation, and I wanted the Covey to be caretakers of that tradition. You see it immediately in their names, which are drawn from old ballads, many with English and Scottish roots. For instance, Tam Amber is from "Tam Lin," Clerk Carmine is from "Clerk Saunders," Barb Azure is from "Barbara Allen," Maude Ivory is from Christina Rossetti's "Maude Clare," and Lucy Gray is from William Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray."

 

In addition to that, the Covey musicians have kept numerous songs alive, and I wanted those to be recognizable to modern American audiences, given that geographically most of Panem is in today's United States. I researched many before choosing the three in the book: "Down in the Valley," "Oh, My Darling, Clementine," and "Keep on the Sunny Side."

 

DL: Can you tell me about "The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird"? The lyrics are original, but I know you were inspired by another traditional piece.

 

SC: Yes, one that has roots in a ballad from the 1700s called "The Unfortunate Rake." Through the years, it evolved both in music and lyric to songs we know today, like "Streets of Laredo." Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has a wonderful album called "The Unfortunate Rake," which tracks the song from its origins to present day. The story changes over time and has numerous variations, but many involve the tale of a young person who makes questionable choices—maybe they drink or visit prostitutes or gamble or get in gun fights—and they pay for those choices with their lives. The song is their deathbed song, so to speak, although they're often dying in the street.

 

I took that story tradition and used it for Lucy Gray. She thinks her hours are numbered, and her questionable choice is loving Billy Taupe, which has indeed led to her being chosen for the Hunger Games. It departs from the standard story in that it focuses on a bad romance, but she admits to plenty of bad behavior as well. As she tells the audience, this is a story that she began in District 12, but clearly the last few stanzas are informed by her being a tribute in the Games. Her imminent death brings it back to the recurring theme of the song. It's written to be sung to a variation of the traditional ballad.

 

For Lucy Gray, it's just another admission of her unhealthy attraction to things she can't trust: snakes, white liquor, thunder, and Billy Taupe. Then she falls for Coriolanus. Well, out of the frying pan, into the fire.

 

DL: "The Hanging Tree" provides one of the most interesting through lines between this book and the trilogy—it's very moving to see the origin of a song that plays such a memorable role in Katniss's story. What was it like to return to something you knew so well and to give it a concrete history?

 

SC: It was great to have an opportunity to tell the origin story, which wasn't possible in the trilogy, and to bridge the two time periods. As a reminder, it's used somewhat differently in the books than in the films. In the book Mockingjay, it appears in an intimate moment. Peeta, who's been tortured to madness with the tracker jacker serum, recalls Katniss's father singing it. It's a memory untouched by the serum and the first connection that doesn't trigger a mental meltdown. In the film, it becomes a rallying song for the rebels. Either way, it's a gift from Lucy Gray to Katniss.

 

The origin story we see in Ballad explains the puzzle of the lyrics, how the dead man calls out for his love to flee the gallows. That requires the jabberjays, who father the mockingjays. After the war, they were released to die out. Trashed, essentially. Like District 12, they're throwaways. And because they're ignored and underestimated, they ultimately contribute to the Capitol's downfall.

 

DL: And there's one other song from the trilogy. . . . 

 

SC: "Deep in the Meadow," which is the lullaby Katniss sings to Rue as she dies in The Hunger Games. The two pairs of girls are meant to mirror each other. Both renditions take place in the woods, but Katniss and Rue are in the arena, while Lucy Gray and Maude Ivory are by the lake. In the song, nature will protect you. "Here it's safe, here it's warm. Here the daisies guard you from every harm." And the mockingjays pick it up in both the arena and the woods. They're protective, too.

 

DL: Can you talk about your writing process for the songs?

 

SC: Songs have their own lives. A door opens, and I drop everything and write a song for a few days or a week. Then I come back to the task at hand.

 

They can appear very suddenly. I remember one morning in winter, I opened the window to our backyard and we'd had a big snowfall and everything was so pristine, so beautiful. And the phrase came into my mind, Pure as the driven snow. And that was it. I knew that was the heart of the song Lucy Gray writes for Coriolanus. I stopped writing the book immediately and worked on the song for three days. Then I set it aside. Later, in the final chapters, it was nice to have it ready to put in.

 

The song Lucy Gray sings at the reaping grew out of the state of nature debate and Romanticism. It's a song about individualism, defiance, and things no one has the right or even the ability to take from another person. "Nothing You Can Take from Me Was Ever Worth Keeping." It's a refusal to obey, to conform, to bow to authoritarian rule. But it's designed to be entertaining as well.

 

Every song has a specific role in the book, whether it's to entertain, like "Still Comes A-Crawling to You," or to inspire nationalism, like "Gem of Panem." I enjoy writing them a lot. It's like getting to play a game in the middle of the storytelling.

 

DL: Do the lyrics come first, and then you find the tune? Or do you get a tune in your head and shape the words around it?

 

SC: It begins with a key phrase or a couple of lines. Sometimes music attaches itself immediately, but definitely the words come first. Every song develops a melody when I write it, which helps me track the lyrics. But that doesn't mean that's the music that will be used when it's produced. For instance, the music for "The Hanging Tree" in the films was composed by Jeremiah Caleb Fraites and Wesley Keith Schultz of the Lumineers and arranged by James Newton Howard. The music for "Deep in the Meadow" was composed by T Bone Burnett and Simone Burnett. I was really happy with both pieces.

 

DL: Do you actually write out the music, or is it the kind of situation where you could sing the songs but need people with more musical training to actually compose them in a proper score?

 

SC: I know just enough music to jot down a melody line, but I would need composers for arrangements and scores.

 

DL: One of the crucial differences between Lucy Gray and Katniss is that while Katniss is a reluctant performer, Lucy Gray knows her way around a stage. How crucial was her musical talent and musical family (because that's what the Covey is, isn't it?) when you were drawing up her character?

 

SC: Essential. Lucy Gray brings entertainment to the Hunger Games with her singing. That seed, which she unwittingly plants, grows into the monstrous entertainment which is the Hunger Games of the trilogy. It will include stylists and chariots and flashy interviews and elaborate spectacles both in and out of the arena. If Dr. Gaul is to reinforce her annual Hobbesian message, then she has to have something that compels people to watch so that everyone will participate in the sick pleasure of the Games.

 

DL: Do you listen to music as you write, or do you need silence?

 

SC: Silence. Or rather, quiet. The usual murmur of the house is fine. Music is so lively in my brain that I have to stop to listen to it. Especially if it has words.