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A conversation with Michael Crichton Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

November 22, 1999
Web posted at: 5:19 p.m. EST (2219 GMT)

(CNN) -- Top-selling author Michael Crichton says writing was always something he wanted to do, though he did take side journeys such as medical school. "I was always very interested in writing. I showed some obsessive tendencies in the third grade," Crichton said during a recent online chat with CNN.com. "I wanted to do it professionally by the time I was in high school, but I didn't think it would be possible. I didn't think I could succeed at it."

Using a pseudonym, Crichton, 57, began writing professionally to finance his education at Harvard Medical School, and only later -- with the publication of "Andromeda Strain" -- did he begin using his true name. That book was his first big hit, and since its 1969 publication he's stayed atop the charts with scientific blockbusters, including "The Terminal Man," "Eaters of the Dead," "Congo," and the worldwide sensations "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World."

Crichton is a two-time winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award (for "A Case in Need" and "The Great Train Robbery"), has directed six movies, and is the creator of the hit television series "ER."

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Michael Crichton

All that considered, an online chatter was quick to ask if Crichton was sorry he tried medicine before writing. His response was just as quick: No.

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"I'd do it again," he said. "Medicine is a kind of traditional training for writers; lots of famous writers were doctors first, and I think it is excellent experience for writers. It was for me."

Typing his own answers for the online chat, Crichton took questions from dozens of the more than 600 people who entered the chat room, addressing queries ranging from scientific arenas like cloning and time travel to more prosaic ones, like "What makes you laugh?"

Asked where he gets the ideas for his novels, Crichton responded with an answer that must have been honed over the years: "I get all my ideas from an 800 number. You just call in and a voice gives you the ideas." Then he flashed a grin emoticom on the screen, and added, "I don't know where ideas come from."

Crichton typing his responses during the online chat

As the chat continued it became obvious that what makes Crichton's stories work is the legwork that goes into them.

"Everything gets done at once," Crichton said, "the story, the setting, the characters, etc. I don't have any sense of one thing before another. It's like building a house."

Asked how he gets the technical information needed to create stories about dinosaur DNA, time travel, and genetic engineering, Crichton said, "primarily by reading. I don't go into the field until I know pretty much what I need to know and then I go out to get details, or background information, or what is sometimes called local color."

Regarding his input on the TV show "ER," which he created, Crichton said, "I was very involved in the first two years of the show, but as an editor/producer, not as a writer. I felt it was important to let the other writers take over the show, since as a practical matter, I simply couldn't -- I didn't have time. In more recent years, I have just been an audience for the show, which I think is terrific. I admire it a lot."

Crichton delivered some news about what's in the works, including word that a sequel to "Jurassic Park" is under way. The sequel will go "straight to theaters," he said. "The screenplay is being written now." He also said he's writing a sequel to "Travels," his 1988 autobiography.

Asked how he develops a story, Crichton said, "My stories are not character driven. Usually I have the story first, and make the characters follow the story I have prepared for them. Sometimes the characters refuse. They can be troublesome. For example, in Jurassic Ian Malcolm wouldn't shut up. I wanted him to say a paragraph or two, but instead he rambled on for four or five pages! And I would look at this stuff and think, it's pretty good, but I don't really need all this."

When asked whether the endings of his stories surprise him, Crichton said, "Generally I do not know the exact ending. This means, especially in suspense stories, that as I come to the ending, I am tearing out my hair, saying 'How will I finish this thing?!' So I guess in that sense I am recreating the experience of the characters, who also don't know how it will end."