Who made the hunger games

“The Hunger Games,” by Suzanne Collins, came out in 2008. It is the first in a trilogy by the same name that includes “Catching Fire” (2009) and “Mockingjay” (2010). The series has more than 100 million copies in print worldwide, and spent more than 260 consecutive weeks on The Times best-seller list. The books have spawned four record-breaking films and many Katniss Halloween costumes. In a 10th anniversary edition of the book, which hits stores this month, David Levithan, a vice president and publisher at Scholastic Press, interviewed Collins. An excerpt from that interview, including potential spoilers, is below, condensed and edited for clarity and length.

[ Read “Katness Everdeen Is My Hero,” an essay by the writer Sabaa Tahir, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the publication of “The Hunger Games.” ]

David Levithan: Let’s start at the origin moment for “The Hunger Games.” You were flipping channels one night.

Suzanne Collins: Yes, I was flipping through the channels one night between reality television programs and actual footage of the Iraq War, when the idea came to me. At the time, I was completing the fifth book in The Underland Chronicles and my brain was shifting to whatever the next project would be. I had been grappling with another story that just couldn’t get any air under its wings. I knew I wanted to continue to explore writing about just-war theory for young audiences. In The Underland Chronicles, I’d examined the idea of an unjust war developing into a just war because of greed, xenophobia and longstanding hatreds. For the next series, I wanted a completely new world and a different angle into the just-war debate.

DL: Can you tell me what you mean by the “just-war theory” and how that applies to the setup of the trilogy?

SC: Just-war theory has evolved over thousands of years in an attempt to define what circumstances give you the moral right to wage war and what is acceptable behavior within that war and its aftermath. The why and the how. It helps differentiate between what’s considered a necessary and an unnecessary war. In The Hunger Games Trilogy, the districts rebel against their own government because of its corruption. The citizens of the districts have no basic human rights, are treated as slave labor, and are subjected to the Hunger Games annually. I believe the majority of today’s audience would define that as grounds for revolution. They have just cause but the nature of the conflict raises a lot of questions. Do the districts have the authority to wage war? What is their chance of success? How does the re-emergence of District 13 alter the situation? When we enter the story, Panem is a powder keg and Katniss the spark.

DL: A connection you made early on was with mythology, particularly the myth of Theseus. How did that piece come to fit?

SC: I was such a huge Greek mythology geek as a kid, it’s impossible for it not to come into play in my storytelling. The connection to the myth of Theseus happened immediately. As a young prince of Athens, he participated in a lottery that required seven girls and seven boys to be taken to Crete and thrown into a labyrinth to be destroyed by the Minotaur. In one version of the myth, this excessively cruel punishment resulted from the Athenians opposing Crete in a war. Sometimes the labyrinth’s a maze, sometimes it’s an arena. In my teens I read Mary Renault’s “The King Must Die,” in which the tributes end up in the Bull Court. They’re trained to perform with a wild bull for an audience composed of the elite of Crete who bet on the entertainment. Theseus and his team dance and handspring over the bull in what’s called bull-leaping. You can see depictions of this in ancient sculpture and vase paintings. The show ended when they’d either exhausted the bull or one of the team had been killed. After I read that book, I could never go back to thinking of the labyrinth as simply a maze, except perhaps ethically. It will always be an arena to me.

DL: But in this case, you dispensed with the Minotaur. Instead, the arena harkens more to gladiator vs. gladiator than to gladiator vs. bull. What influenced this construction?

SC: A fascination with the gladiator movies of my childhood, particularly Spartacus. Whenever it ran, I’d be glued to the set. My dad would get out Plutarch’s Lives and read me passages from “Life of Crassus,” since Spartacus, being a slave, didn’t rate his own book.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in the 2012 film, “The Hunger Games.” Said Suzanne Collins of the character Katniss: “She was a born archer.”Credit...Murray Close/Lionsgate

DL: Another key piece of The Hunger Games is the voice and perspective that Katniss brings to it. Some novelists start with a character and then find a story through that character, but with The Hunger Games I believe you had the idea for the story first, and then Katniss stepped into it. Where did she come from?

SC: Katniss appeared almost immediately after I had the idea, standing by the bed with that bow and arrow. I’d spent a lot of time during The Underland Chronicles weighing the attributes of different weapons. I used archers very sparingly because they required light and the Underland has little natural illumination. But a bow and arrow can be handmade, shot from a distance, and weaponized when the story transitions into warfare. She was a born archer. Her name came later, while I was researching survival training and specifically edible plants. In one of my books, I found the arrowhead plant, and the more I read about it, the more it seemed to reflect her. Its Latin name has the same roots as Sagittarius, the archer. The edible tuber roots she could gather, the arrowhead-shaped leaves were her defense, and the little white blossoms kept it in the tradition of flower names, like Rue and Primrose. I looked at the list of alternative names for it. Swamp Potato. Duck Potato. Katniss easily won the day. As to her voice, I hadn’t intended to write in first person. I thought the book would be in the third person like The Underland Chronicles. Then I sat down to work and the first page poured out in first person, like she was saying, “Step aside, this is my story to tell.” So I let her.

DL: I’m curious about Katniss’s family structure.

SC: Her parents have their own histories in District 12 but I only included what’s pertinent to Katniss’s tale. Her father’s hunting skills, musicality and death in the mines. Her mother’s healing talent and vulnerabilities. Her deep love for Prim. Those are the elements that seemed essential to me. I have a world of information about the characters that didn’t make it into the book. With some stories, revealing that could be illuminating, but in the case of The Hunger Games, I think it would only be a distraction unless it was part of a new tale within the world of Panem.

DL: When did Peeta and Gale come into the equation? Did you know from the beginning how their stories would play out vis-à-vis Katniss’s?

SC: Peeta and Gale appeared quickly, less as two points on a love triangle, more as two perspectives in the just-war debate. Gale, because of his experiences and temperament, tends toward violent remedies. Peeta’s natural inclination is toward diplomacy. Katniss isn’t just deciding on a partner; she’s figuring out her worldview.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen and Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne in a scene from the film, “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.” “Gale, because of his experiences and temperament, tends toward violent remedies,” said Suzanne Collins.Credit...Murray Close/Lionsgate

DL: Why is Peeta a baker?

SC: Bread crops up a lot in The Hunger Games. It’s the main food source in the districts, as it was for many people historically. When Peeta throws a starving Katniss bread in the flashback, he’s keeping her alive long enough to work out a strategy for survival. It seemed in keeping with his character to be a baker, a life giver. But there’s a dark side to bread, too. When Plutarch Heavensbee references it, he’s talking about Panem et Circenses, Bread and Circuses, where food and entertainment lull people into relinquishing their political power. Bread can contribute to life or death in The Hunger Games.

DL: When it comes to larger world building, how much did you know about Panem before you started writing?

SC: I knew there were thirteen districts — that’s a nod to the thirteen colonies — and that they’d each be known for a specific industry. I knew 12 would be coal and most of the others were set, but I had a few blanks that naturally filled in as the story evolved. When I was little we had that board game, Game of the States, where each state was identified by its exports. And even today we associate different locations in the country with a product, with seafood or wine or tech. Of course, it’s a very simplified take on Panem. No district exists entirely by its designated trade. But for purposes of The Hunger Games, it’s another way to divide and define the districts.

DL: Where do you write? Are you a longhand writer or a laptop writer? Do you listen to music as you write, or go for the monastic, writerly silence?

SC: I write best at home in a recliner. I used to write longhand, but now it’s all laptop. Definitely not music; it demands to be listened to. I like quiet, but not silence.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). Suzanne Collins said that it was in keeping with Peeta’s character “to be a baker, a life giver.”Credit...Murray Close/Lionsgate

DL: You talked earlier about researching survival training and edible plants for these books. What other research did you have to do?

SC: You know, I’m just not very handy. I read a lot about how to build a bow from scratch, but I doubt I could ever make one. Being good with your hands is a gift. So I do a lot of book research. Sometimes I visit museums or historic sites for inspiration. I was trained in stage combat, particularly sword fighting in drama school; I have a nice collection of swords designed for that, but that was more helpful for The Underland Chronicles. The only time I got to do archery was in gym class in high school.

DL: You cowrote the screenplay for the first Hunger Games movie. I know it’s an enormously tricky thing for an author to adapt their own work. How did you approach it?

SC: I wrote the initial treatments and first draft and then Billy Ray came on for several drafts and then our director, Gary Ross, developed it into his shooting script and we ultimately did a couple of passes together. I did the boil down of the book, which is a lot of cutting things while trying to retain the dramatic structure. I think the hardest thing for me, because I’m not a terribly visual person, was finding the way to translate many words into few images. Billy and Gary, both far more experienced screenwriters and gifted directors as well, really excelled at that. Throughout the franchise I had terrific screenwriters, and Francis Lawrence, who directed the last three films, is an incredible visual storyteller. The most rewarding moment on the movie was the first time I saw it put together, still in rough form, and thinking it worked.

DL: Do you picture your characters as you’re writing them? If so, how close did Jennifer Lawrence come to the Katniss in your head? And now when you think about Katniss, do you see Jennifer or do you still see what you imagined before?

SC: I definitely do picture the characters when I’m writing them. The actress who looks exactly like my book Katniss doesn’t exist. Jennifer looked close enough and felt very right, which is more important. She gives an amazing performance. When I think of the books, I still think of my initial image of Katniss. When I think of the movies, I think of Jen. Those images aren’t at war any more than the books are with the films. Because they’re faithful adaptations, the story becomes the primary thing. Some people will never read a book, but they might see the same story in a movie. When it works well, the two entities support and enrich each other.

DL: All of the actors did such a fantastic job with your characters. Are there any in particular that have stayed with you?

SC: A writer friend of mine once said, “Your cast — they’re like a basket of diamonds.” That’s how I think of them. I feel fortunate to have had such a talented team — directors, producers, screenwriters, performers, designers, editors, marketing, publicity, everybody — to make the journey with. And I’m so grateful for the readers and viewers who invested in “The Hunger Games.” Stories are made to be shared.