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Sam Danis: Hello, Audible listeners. This is Sam, Audible’s sci-fi and fantasy editor, and I'm thrilled to be chatting with Matt Dinniman, author of the LitRPG sensation Dungeon Crawler Carl series, which is now seven books in with the release of This Inevitable Ruin. He's also an artist and musician, and we are here today to discuss the whole series. I have to note that I considered trying to replicate Jeff Hays's “new achievement” while reading that, but I decided not to embarrass myself today. Welcome, Matt.
Matt Dinniman: How's it going? Happy to be here.
SD: Awesome. So, book 7, we're at level 9 of the world dungeon, is that right?
MD: That is correct. We are on the ninth floor.
SD: So, we're halfway there.
MD: We are. I think we're a little more than halfway there, but we'll see what happens next [laughs].
SD: Alongside this, the first book was just re-released as a hardcover with really stunning new cover art. How has the experience of writing and releasing these books into the world compared to when you were working on book 1, sort of your level 1? Could you have imagined this runaway success?
MD: No, not at all. The whole thing is insane. I started writing it December 26, 2019, and I was writing it for fun. I wasn't expecting anyone to read it. I wasn't even at the time sure I was going to put it up on Royal Road, which is a free web-serial site. I ended up doing that just because I started thinking, “Hey, I think this is pretty good, so let's see if other people like it.” And even then, at the time when I first started posting it, I had never expected it to be anything that was going to go beyond that. Then the pandemic hit in March of 2020 and we all got kind of kicked in the teeth, and I was working as an artist at the time, and all of that stopped. My income immediately stopped, and I didn't have much of a choice other than to lean into it and hope that I could maybe eke out a little bit of income out of the book.
"I was once set up right next to a Persian cat, and the little thing was just staring at me the whole time, this tiny little cat, and I was like, 'I'm going to write a book with that cat in it one day.'"
It ended up working out for me in that way. But the fan reaction to this is just beyond anything I ever imagined. I've been writing for a very long time. The first story I ever published was in a national magazine in 1999, and I was just a kid. My first book came out way back in 2003, and I've never had anything like this, where there's literally hundreds of thousands of people listening or reading what I've written and it's just beyond insane.
SD: You mentioned that it’s something you started writing for fun, and I feel like we've heard that before from, I'm thinking specifically of Travis Baldree writing his Legends and Lattes. It was kind of a challenge for him. And I feel like it's those projects that you do out of just the fun of it and the love of it that really shows in the final product and maybe adds to that success.
MD: I agree with that a lot. I go to a lot of writers’ conferences and talk to a lot of my fellow writers, and a lot of people are so intent on writing the market, figuring out what's going to sell. And inevitably, I strongly feel, like Travis Baldree, he did that for NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month] or whatever it's called, and those stories where the author is just putting their all into it, they're just writing it because they want to write it, telling a story they really want to tell, myself as a reader, I can tell when the author is just having a good time when I'm reading a book. I really appreciate that and it just shines through on the pages.
SD: Yeah, agreed. I think you can really feel it when you're reading or listening to it. Without spoiling too much, what are you most excited about right now for fans to discover in book 7 and beyond? I know there are more to come.
MD: Well, book 7 in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series is kind of a huge moment. Even from the very first book they talk about things that happen on the ninth floor, there's a big event. The dungeon is 18 levels, but nobody ever really gets past the 13th level. The ninth floor is this big giant battle, and it's not even really about the contestants, the crawlers, anymore, it's about the outside. The outside factions all come in and they pretend to play war. This time things are different because Carl and Donut are trying to break the system. They've done a few things ahead of time, so we meet a bunch of characters we've talked about but we haven't actually met. There's a bunch of surprises, there's people we never expected to meet that show up, and it's just typical Carl, it's pure chaos until the very end.
SD: Amazing. I can't wait to hear it. I know that our listeners are chomping at the bit at this point.
MD: I was just listening to the proof last night, and Jeff Hays does such an amazing job. I can't wait for people to hear it.
SD: I don't get how he does it. He's incredible.
MD: Oh, he's insane.
SD: It's something else. So, going back, we're touching on the whole series here, you started writing it for fun, but what were your inspirations behind Dungeon Crawler Carl? You've written in the LitRPG space before, but was there an exact moment that Carl and Princess Donut and this world dungeon just kind of popped into your head?
MD: Yeah, well, I've been writing for a long time and I have so many different stories in my head that have percolated. I actually wrote a story that was similar, but not really, a long, long time ago, and it's a complete novel but it's sitting in a trunk somewhere and I'm never going to show it to the world because it's terrible. It was also really similar to Stephen King's Under the Dome, and I didn't really want people to think I had stolen the idea, even though I had started writing it before he wrote that.
So, the idea of a death-game sort of book has always been on my mind. Combine that with when I was an artist, I used to travel to cat shows. I would go to cat shows and I'd draw pictures of people's cats for a living, that's what I would do. I would go from cat show to cat show and I would see all these, if you've ever been, there's little cages and all the cats are in there, and then they take them out and they judge them. And it's a lot of fun [laughs].
SD: I'm sure [laughs].
MD: There was a very specific breed of cat, the Persian cats with the tortoiseshell coloring are pretty rare. I was once set up right next to a Persian cat, and the little thing was just staring at me the whole time, this tiny little cat, and I was like, “I'm going to write a book with that cat in it one day.” And I combined the two and I wasn't even sure I was going to keep the cat in the book, honestly. I wasn't expecting that cat to become fully sapient like Princess Donut had, because I kind of just make it up as I go along. I'm so happy I just started writing at that particular day at that particular time, because it all seemed to work out pretty well.
SD: Yeah, I can't imagine the story without Princess Donut.
MD: No, no. I don't think anybody can.
SD: Such a quintessential cat. So, are there any kind of video game franchises or tabletop gaming that played into your influences here?
MD: I have been playing video games my whole life. When I was a kid, my brother had the original Rogue on his computer—we're talkin' old-old-old. I would play that for hours and hours, and it's just ASCII text going through a little generated dungeon. And then from there I discovered Zork and the text-based games. From there I started playing RuneScape. I played RuneScape for years, just fishing and fishing and fishing. Then I played games like Ultima Online. Then when WoW came out, I deliberately didn't play it because I knew my addictive personality. I would just get sucked right in and I would lose a year.
So, a lot of those MMORPGs are a huge influence on me, but I've been deliberately keeping away in recent years. I play every once in a while. I play games where I know that I won't get too sucked in. Last game that I really got addicted to was Red Dead Redemption 2, which is a couple years back now, but I love that game. More recently, I was playing games like Palworld, the Pokémon rip-off game where there's no storyline, so I know that I'm not going to get too sucked in and I can leave whenever I want.
"The fans, they've... become friends with each other. It's like a burgeoning fandom, which is really, really cool for me to see, all these new relationships people are forming because of their mutual love for something that I created."
I do keep up on games. I have a VR headset, I have the PlayStation, all that stuff, but I try to limit myself because I am a LitRPG author. We're all addicted to games. And tabletop, too. Dungeons and Dragons. I'm a huge fan. I never really got to play too, too much because, military brat, I moved around so I never had too many friends, and it wasn't until the internet became a thing that people started being able to play Dungeons and Dragons without actually having a local group. I play every once in a while, but not nearly as much as I would like.
SD: Yeah, I think we all feel that way, we who play D&D. It's never as much as we'd like. I can identify with that. I think it takes some self-control when you're a creative to not get too sucked into these things. Baldur's Gate was a problem for me last year.
MD: Yeah, see, I have Baldur's Gate, but I started playing it and I'm like, “Uh-oh,” so I stopped, right when you get to the wall with the goblins. I'm like, “You know what? I'm not going to play anymore until I'm done with Carl."
SD: Well, you have a lot of fun awaiting you. So, you've really shared the genesis of this series, kind of as you've mentioned, with your fans in a special way. You have a Patreon, and fans have decided loot-box contents, they've gotten to name characters. How has this affected your creative process? And has it challenged you in any interesting ways as a writer?
MD: Yeah, so if you're not familiar, I have a Patreon, and on that Patreon the fans are allowed to vote on certain things that happen in the book. In the context of the story, they're on an alien gameshow. And on that gameshow, the viewers in the book are voting for things that happen to Carl and Donut. They vote for the contents of loot boxes, for example. I just transfer that to the Patreon, so the Patreon are the bad guys, whether they like it or not. They're the audience and they voted for several things that have happened throughout the series, and I enjoy challenging myself like that. I'll never have them vote for something that Carl does or Donut says, but I will have them vote on an external factor. For example, one of those things they voted for was the actual Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook itself. And that, obviously, became a huge part of the story.
As for me, someone that's a pantser, someone who kind of makes it up as they go along, it's a challenge that I welcome. I enjoy having them throw me. I put up polls every once in a while, and I always think I know for sure which one they're going to pick, and they don't. They always pick the second or third choice that I think, and it always throws a monkey wrench in my plans. And then I have to pivot and make things up as they go along, and I enjoy that. It's what makes the writing so fun for me. As a result of all of this, I've grown a pretty big community. I have a big Patreon, I have a big subreddit, and the fans, they've, more importantly, become friends with each other. It's like a burgeoning fandom, which is really, really cool for me to see, all these new relationships people are forming because of their mutual love for something that I created. It's pretty cool.
SD: Yeah, that's amazing. I would say it's more than burgeoning at this point. It's a pretty big fandom. I imagine that does kind of challenge your creative process in an interesting way. It's almost like improv.
MD: Yeah. That's exactly what it is. I consider it a form of improv in some ways, simply because I am painted into a corner constantly and I have to keep it interesting without it being too contrived, and that's a challenge.
SD: Yeah, that's impressive. As a DM [Dungeon Master], I've definitely given my group way too powerful a magical item in the past and had to retcon that, so I can appreciate that must be an interesting challenge. So, you mentioned you're a pantser, and for listeners who maybe that's an unfamiliar term, pantser meaning you just kind of write into the unknown and see where the story takes you, as opposed to a plotter, who outlines it. I consider myself a pantser as well, but with everything that's going on in Carl, I'm so curious how you keep track of everything, all the loot and the items. Do you have a spreadsheet, basically?
MD: I do have a spreadsheet. I don't know where I'm going, but I keep very, very careful track of everything that's happened behind me. I started off with a spreadsheet, I still have it, it's 198 pages right now, and I have a separate spreadsheet that tells me where everything else is on the spreadsheet. The document is so big it crashed my old computer. I have since hired someone who’s made a Notion database, and it works really, really well for me. It's complicated because with the added thing of it being LitRPG, every single character has a level, they have spells, they have stats.
SD: Right.
MD: The monsters have stats, the items, all of their swords have spells and stats attached to them, and it's so much. And there's all these gods, and there's all these factions, and there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of named characters at this point. It's become much, much bigger than I ever anticipated, and if I hadn't kept careful track, there's no way I would have gotten past book 3, it's just impossible.
SD: Yeah, I feel like you've got to release that spreadsheet at the end of all of this. I'm so curious to see. Getting a little bit back to the audio, specifically, we talked a bit about how amazing Jeff Hays is, the audio being so special. How did Jeff Hays even come to be your narrator?
MD: So, I knew Jeff Hays before I started writing Dungeon Crawler Carl. The previous book I have that's also on Audible is Dominion of Blades and then Dominion of Blades 2: Hobgoblin Riot, which I am going to finish, by the way. And that is narrated by the amazing Andrea Parsneau, who does The Wandering Inn and several other books. Andrea and I had gotten nominated for an award for The Hobgoblin Riot, and the award ceremony was in Kansas City, which is also where Jeff Hays happens to live, and he was at the award ceremony as well. I ended up meeting him and became friends with him there. Plus, the LitRPG community, which he does several of those books, is pretty small.
So, we knew each other and when I started writing Carl, Soundbooth Theater had their Soundbooth Theater Live, which is their weekly or biweekly podcast that they do. I said, "Hey, let's just do one scene from Carl to see how you guys do it," and as soon as they did it—and it was a scene from the first book, it's still on YouTube to this day, it's the scene where they meet the Juicer for the first time—and they had a really fun time with it. Right afterwards Jeff messaged me and was like, "I'm doing this book." And I'm like, "Yeah, you are."
SD: Amazing. I can't imagine any other voice and, I mean, he does so many voices that—
MD: I can't imagine any other voice either. I get accused, to this day I go to conventions and some [people say], "You never credited the female narrator on the first book. Is it Annie Ellicott?", who's another Soundbooth Theater artist. And it's not, it's all Jeff Hays. It's crazy.
SD: It's funny, the amount of things I've listened to, and the amount of very, very versatile narrators I've listened to, I don't think I've quite forgotten it was one person like with Dungeon Crawler Carl. He's a vocal chameleon. It's very impressive. Knowing how legendary his performances are, how much do you keep audio in mind as you're writing? I can't imagine not hearing him in your head as you're writing some Carl dialogue.
MD: No, it's a curse, really, now [laughs]. Everything I write in the Carl series is 100 percent, he's speaking in my head now. When I come up with the new characters, I'm already thinking of how he might do it, how I might tell him. If he does a voice I don't like, I end up killing the character almost immediately just because—that's not a joke.
SD: Wait, seriously? That's amazing.
MD: I write for audio, I always have. And especially in this genre, the audio stuff is king. One to one, I sell more audiobooks now than I sell of physical and e-books. That's a little unusual for books in general, but not for this genre. So the audio is super important, and the fans, whenever I go to an event, a signing event, even though everyone has my book, I always ask, "Who here first experienced Carl from Audible?" It's usually 75-plus percent of the audience raising their hand, and it's because it's like a whole different experience. It's not quite a movie, it's not quite the exact same thing as reading a book, it's just a different way to have the book immersed into your head. And when you have someone as talented as Soundbooth Theater and Jeff Hays doing it, it just adds that extra step, and it's part of the reason why this book is so successful, it's because the audiobook is so well-done.
"Everything I write in the Carl series is 100 percent [Jeff] speaking in my head now. When I come up with the new characters, I'm already thinking of how he might do it, how I might tell him. If he does a voice I don't like, I end up killing the character almost immediately."
SD: Yeah, I certainly couldn't imagine reading as opposed to listening to Jeff.
MD: Plus, there's lots of little things in there, because Jeff knows things that the reader doesn't, because I tell him some of the secrets ahead of time, so he reads things in certain ways that the reader doesn't get. So, there's lots of little, they're super subtle, he's good at subtle, sometimes. It's just an extra dimension to the way you can experience a story. It's amazing.
SD: I love that. I will be listening for some Jeff Hays Easter eggs.
MD: Anytime you hear someone talking and you don't know who it is, Jeff knows who it is.
SD: I like that, Jeff knows. Jeff knows all. So, in addition to LitRPG, which is just this huge success right now, you're also a big horror buff, right? Which I think is pretty evident from some of the grizzlier scenes and deaths in Carl. Can you see yourself going back to writing within horror, or is LitRPG just it for you, this is your future?
MD: No, I definitely see myself writing another horror novel in the future. I just finished a book last night for Penguin Random House that's sci-fi that has a very slight horror tinge to it. Horror is where my heart is. I consider Carl a horror story. It's humorous and there's the human element to it, the best I can put in there, but I will always go back to horror one way or the other, because that's my wheelhouse. That's where I live, that's where I read. My favorite type of movie is a horror movie, my favorite type of book are horror books, and what I write I consider horror. So, it's always something that I will do.
SD: Yeah, and horror is always relevant, but it really is having such a moment right now.
MD: It is, isn't it?
SD: Yeah. Carl, I mean, as funny as it is, I can see how it's horror. It's kind of absurdist, but it's also terrifying, the thought that the world would just be destroyed and these aliens would be manipulating you for their own entertainment. I mean, that's the basis for a horror story right there.
MD: Yeah, I think so. I like seeing from different points of views how people react to that sort of thing, and how people who don't really have a dog in the fight, how they react to it too. That's kind of what the audience is in Carl, they're cheering it on, they're like the audience at the gladiator fights. That's things I like to explore.
SD: Yeah, that's a really interesting angle to it. So, in terms of LitRPG, it's huge right now, it has been for the past couple years, but I feel like even in the past three years it's just really exploded as a genre. What do you think is so appealing about it right now? And what do you feel like is the next evolution of it?
MD: It's kind of funny, my first LitRPG came out 2017, and about two years after that I thought it was kind of peaking, personally, at the time. I had no idea that it was going to continue to expand. And the reason why it's expanding is because of things like Baldur's Gate, games that end up bringing people who aren't normally gamers into the gaming space. We saw a huge demographic shift with games like that, and we're seeing a huge demographic shift in readers of LitRPG. It was originally mostly males, mostly males in their 20s that were listening to LitRPG, and now we have lots of books, there's series like Wandering Inn with female leads. We're getting more and more female listeners, which is fantastic. We have more representation from all sorts of walks of life. My readers, I've noticed, are so much more diverse than they were just two years ago, so I think it’s leaking out the edges of what people used to think LitRPG is, and that's fantastic.
"I will always go back to horror one way or the other, because that's my wheelhouse. That's where I live, that's where I read."
I think in the future we're still going to become more and more and bigger and bigger and bigger for a while, and it's because of those people coming from different diverse backgrounds are going to be putting their spin on it. I can't wait to see what happens next because the sky's the limit with this sort of thing. There's so many different ways that this can be spun, and I can't wait to see what happens.
SD: Yeah, it's exciting to think that we're just at the beginning of it in a way, because I feel like it's been so successful for so long, and it's great to hear that it's one of those things where it's almost like every type of listener and reader can find themselves within it. That's really exciting. So, my final question, but you may not be able to say too much, but I know that Carl is in the very early stages of film and TV development right now. Is there any light you can shed there, other than general excitement?
MD: I wish I could say more. I hope in the next few weeks or months there's more I can say. I can say that there's more going on than what has been put out. And in the good direction, so that's really cool, that's amazing. This is all new to me, the whole TV thing, so there's nothing I can really say about the potential television series, but there is more coming on that front, and it's all good news as of right now.
SD: Very, very exciting. Hopefully all good things from here. Is there anything I didn't ask you about today that you really want to share with fans or listeners of Carl?
MD: Well, follow me, my Patreon is Patreon.com/Dinniman. Penguin is sending me on a tour in May of this year, so I'll be hitting multiple cities one after another, it's like 10 straight days of chaos. Those are always fun. You can get a copy of the hardcover signed and then I usually have someone with me and we talk about the book. So, keep an eye out for that and I'd love to see you.
SD: Very cool. Well, thank you so, so much, Matt, for chatting with me. I'm super excited about This Inevitable Ruin, I know our listeners are as well.
MD: Thank you so much for having me, it's been fun.
SD: Audible listeners, I know you can't wait to continue the series. You can find the seventh Dungeon Crawler Carl, This Inevitable Ruin, as well as the rest of the series, right here on Audible.
