I don’t outline anything in advance. That can be really scary. I liken it to walking blindfolded. I’m trying to head towards somewhere, but I have no… - Jenny Han

What I would say is, don’t even look at a screen. Get a notebook and pen. For me, I always prefer to start writing with a pen. For me, the blank page is just a possibility. It’s like, "What can I feel on this page?" That’s really exciting. But if I look at the blank page, it feels like pressure. With a notebook, you can scribble down whatever you want and you can move things around the page. It’s never really gone. You can always find it again. It feels a little less free for me on a computer. I guess that would be my tip. Just start really organically with paper and a pen.

Writing for me, 95% of the time, it's torture, because I'm basically walking through the forest blindfolded trying to feel my way through and then I'm almost there, and I can sort of take it off and then see where I'm at, and then I have to go back and sort of move things around and make sure it's all feeling cohesive. But the process itself can feel really arduous and a real struggle to get through. I think everyone has their own process and mine is particularly torturous.

When it comes to adapting a story for film, I think being able to understand what’s being asked of you and what you offer to the process is really important, and for me, I’ve always seen it as being the emissary: being the ambassador of the fans and understanding what they want. I’ve been with these books for a long time, so I understand what it is that readers like about them, and I wanted to make sure that that was still present in the movie. It was less important to me to have details correct about setting and more about the feeling that you get when you see the film, which is, I hope, a cozy and warm feeling that makes you feel really hopeful.