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How Ray Bradbury’s horror stories influenced R.L. Stine & the Goosebumps franchise
Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine reveals that he grew up reading Ray Bradbury, and that influenced him to include twist endings in his stories
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Did you grow up enjoying Goosebumps books? If you did, then you have Ray Bradbury to thank. The author is known for his short stories, many of which contained twist endings. When you read Bradbury’s short story collections, such as The Martian Chronicles, you can see how they influenced Goosebumps author R.L. Stine’s twist endings.
“One day my mom dropped me off [at the library],” R.L. Stine tells Popverse’s Grant DeArmitt at New York Comic Con 2025. “I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and she dropped me off at the little library on Main Street, and the librarian was waiting for me and said, ‘Bobby, I know you like comic books. I’m going to show you something else you like.’ And she took me to a shelf of Ray Bradbury stories, and that just changed my life. And that’s how I became a reader. His stories were just so brilliant, and all had funny twist endings.”
One story that had a profound effect on Stine was All Summer in a Day.
“There’s one about a girl who moved to Venus from Earth, and on Venus it rains every seven years. You only get one hour of sunshine for every seven years. And she really misses the sunshine, and the kids don’t believe her that it’s sunny on Earth, and they lock her in a closet, and she misses the one hour of sunshine for seven years. It’s one of the saddest stories.”
For more from R.L. Stine, check out the full interview below.
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