Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
As intentional as writers may be, they're not always on their game. When Sachar was working on an early draft of the book, he didn't want to take the trouble to come up with a last name for his main character, Stanley, so he just spelled the first name backward, thinking he could change it in a later draft. And as you know, it stuck. (Source.)
Want to know what books influenced Holes? Well, Sachar has said that Kurt Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus and William Goldman's The Princess Bride were his main sources of inspiration: they both had opening chapters that were "sort of short and jumpy," and The Princess Bride had "these colorful characters and this bizarre setting." Mystery solved. (Source.)
In addition to being a writer, Sachar is also a lawyer. (Maybe this is why the lawyers save the day in Holes…) His first book was accepted for publication just after he started law school, and for years, he couldn't decide whether he should try to make his living as a writer or an attorney. We, for one, are happy he chose writer. (Source.)