Well I am glad to be posting today a few questions answered by an author I have spent the last 3 years reading in his 10 book series Pendragon Adventure: Journal of an Adventure through Space and Time. D.J. MacHale, is a writer, director, and executive producer. He has been affiliated with shows such as Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Flight 29 Down, Tower of Terror the Movie, and Seasonal Differences. I am excited that D.J. was welling to answer few questions to post on this blog so lets get started.

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1. How many years have you worked in the TV Production?

I started making films and videos in junior high. After going to film school, I worked for several years making commercials and industrial films. I started getting TV scripts sold around 1987. So I guess I’ve been in broadcast TV, professionally, for about twenty years.

2. D.J. Before you literal smashed into publishing with your bestseller Pendragon, you were into TV Broadcast; do you think the years you spent making some great shows, some of my favorites Are You Afraid of the Dark, Ghost Writer, did that helped you in writing novels?

Absolutely. A good story is a good story, no matter what the form. I’ve written multiple hundreds of them, and gathered more experience with each one.

3. Are you fully done with TV or are you just doing novels for right now? I would hope you would not give up TV, especially if you did another Are you Afraid of the Dark series or Movie.

I’ll never say never to anything. The only reason I say that I’m not doing TV anymore is because I’m not creating new shows. I’m not the kind of guy who people hire to direct or write an episode of their show. I’m not in that loop. Most everything I’ve done, I’ve created. And right now, I’m too busy writing my new books series. (I’ve got two other series that I’m working on besides Morpheus Road)

4. As a writer I have heard and read many authors say a good villain is someone who is not evil, but someone who thinks what they are doing is write. It is clear from reading you agree with that, so tell us a little with how you came up with Saint Dane as well your thoughts about how Villains should come across in stories.

To write a good character, any character, you have to get into their heads and see things the way they do. In my opinion, the least interesting villains are guys who are evil for evil’s sake. That’s very one-dimensional and boring. So when creating Saint Dane, I had to get in to his head and fully understand why he was doing what he was doing. And a good answer to that isn’t: “I’m doing this just because I can! And I’m bad! Muhahahahaha!” That’s pretty lame. I had to create a villain who, in his mind, was doing the absolute right thing because it made all sorts of sense to him and couldn’t happen any other way.

5. Some may not know that you came up with the idea for Pendragon while you were waiting to hear back on one of you TV projects, but from what I have read or watched you never really went into where the idea for Pendragon really came from. Could you tell us about how the idea came to you?

The Pendragon idea actually sprang from multiple ideas. I couldn’t decide which one to write, so I decided to write them all…and string them together into an adventure that a young guy goes on. So, the original ideas for many of the adventures that Bobby goes on started out as stand alone, individual stories.

6. Now I heard you say in an interview that it was because of Pendragon that New York Times Bestsellers list had to add an new category because your books were bestsellers, but because Harry Potter had five the spots you never got on the list so they created Bestselling Series. How does that fell about that? Do you think that was better for other authors whose books were selling out as well future authors?

Ha! That’s not exactly what happened. It had nothing to do with my books, but from what I understand it had everything to do with Harry Potter. Believe me, the NYT wasn’t thinking about Pendragon when they created that new list! From what I heard, and this is only anecdotal, because Harry Potter was such a phenomenon and took up so many spaces on their children’s list, somebody came up with the idea for a “series” list so that other books had a better chance to be on the list as well. So sure, Pendragon benefitted from it…along with every other kid’s book like mine. But by no means was it because of Pendragon.

7. You wrote all ten outlines for the whole series for Pendragon in about a week, was the idea that strong that you knew where the story was going. Or was it more just bullets of ideas for the book, but knew as you wrote it things would be added?

Like I said, many of the adventures I already had in my head. What the outline did was to create the overall story arc of Halla and how the four main characters of Bobby, Saint Dane, Mark, and Courtney played in to it. So many of the big story moments that came out over the course of the many books, I planned from the very beginning. (Like revealing Andy Mitchell’s, true identity, the creation of Forge technology and how it would lead to the invention of the dados, Bobby quitting, etc.)

8. You and I are similar in our writing styles as we are both outliners, you knew as you said at your intro in Soldiers of Halla (Spoiler Alert) that you always knew that it was going to be Uncle Press say “Hey, having a bad day”, did you ever think that you should change that or add new ideas that could have caused some major effects to the story?

The only downside of writing outlines comes when you become too wedded to it. As helpful as they are, you also have to be open to new ideas that spring up along the way, and be willing to change things accordingly. So yes, I change my outlines all the time. That’s the beauty of an outline…it’s easily changeable. (The one example you mentioned happened to be one I didn’t change, though. That was always planned exactly as it played out) My analogy is that when you’re writing a murder mystery, you have to know the Butler did it from the get go so that you can then go back and put in all the clues. But along the way you might decide that, for whatever reason, it would work better if the Maid actually did it. If that happens, you have to change it.

9. As sad as I am that Bobby’s story is over, I happy because one I finished such a long series but also I get to look forward to your new books that will be coming out. Could you tell us a little about Morpheus Road?

Very little. It’s a spooky trilogy about a guy being hunted by ghosts. I’ve always loved scary stories. Not horror stories per se, but spooky stories. It’s why I enjoyed making “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” for so long. I just love the form and the possibilities. So, I’m taking my love and experience in writing that form and creating the new series. Beyond that, I’m not giving anything else up.

10. Have you thought about writing young adults series?

Depending on whom you talk to, Pendragon is a YA series. Many adults read it as well. From what I can tell, the difference between a YA series and a Middle Reader series is the level of angst and reality. In YA series, one person dies. In a Middle Reader series, entire worlds explode! (Figure THAT one out!) I think the real difference is that true YA series deal with teenage angst in a very real way…and that’s not all that interesting to me. I’d rather write adventure stories.

11. Now I know you get asked this all the time about a movie, and in a recent interview you said you had a lot of offers but they were from people who you did not think could do it right, you’re still trying to get those who you think could do it right interested. Is there any progress on that you could say? Also, if you got the right people interested would you direct, write the screenplay, produce? Or would you do similar to J. K. Rowling did with Harry Potter movies, you get approval but let the people see what they come up with?

Nothing definitive to report.

12. With Soldiers of Halla finally out, looking back at the whole series would you do anything-different change anything? Also, out of all the books which one is your favorite?

I would change everything…and nothing. I can’t read a book of mine after it’s been printed because I always cringe and want to re-write things. But that’s on the micro level. On the grand scale, I think the story plays out exactly as it should have. I don’t have a favorite because my favorite book always seems to be the one I’m writing at the time. The most fun book to write was “The Never War” because it dealt with real history and a time period and location that I’m fascinated with. My LEAST favorite to write was The Quillan Games because it was tough coming up with all those games, creating the rules, and then describing the action. That was hard.

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I would again thank D.J. MacHale for being willing to answer my questions, If you are interested in learning more about Pendragon you can check out the official site Here. I recommend the Pendragon Series to anyone interested in a great adventure.

Tim