“You have to write about things you know, that are close to you.” – author D.J. MacHale
D.J. MacHale didn’t want to be a writer.
In junior high, the Manhattan Beach resident and New York Times bestselling author of the wildly successful tweener series, Pendragon, convinced teachers to let him make videos instead of writing essays for assignments.
He did that all the way through high school.
“I hated the discipline of writing because I didn’t like sitting still in my chair,” MacHale recalled. “In third grade, I took one of those psychological tests to determine which career best suited me. It said I should go into writing and I remember thinking ‘No way. What are you crazy?’ I’d do anything to get out of it. But I was always a storyteller.”
And he loved scary stories.
MacHale fondly remembers his mother reading Dr. Seuss’ What Was I Scared Of? when he was a toddler, which led to an appetite for ghost stories when he got older.
Most of his childhood Saturdays were spent watching horror films at the local theater. He gave himself nightmares for years after watching “Black Sabbath.”
So when MacHale eventually got over his aversion to writing, it seemed natural that the character-driven books and screenplays he wrote should revolve around ghosts, goblins and all things spooky.
“I think the great thing about supernatural stories is that they are so full of possibility,” MacHale wrote in the foreword of his latest book, The Light, the first in his new trilogy series Morpheus Road, which was released in April. “As a storyteller, you aren’t restricted by the laws of nature. Anything can happen. Being somebody who likes to put twists and turns into my stories, having a bottomless toolbox of surprises to dig into is a wonderful thing. The only limit is your imagination.”
Pendragon — the 10-part series that catapulted MacHale to international success and recognition, as well as comparisons to Harry Potter author J.K Rowling — follows 14-year-old Bobby Pendragon on a mission to protect all of time and space from a cold-blooded demon.
Six of the books made the New York Times Best Sellers list.
“It feels great [to be compared to Rowling],” said MacHale, sitting in his office at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach. “I saved a printout of a New York Times bestseller list for one week when the fifth Pendragon book was above all the Harry Potter books. That was when the series really took off.”
But that came after years writing screenplays and pitching shows to television network executives. It was after he wrote 91 episodes of the popular Nickelodeon TV series “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” It was after many moments of triumph — like when he was nominated for a cable TV award alongside Dr. Seuss — and some of disappointment, one which led directly to the creation of the first Pendragon book.
Because MacHale never set out to be a writer. He wanted to make movies.
From screen to hardback
Born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, MacHale, 54, attended New York University where he graduated in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in film production and a dream of becoming a director and producer.
“It was there I met a teacher in a writing course who pointed out: ‘You think you’re getting out of writing but you’re actually doing a lot of writing,’ MacHale said. “I figured that was the most likely way to get into the film business. I’ll write scripts.”
MacHale spent the next five years writing corporate commercials, public service announcements, and educational films, but with a thirst for doing entertainment pieces, he became unsatisfied.
He turned his attention toward writing scripts for sitcoms, feature films and plays, but was “getting nowhere and about to give up.”
In the mid-‘80s, when after-school television specials were all the rage, a friend suggested that he write for youth television shows.
In 1989, he started writing for the HBO series “Encyclopedia Brown Boy Detective,” based on novels written by Donald Sobol. The series was short-lived, but MacHale received his first award nomination for the CableACE Awards.
“I’ll never forget the call I got about the nomination,” he said. “The good news was that I was nominated. I was so excited. The bad news is I was up against Dr. Seuss and he had just died. But that made it so much cooler just to be spoken about in the same breath as Dr. Seuss.”
In 1991, MacHale moved to Marina del Rey — and later Manhattan Beach — and pitched a show about kids sitting around a campfire telling a different scary story each episode, which would be played out on screen.
The show, “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” — the title of which was inspired by the Dr. Seuss book his mother read to him as a child — was picked up by Nickelodeon and ran from 1992 to 2000.
MacHale later went on to write TV shows including “Chris Cross,” “Flight 29 Down” and “Ghostwriter,” as well as the Disney movie “Tower of Terror,” which starred Kirsten Dunst.
“I think that all those years of doing informational films and condensing that information into a simplified way helped me take complex subjects and write for kids,” MacHale said.
Two years before “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” was scheduled to go off the air, Nickelodeon asked MacHale to come up with another spooky show to replace it.
His contract did not allow him to work on any other TV shows during that time. So he finished the pilot script and waited.
“It was during that time that I had the idea for Pendragon,” he said. “I worked on it in the meantime, just for something to do. I never thought anything would become of it.”
In 2001, Nickelodeon told MacHale they weren’t going to produce the TV show.
Not yet knowing that his first major book series was about to take off, he was beyond disappointed.
“The only reason I didn’t end up having sour grapes is that the end result ended up being really good,” he said.
Writing from the heart
“Kids always ask me ‘What should I write about?’ But it’s different for everybody. You have to find out what’s in here first,” said MacHale, pointing to his heart. “With most characters, I will write from my experience. I take bits and pieces of people I know — like a literary Frankenstein. With the main characters, I take pieces of my own personality. Then I’m writing from the heart.”
In Bobby Pendragon, MacHale infused his own sense of humor and adventure. He then wrote the first book and an outline of the whole Pendragon series, which earned him a contract with Aladdin Paperbacks to write the first four books.
The series’ first book, The Merchant of Death, was released in 2002.
“I went to Borders and saw it right next to The Call of the Wild,” MacHale recalled. “I thought, ‘How cool is this that I’m right next to Jack London?’ If I’d had a smart phone, I would have taken a picture. I am not worthy. That was a great moment.”
For the next five years, MacHale released two books per year. After the success of the first four, he was contracted to finish the series.
By the fifth book, Black Water, MacHale had a following, a place on the Times Best Seller list and his readers wanted more.
“I write character-driven adventure,” he said. “What I like to do is take readers down a garden path, then take them somewhere else. Go left, right, up, down and all over the place in anticipation of what will happen next.”
MacHale worked to keep the momentum going.
“There’s double pressure,” he said. “First, to your publisher who wants it to work out financially. But greater than that is the pressure to the fans. I didn’t want them to be disappointed. You have to tread the line between the certain things fans have come to expect, but to not repeat yourself.”
Some have criticized MacHale’s books for being “slow to start.”
“Arguably they are, because you’re laying the groundwork to get to know the characters so you know why they react the way they do,” he said. “It’s not just about the running around. It’s about character relationships.
In April 2009, the last of the Pendragon books was released and “the plan that at one time seemed so far away finally came together.”
MacHale’s publishers were already asking what would come next.
He came up with the idea for Morpheus Road — targeted for a slightly older audience than is Pendragon — which follows an insecure, 16-year-old Marshall Seaver who finds himself tormented by a mysterious grave digger, while on a quest to discover the fate of his suddenly missing best friend, Cooper.
The first book in the series, The Light, was released in April. The second book, The Black, will be released next April.
“If you were a Pendragon reader who reads Morpheus Road, you will know it’s D.J. MacHale,” MacHale said. “It’s still my writing style, but different content. This series is more spooky than action-packed.”
In a slight departure from his niche, MacHale earlier this year also released a picture book for young children titled Monster Princess, about a monster unsatisfied with herself, but who learns how special she is throughout her journey.
Much in the same way, MacHale found the writer in himself along his journey.
When people ask him how to become a successful writer MacHale tells them it takes three things.
“First, read a lot. Next, write a lot. There’s no substitute for practice. You wouldn’t believe if you saw the trunk load of things I’ve written that nobody’s seen. Finally, you have to write about things you know that are close to you. Even in fantasy, at the core is a human story that has to be written about from the heart. When there’s real emotion, there’s resonance.”
For more information, visit djmachalebooks.com. B
