Teenreads.com -- Author Profile: Anthony Horowitz

Anthony Horowitz is a New York Times bestselling author with wildly popular series such as The Gatekeepers and Alex Rider. He lives in England.

April 2009

Anthony Horowitz's latest novel, NECROPOLIS, is the fourth book of The Gatekeepers, a fantasy series that chronicles the adventures of a group of gifted children on a quest to save the world from the forces of evil. In this interview, Horowitz describes how a nightmare inspired the series' villains, The Old Ones, and discusses why --- despite writing about fantastical elements like magic and witchcraft --- he chose to set his books in the real world. He also explains some of the challenges he encountered while writing from the perspective of a young girl, reveals the real-life counterparts to some of his characters, and shares details about what he has planned for the fifth and final installment of the series.

Question: How do you start to write a story? Don’t you find it daunting when faced with a blank page?

Anthony Horowitz: My favourite part of writing a book is thinking up the ideas and that can start a long time before I actually sit down at my desk. For example, I first visited Hong Kong (the main setting of NECROPOLIS) twenty years ago. I got married there –-- and that was when I first began thinking of a nightmarish adventure taking place there. So I get the idea, I develop it, I keep turning it over in my mind and gradually a story begins to take shape. Then I work out the structure, balancing slow chapters with fast ones, violent moments with more reflective ones. So I’m not daunted by a blank page. I look forward to filling it.

Q: What was your inspiration for the Gatekeepers series?

AH: I grew up with the Narnia books and then with Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings...but I never thought I’d be able to write a full-blooded fantasy sequence. I’m not very good at creating worlds. I prefer to write about the world as it is. But at the same time, it’s often struck me that the real world may not be quite how we imagine it. For example, if I walk past a locked-up church at night, I wonder what’s happening inside. Is it actually empty or are there strange creatures coming together in the dark to engage in mysterious rituals? When I was living in Crouch End, I used to pass a shop at the end of the street that always had furniture in the window...the same furniture all the year round. I became convinced that it was only pretending to sell furniture and I used to like imagining what really happened there. Could it be a meeting place for gangsters? What if it was actually run by visitors from another world?

I love the idea that magic and witchcraft and battles between supernatural creatures could be raging all around us but just out of our sight. This is particularly true of NECROPOLIS. Hong Kong is being taken apart piece by piece, but nobody has noticed. And I believe it could happen anywhere in the world: as one of the characters says, “We see only what we want to see because that is the way of the city.”

Q: Did you base any of the character on anyone you know?

AH: Scarlett is based on the grand-daughter of a friend of mine. The real Scarlett is only nine years old, but it was easy to imagine what she might be like when she’s fifteen. I also met a boy who was quite like Matt...he was always in trouble at school and didn’t seem to be enjoying himself very much. I went back to Hong Kong recently and many of the characters and locations come from places I visited and people I met. The lady with the birds of fortune, for example, is exactly as I describe her. She told my fortune outside the Tin Hau Temple (although she didn’t say if the book would be a success or not).

Q: Did you make up the Old Ones?

AH: The Old Ones began life as a bad dream. My wife had bought me a strange piece of pottery --- a sort of jug with a creature climbing up the side. Some of her presents are a bit on the weird side! Anyway, that night I had a horrible nightmare in which my house was invaded by similar beasts and when I woke up, the pillows were on the floor, the duvet was tied in a knot and I knew I had an idea for a new book.

That said, the Old Ones were named after characters described by a famous horror writer called H. P. Lovecraft and he in turn took them from a strange, sixth-century text called the NECRONOMICON. I’ve read it and I have to admit I didn’t quite understand it, but it’s a cheerful piece of writing that seems to be describing the end of the world. There’s even a little snatch of it in NECROPOLIS. You’ll find it at the end of the prologue.

Q: Did writing from a female’s point of view feel weird?

AH: Not at all. I’m very pleased with the way Scarlett turned out. I was quite nervous about writing about a girl as the main character --- mainly because I’m known as a writer for boys and I was worried that boys might not be interested in following the adventures of a 15-year-old girl. I also wondered if I would be able to do it. Alex Rider, Nick Diamond, Matt Freeman...all my heroes have been boys and in real life I only have sons. And of course I was once a boy, rather than a girl, myself.

In the end, writing Scarlett was a pleasure. She’s a little more emotional than my boy characters. She’s not afraid to cry, for example. But she’s also just as tough as them...as you’ll discover in Chapter 4. I like her because she’s so unpredictable. So, in answer to your question --- no, it never felt weird. I didn’t have to put on a dress or anything like that.

Q: Can you tell us anything about the fifth book in this series?

AH: The fifth book will also be the last book in the series! I don’t have a title for it yet but I have a feeling that it’s going to be the thickest yet (by which I mean page count). It’s going to be divided into five parts, and those parts are going to be called: Earth, Fire, Air, Water and Ice. I don’t want to give too much away but it will finish with a battle, probably in Antarctica and although I’ve often said that I don’t like children dying in my books, not all of the five gatekeepers will make it to the end. I should add that if you read the first four parts carefully, some of the elements that make up the climax are already in place.

Q: Why are all five children orphans?

AH: There are two main reasons. First, it greatly helps the stories if the heroes (and heroine) don’t have parents, homes, ordinary lives. It means that they’re “out there”, on their own, having to depend on their own resources to win the battles. Alex Rider is an orphan for the same reason.

But there’s an extra dimension to the five gatekeepers --- which is to say, they have more than one identity. If you’ve read NIGHTRISE, you’ll know that they all met many thousands of years together when they defeated the Old Ones for the first time. But they also seem to have an identity that has been drawn from myth and legend. Pedro, for example, is associated with Manco Capac, founder of the Incas (see chapter 15 of EVIL STAR). Scott and Jamie were also known as Flint and Sapling, characters out of Native American mythology. In NECROPOLIS you find that Scarlett has another name.

The gatekeepers don’t have parents because it is possible that they were never actually born....even if that thought does rather make my head spin.

Q: Do you believe in telepathy or any other supernatural powers your characters possess?

AH: I suppose I believe in the possibility of these things --- which is to say I have an open mind. I don’t think I would be able to write this series if I didn’t.

Q: Is it easier to write about faraway settings --- e.g. Peru/Hong Kong rather than England? Have you visited all the places you write about in these books or do you just research other ways?

AH: As I’ve already mentioned, I spent two weeks in Hong Kong at the start of 2008 and I visited all the places that you’ll read about in the book. I hope I’ve done the city justice. I was truly amazed by its size and energy, by the millions of people packed together in this relatively tiny space. The street markets that Scarlett visits in Chapter 17 are exactly as I describe them...I was particularly struck by the fish sliced in half but still living and I was as revolted as Scarlett.

I think it is important --- and, yes, it does make it easier --- to visit a city before I write about it. I get so many ideas, just walking the streets. And you’re not going to get the noise and the smells from a guide book!

So, I took the Star Ferry, I walked round the Peak and I even visited Macau where, quite by chance, I stumbled on the extraordinary house that I would turn into the headquarters of the White Lotus Society. But what struck me perhaps more than anything was the pollution in that part of the world. I kept on seeing people wearing white masks to stop themselves breathing in the worst of it, and that became a big part of the book. If I hadn’t travelled out there, it would never have appeared.

Q: Is the King of the Old Ones the devil? Do you believe in the devil --- or a power of evil?

AH: What a very interesting question! The King of the Old Ones is vaguely inspired by the figure of Antichrist, which you will find in the bible. Try reading the Book of Revelations. It’s full of monsters and nightmarish things. But for me, he’s really just a personification of everything that is bad in the world. I call him Chaos because that’s what he represents. An end of order, law and civilisation.

Do I believe in the devil? I don’t believe in a figure with horns and a tail. Nor do I think there’s a hell we go to if we’ve been bad (so I’ll be more than a bit surprised if I end up there). But I do believe in evil as a force. And when I look at the world, particularly in the past ten years, I think it has been very much in evidence.

Q: Who/what is the Librarian?

AH: I’m afraid you’ll have to read the last book to find out --- although, in truth, everything you need to know about him is contained in NECROPOLIS. I particularly like the chapter when Matt discovers the library. The choice he is given --- whether or not to read the book of his life --- is at the very heart of what this series is about. Would you read yours?

Q: If you had to be one of your own characters in The Gatekeepers, which would it be and why?

AH: Another brilliant question to end with. My first instinct is to say that I would like to be one of the five gatekeepers as I wouldn’t mind being a teenager again and always fancied having magical powers. On the other hand, I know what happens at the end and I’m not sure I’d want to be in any of their shoes when they reach the last chapter. I’d quite like to be Richard Cole, the journalist, but then again there’s something pretty terrible waiting for him in the last book too. It’s very difficult --- but I think I’m going to choose Lohan. He’s young, a great fighter, a leader and a master criminal. I’d quite to be all these things.

© Copyright 2009, Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.

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June 2006

Author and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz has created two popular series for children and young adults: Alex Rider and The Gatekeepers. He recently spoke with Teenreads.com contributing writer Stephen Hubbard about his latest release, EVIL STAR, the second Gatekeepers installment. Horowitz discusses how his predecessors in the epic fantasy genre have influenced him, the introduction of a female heroine in upcoming books, and the direction in which the series is headed.

Teenreads.com: EVIL STAR continues the story of Matthew Freeman, who is very hesitant to get involved with the Nexus again, but does so because he knows it's the right thing to do. Is this a message you've tried to instill in your readers --- that we sometimes have to do what is right even if we don't like what we must do?

Anthony Horowitz: My books don't really have messages. I think a lot of my heroes find themselves forced into situations that are out of their control --- Alex Rider, too, is a reluctant spy. It's their nature to do good. That's why they're heroes. But they don't set out to save the world.

TRC: In EVIL STAR, Matthew and Richard find themselves needing to travel to Peru to meet Pedro, one of the five. Have you been to Peru or have a particular fondness for the country that led to its being the focal point of this story?

AH: I have been to Peru twice. I went there 25 years ago and returned in 2005, traveling with my 16-year-old son. This second visit was specifically to do the research for EVIL STAR. I do, as it happens, love the country. Cuzco, in particular, is quite awesome.

TRC: When you set out to write The Gatekeepers series, did you have a fully formed plot for the series from beginning to end, or have story elements developed as you've worked?

AH: I have a pretty good idea of all five books --- but as you'll see, they become more complex as the series continues. The main elements are built in, but other parts arrive as I go in. The books have a rather shocking ending...which I knew about from the start.

TRC: You've stated that The Gatekeepers series is your answer to Narnia, Lord of the Rings and other fantasy heavyweights. How much have these other works inspired you?

AH: I loved these books when I was growing up and always wanted to write an epic fantasy series...but one set in the real world. There are elements of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis in The Gatekeepers, perhaps because I'm using some of the same sources (mythology, religion, ancient history). Writing battle scenes, it's very hard to do better than Tolkien --- particularly with Peter Jackson's wonderful films in mind.

TRC: You've stated that the next book in this series, due out in 2007, will feature your first heroine. What took you so long to bring in a female lead, and how is the writing made different?

AH: I have loved writing this heroine. I was always scared that I would get her wrong --- that she would be too obviously a tomboy or too prissy or too politically correct. But from the moment of her creation she seems to have had a life of her own. I'm really pleased because although she's only in five chapters of book 3, she will dominate book 4.

BRC: With your work being geared toward a teen audience, do you find yourself consciously having to keep the language and themes more suited for a younger audience, or do you operate under the belief that you shouldn't "talk down" to your readers?

AH: I certainly don't want to "talk down" to my readers! I try not to think too much about the audience. Book 3, for example, is very violent and it may well be that it will have to have discussions with my publishers. Usually it's at the second or third draft stage that we begin to worry...not about the young readers but about the teachers and parents who may not approve of what I've done.

TRC: In addition to your novels you have quite a film and television background, and you've also completed the screenplay adaptation of STORMBREAKER, the first Alex Rider novel. Do you have a preference for working in one medium over the other?

AH: I love all my writing. I suppose my books mean the most to me because they're so personal (and because they take me the longest to write). Books are hard work but are most enduring. TV is fun and fast --- and I get to work with my wife, Jill. Film is probably the most exciting because the stakes are so high (Stormbreaker cost $40 million) but all of them give me pleasure.

TRC: The Alex Rider series is going strong, The Gatekeepers is well on its way, and you've produced one adult fiction work. What else do you have in store for readers? Anything completely new in the works?

AH: I have a new Alex to write this year, two more in The Gatekeepers series and the Alex films all on the go! I think I need a long rest...

TRC: Besides its female heroine, what else can you tell us about the next book in the series?

AH: Dangerous to say this, but I honestly think NIGHTRISE is the best book I've yet written. It's set in Nevada, California, Hong Kong, Peru and England many thousands of years ago. The main characters are two Native American twin brothers --- but all five Gatekeepers appear for the first time. I finished the book this morning, as a matter of fact. Maybe the date (6/6/06) is significant!

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August 2005

Teenreads.com contributing writer Joni Rendon interviewed Anthony Horowitz, author of RAVEN'S GATE --- which is the first book in THE GATEKEEPERS series --- and the popular Alex Rider novels. Horowitz talks about the important contributions his two sons have made to his work, explains the similarities and differences between writing television scripts and producing fiction for young people, and lets readers know what he has in store for future books in THE GATEKEEPERS series.

Teenreads.com: Many of your books feature a resilient and resourceful young boy as a protagonist (Alex Rider, Nick in THE DIAMOND BROTHERS, and Matt in THE GATEKEEPERS). Though the characters have fantastic adventures and some unusual personality traits, do you see elements of yourself in them?

Anthony Horowitz: No, there is very little of myself in these characters because I wasn't a particularly physical or active child when I was thirteen. I think there is the sense that I wasn't a very happy child, and maybe some of that does linger in these characters since they often are not very happy either. But I'm not drawing them from myself. Some traits are based on friends' children or people I've met. Sometimes during school visits I'll meet a kid who will give me an idea for a character.

TRC: Do you have any plans in the future to write a novel featuring a girl protagonist?

AH: Well, the reason why most of my characters are boys is because when I write a character, I do think about the boy I was and I am writing to a certain extent from my own experience of being thirteen. But THE GATEKEEPERS series does have a girl character. There are five children, as you know, who are the five gatekeepers. One of them is a girl, which is a very important, essential character. Although she doesn't arrive in the sequence until quite later on, she has a very large role to play when she does appear.

TRC: Your novels also tend to feature teens in unusual roles such as teen spy, teen sleuth, and now in THE GATEKEEPERS, teens charged with defending the world against evil. What has influenced your decision to write about young adults in such empowering roles?

AH: Well, when you look at the world, it is very easy to see that the people who are mucking things up, who are the cause of war and pollution and various troubles, are always adults. And you live in the hope (I am a father with two young children, don't forget) that the children will come in and clean things up. Of course, the trouble with children is that they become adults themselves, but I am writing about that hope --- the hope that we all have that the next generation will do better than we have, and that's what's underneath every book I've ever written.

TRC: Do your two sons help you brainstorm ideas or do "early reads" on your books?

AH: My children are really helpful to me in working, and the fact that they are growing up now --- Nicholas is sixteen and Cassidy is fourteen --- presents me with a problem: I am either going to have to have more children to help me, or I will need to adopt. But yes, they read all my books for me and give me very good advice. If there is too much description, not enough action, or it is too slow, they will be the first to tell me. Or if there is something they don't understand, they will always point it out. I have a note my son once gave me for a book that I had written. He said, "Dad, there is too much description in this book. You even described what the water looks like. I know what water looks like. You know it's wet, what else is there to say?"

Along with pieces of advice like that, they also do a lot of the action for me. If something requires research, I'll ask my children to do it for me. They'll go out and go snowboarding or skateboarding or something for the galleys. Last year I traveled to Peru with my oldest son Nicholas to write the second book in THE RAVEN'S GATE series, EVIL STAR, which is set in Peru. A lot of Nicholas's observations on Peru and what we saw there have made their way into the book.

TRC: Does anything they say end up working their way into your storylines?

AH: No, not as a rule. The thing that is most important to remember is that I am not writing these books for my two boys --- I am writing them for thousands or hundreds of thousands of boys and girls. As a proud parent, I think it is a dangerous thing to think that my kids are very smart and cute, or think of myself as somebody who needs their help to write for just them. So no, I don't think anything they have said has ever appeared in the books. Although, again, when I am looking at the language of the books, if I use language that they find embarrassing because there are words that adults can't use that kids do, they will tell me not to use those words. Words like "cool" and "awesome" are words that young people use and people of a certain age (my age) shouldn't.

TRC: During your career, besides writing books, you've also written numerous television scripts. What's the main difference between writing for that medium and writing novels for young people?

AH: Well, there are huge differences and huge similarities. Actually, it's easier to talk about the similarities. When you are writing for a television audience, you have to keep up the pace. If people aren't interested in what they are seeing on the television, they will either switch channels or have a cup of tea and do something else. When you turn on the television, you want to be entertained, and you want the entertainment to be fast and easy. I think that is similar to writing books for young people. These days, young people have an enormous amount of things to do: sports, studies, and a lot of pressure to use their time wisely. But they also have other entertainments, such as computer games, television, movies, and friends to visit. So if a book doesn't grab them very quickly and hold them by the throat (which is how I always think of my writing --- as reaching out and grabbing a kid by the throat and dragging him or her into the book), then they will go away. I think both television and books are based on pace and economy and on keeping the reader or the viewer involved.

Of course there are huge differences, but the main one is that it's much harder to write books because all I have are words. I have to create everything that appears in a book. So if I say that something is red, lo and behold it is the color red. Whereas in a television script if I say, "It's a room," somebody else, in this case a designer, will decide if that room is red, blue, green, or whatever. So, in other words, a television program, which is made by sixty people, is much less hard work than a book, which is written by just one.

TRC: Can you tell us anything about what you have in store for future books in THE GATEKEEPERS series?

AH: Book #2, EVIL STAR, is nearly finished. It involves Matt, the hero of the first book, traveling to Peru, where he finds himself fighting against a particularly vicious bad guy called Diego Salamander, a multi-millionaire businessman with interests throughout South America who has plans to open a second gate. He is searching for the second gate, and this journey takes him all around Peru. He finds himself wanted by the police and having to live as a beggar on the streets of Peru, which for a western kid is very tough. The whole thing is a little bit like a giant Indiana Jones adventure, but set in the modern world.

The third book, which is some distance away from me as I sit here now, will involve twin brothers. They are going to be American, probably living in Los Angeles, California. In this book everything changes because of what happens in the second book. I don't want to give too much away, but the rule of the game changes and it seems that the forces of evil are winning.

The fourth book is all about the girl (you asked earlier about the girl) and it's her story. And the fifth is going to be a Harry Potter-style book in terms of page count. It's basically the last war on the planet, the entire world is falling to pieces and these five children have to make five journeys across five huge chapters to find each other and hopefully bring things to a happy end.

TRC: Ultimately, the series represents a battle between the forces of good and evil, which of course is the same struggle that is played out everyday in the real world. What parallels or real-life lessons do you hope young adults will take away from reading RAVEN'S GATE?

AH: I have never ever written a book that contains a lesson for a reader to take away. Basically my books are written to be enjoyed. I don't like lessons. With that said, it goes back to what I was saying earlier --- that young people are the hope for the future. And all you can hope for is that young people won't repeat the same mistakes that are being made by old people. At the moment, I think it is true to say --- and I think many people in America will agree --- that a large number of mistakes are being made with respect to war and peace, to the climate, to the way we live our lives. It is the job of the new young generation coming up to judge us, the old generation, to do things better.

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May 2005

In this interview Anthony Horowitz, author of RAVEN'S GATE --- the first installment in THE GATEKEEPERS series --- talks about his decision to return to this story that he began nearly twenty years ago, why he considers THE GATEKEEPERS to be "Stephen King for kids," and the similarities and differences between this series and his ALEX RIDER adventures.

Question: What's the story behind the origins of RAVEN'S GATE and The Gatekeepers? What made you return to the idea after all this time?

Anthony Horowitz: RAVEN'S GATE is based on a series of books that I began --- but never finished --- almost twenty years ago. I'd always had the idea that it might be possible to write a story like THE LORD OF THE RINGS or THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA but one that took place here, in the real world. I loved the idea of demons and devils, monsters and ghosts battling it out in modern-day London or New York...but always round the corner, just out of eyesight.

Why return to it now? Part of the answer lies in 9/11 and the Iraq war. It seems to me that if ever a battle of good vs. evil was taking place in the real world, it is happening now.

Q: How do you approach the horror and suspense in this series? Obviously, there are thrills and chills, but it's not as graphic as an adult horror novel.

AH: If the Alex Rider series was James Bond aged fourteen, then in my mind, RAVEN'S GATE is Stephen King for kids. My aim is to push the envelope as far as possible. I want these stories to be really scary and as the series progresses, you'll find the sense of darkness and danger growing. The ending (if I ever get there) will be very shocking.

Q: Is it difficult to write both Alex Rider and The Gatekeepers at the same time? What do you think the series have in common, and what's different?

AH: I can't write Alex Rider at the same time as The Gatekeepers --- the two are just too different. Fortunately, I've now finished the sixth Alex adventure, ARK ANGEL, and don't plan to return to him until I've finished the second and third volumes of The Gatekeepers series.

What do the two series have in common? Pace, adventure, action, violence and, I hope, readability. They're both fairly adult --- not classic "children's books." But Matt Freeman is no Alex Rider. He's much less sure of himself, even more of a victim than Alex. And there won't be quite so many happy endings in The Gatekeepers.

Q: Where do you come up with story ideas?

AH: Story ideas come to me all the time, from every direction. I believe that everything and everyone on the planet has a story. It's just a question of looking for it. I get a lot of inspiration from the newspapers. And also from dreams.

Q: Is there any difference between the way British fans react to your work and the way American fans respond to your work?

AH: I think I'm still better known in England. Perhaps because I'm English I get more of a sense of belonging here. Also, I'm able to travel a lot in England and visit a lot of English schools. I've only done one USA tour so far and would like to come back because when I meet American kids I find their approach to my books is exactly the same as over here. I'm also getting piles of letters from America, which is great.

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