Author Anthony Horowitz talks with Long Island kids

We interviewed author Anthony Horowitz when he was visiting the Park Lane Hotel in Manhattan recently. We love his adventurous “Alex Rider” book series.

What made you start writing this series?

When I was your age, all the stuff in the “James Bond” films really mattered to me. It was one of the most exciting movies of the year, if you can imagine that. But here was the problem: James Bond, the actor playing him, got older and older and older until in some of the movies he was like 57 years old. That’s really old. And I had this idea, wouldn’t it be great if James Bond was a teenager. And that was like a little lightbulb moment in my life. To do sort of a James Bond when he was a kid. And that’s where Alex Rider began his life. Just in that single little thought. And it’s funny how a little thought like that can completely change your life, because I wrote “Stormbreaker,” the first of the Alex Rider books, and sold 25,000 copies. And my next one sold 50,000 copies. And then the one after that sold 100,000 copies. And in the end I’d sold 16 million books around the world. And my whole life has changed just because I had that one little thought — let’s make James Bond a teenager.

How did you become an author?

You don’t really become an author. You sort of just are an author. When I was about 10 years old, I wasn’t doing very well at school. And I wasn’t very clever. But I began to read long storybooks. I began to love books. And one day, I picked up a pen and a piece of paper and I started to write a story. It was that moment, I suppose, I became a writer. And then when I was 21, 22 years old, one of my stories got sold to a publisher and started to appear in the shops. So maybe that was when I became an author. But I don’t think you become an author like you pass an exam or you have to qualify or something. You just write.

What is Scorpia about?

Scorpia is a sort of secret organization. I love bad guys, and the most fun I have in the books is writing about the bad guys. Because, you know, thinking about all the people in the world who want to do bad things and trying to stop them — it’s what the Alex Rider books are all about. And Scorpia is sort of an organization of what I made up. It stands for The Society for Sabotage, Corruption, Intelligence and Assassination. They’re just a group of ex-criminals who meet around the world, and they turn up in quite a lot of the Alex Rider books. First time they’re mentioned is in “Eagle Strike.”

Who is your personal favorite character in the book?

The two Grimaldi brothers made me smile because they’re so horrible and they’re great fun to write about. But I can’t say that they’re my favorite characters because I don’t like people who are bad. I like people who want to help people and want to do good in the world. So that means it brings it back to Alex or Jack or Blunt or Mrs. Jones, or there’s a character called Wolf in there who I like a lot who is the SAS Soldier. Yeah, the SAS guy. Special Air Services. But I think probably my favorite person would have to be Alex. I’ve written 11 books about Alex Rider. He’s such a cool character. He’s 15. He’s so clever and fast and strong and good. So I guess he’s probably my favorite character.

If you got to meet a different author, what questions would you ask?

Wow, what an interesting question. I meet many, many authors. Some of them I’m sure you know. Normally I ask, what are their publishers like? Are you treated well? When you go on tour, going around in America, do they put you in nice hotels? I never ask them how many copies they sold, because maybe they sell more copies than me and I’ll be jealous. But you know what, what I like to do is, I like to talk about [how] being a writer is a very solitary business. You know, I spent 10 hours a day in a room by myself. Imagine that! Because I’m writing, like this morning, I woke up at 5 o’clock this morning. It’s now 12 o’clock. I’ve been sitting upstairs for seven hours writing in my room in this hotel. And so a lot of my time is spent — I wouldn’t say I’m lonely, but I am alone. So when I meet another writer, I talk about what his life or her life is like. You know, how do you get on? How do you get around this?

What is your favorite book from the Alex Rider series?

I think my favorite book is probably the first one: “Stormbreaker.” And the reason for that is [it’s] not the best Alex Rider book, but it was the first one. If you could imagine meeting your best friend for the first time, that’s how it was for me when I met Alex Rider. And I met him in “Stormbreaker.” And that was the book that I said changed my life, because it sold 25,000 copies, and suddenly I got to be a famous writer. And suddenly everything in my life changed as a result of “Stormbreaker.” But it’s not the best-selling Rider book. If you want to know which is the best “Alex Rider” book, it’s probably “Scorpia,” No. 5, although I think “Scorpia Rising” is pretty good, too.

How do you come up with the names?

I choose names very carefully because names are very important. The first time you meet somebody, the first thing you learn about them is their name, and then that tells you something about them. So, for example, Alex Rider — how did I get that name? Alex was a son of a friend of mine who was a kid about your age, actually. He came to have lunch with me a long time ago.

How would you deal with rejection?

It’s a very good question. I just need to know, have you been rejected in your life? Everybody in life is rejected. That’s the first thing you have to remember. There is nobody on this planet who hasn’t in some stage in their life been told you can’t have that. I’ve had books turned down by people in my early days. Alex Rider was turned down by publishers. But the secret wasn’t to say, Oh no, I’m a failure. I’ve been rejected. That’s the end, I’m never going to be a writer. The secret is to say, That person doesn’t know anything — that guy who is rejecting me is wrong. I’m going to prove them wrong by doing an even better book or by selling this book, or by just showing the world that I’m a great writer. Don’t let anybody ever tell you you can’t do something, because they’re always going to be wrong. You can do anything if you want it hard enough.

How long does it normally take you to write a book once you come up with the story concept?

The story concept can take me three or four years to come up with. “Stormbreaker” — the first Alex Rider book, I thought of the idea five years before I began writing it. Then when it actually comes down, the idea sits in my head for a long time, or I think about it and I turn it over and I play with it. I talk about it. I work out. This is the beginning. This is the end. This is what’s going to happen in the middle. These are the dangers. These are the bad guys. This is, sort of, you know, the twists about it. All that sort of stuff. And I do drawings and I write about it. And then I sit down and I start Chapter 1 — I start writing. And you asked how long. I would say about seven months for the book from start to finish, from planning it through to writing the end. But even then it’s not over because I have to do two, maybe three drafts of the book. I send it to the publisher. The publisher sends it back and says, Anthony, rewrite Chapter 2, it’s too slow. Or rewrite Chapter 5, it’s too violent.

Did Alex’s parents work for the CIA?

They worked for — nothing is CIA, because the CIA is the American spies. They worked for the MI6 [Military Intelligence 6], which is the same as CIA, but it’s in Great Britain because that’s where I live. I live in London, so these books are all based in Britain. Alex said he has worked for the CIA in two or three of the books. If you read “Skeleton Key” he’s actually hired by the CIA and sent to Cuba on an undercover mission. So he has worked for CIA, but actually Alex’s parents were both spies working for MI6, and their story is mainly told in “Snakehead,” which I think is No. 7 in the series.

Who are your favorite authors, both past and present?

There are lots and lots of authors that I like. I mean, I read all the time. Reading has been a big part of my life. My favorite author is a guy by the name of Charles Dickens, who is the most famous British author who ever lived. He lived a long time ago — he’s a 19th century author. I like Stephen King, who is a wonderful American author who writes horror stories. I know of Agatha Christie, who writes murder mysteries. And so I like reading pretty much everything. I think the whole secret of reading is there are so many hundreds of great books out there — thousands of great books out there. But you can easily find what it is you like. And there are loads and loads of books that I just love. Ian Fleming, he was the man who wrote James Bond, originally. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Anyone heard of “Sherlock Holmes”? There he is — Sherlock Holmes was created by a writer, again in the 19th century, by a man called Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There’s some wonderful kids authors around. I like Rick Riordan. Do you read “Percy Jackson,” any of you?