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Author Interview
 April 15, 2004
Daniel J. Hale and his nephew Matthew LaBrot, co-authors of the Zeke Armstrong Mystery series, talk to Carol Fitzgerald from Kidsreads.com and reviewer Terry Miller Shannon about their decision to write a novel together, how they collaborate on their writing, and future titles that will be released --- including a brand new series they're currently working on.
KRC: How did you decide to write together? How old was Matthew when you began writing together?
Daniel: The Zeke Armstrong Mystery series started as a fluke when Matthew was twelve years old. He'd had a really bad soccer season, so one day while I was at his house, I tried to cheer him up using my laptop. I typed a sentence, something like the first line in a really cheesy mystery novel. Matthew read it and laughed, but then he did something I wasn't expecting --- he took the computer from me and added a sentence. I read it, laughed, then added another sentence. We passed my laptop back and forth like that, writing a sentence at a time of our spoof on a mystery novel. After a couple or three hours, we had pages and pages of material. A lot of it was crazy stuff --- it's embarrassing how off-the-wall it was --- but there was also some good material there, too. We decided to turn what we had into a book.
KRC: What is your process of collaborating?
Matthew: We work best sitting at the computer together. We try to do that whenever we can. One of us will type, and then we'll both just keep talking and writing until we finish a chapter. Then we'll take a break and start on the next chapter. We eat a lot of junk food while we're writing.
Daniel: Sitting together does work best for us, but it's almost an hour's drive from my house to his. Matthew is busy with school and sports --- not to mention his music --- so we're not able to be in the same place to write as often as we would like. When we were working on RED CARD and couldn't be together, we sent the book back and forth to each other as an email attachment.
Matthew: Last summer, while my uncle was in San Diego, we started using iChat internet voice messaging to discuss GREEN STREAK as we finished the final version of the book. That worked pretty well.
Daniel: Now, we have a pair of iSight video cameras; with videoconferencing, we can see and hear each other while we work on WHITE OUT and the following books. It's not quite as good as sitting side-by-side, but it's pretty close. If I throw out an idea and I see Matthew give me one of those "you've got to be kidding" looks, I just drop it and move on. The biggest downside to videoconferencing is that I don't keep junk food in my house unless Matthew's here, so I miss out on all the snacks. (Not that I need them!)
KRC: Do you write from an outline?
Daniel: We don't "outline" in the strict sense of the word, but we do carefully plan the books (and the series) in advance. Matthew and I use a method similar to one they use in the movies, something called "storyboarding."
Matthew: We do our best book plotting and series planning while we're in the car driving.
KRC: How long does it take to complete one book?
Matthew: It took a year to finish RED CARD. Since it was going to be the first book in a series, we wrote a long history on Zeke and his family before we got very far in the actual writing of RED CARD. Since the back-story was already done, GREEN STREAK only took about three months.
KRC: Do you know of any other uncle/nephew writing teams?
Daniel: No, I don't. Carol Higgins Clark and her mom (Mary Higgins Clark, the "Queen of Suspense") have written some really good books together, and I've heard of another mother/daughter writing team.
KRC: Did you knock around other ideas before you came up with the idea for the Zeke Armstrong mysteries? What inspired the topic?
Matthew: Zeke was sort of an accident, so we never really talked about doing anything else together before that. My uncle and I like mystery novels and sports and the old Jonny Quest series, so we decided to use the things we liked most about those in the Zeke Armstrong novels. We wanted to write fun, fast-paced books that we wouldn't mind reading ourselves.
Daniel: This idea came after Zeke, but when you read RED CARD and GREEN STREAK, you'll notice the titles of some other books within the books. Matthew and I plan to bring those to life as the EZEKIEL TOBIAS MYSTERY SERIES, probably for younger kids.
KRC: We noticed that each title has a color in it? What can you tell us about that?
Daniel: When we first decided to turn our game into a novel, I asked Matthew what he wanted to call the book. Without skipping a beat, he said, "Red Card." (Soccer fans will know that when you get a red card, you get taken out of the game.) Since that book was to be the first in a series, we decided to use a color for each of the following titles.
Matthew: We were worried for a while that we'd run out of colors, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon.
KRC: Was the path to publication smooth, fast and easy? Or did you have some challenges to overcome?
Matthew: My uncle took the RED CARD manuscript to a writers conference and gave it to a man who owns a publishing company. Three months later, we got an e-mail from the president of the company saying she was interested in buying the book. We met her and her daughter for pizza, and she offered us a contract. So I guess you'd say it was smooth, fast and easy.
Daniel: I keep reminding Matthew that things almost never happen like this in the publishing world. Normally, an author spends a long time writing a book only to get a lot of rejection letters before s/he sells it.
Matthew: Yeah, right after we sold the book, he kept saying, "This is not normal reality."
KRC: Tell us about how you heard you had won an Agatha Award (for mystery writing).
Daniel: Boy, talk about something that's not normal reality…
Matthew: The chairman of the Agatha Awards committee called my uncle and me to tell us we were nominated. We flew to Washington, D.C. for the awards ceremony. When they announced RED CARD, I couldn't believe it.
Daniel: It still doesn't seem real.
KRC: Are you working (together or separately) on any books, other than the ongoing Zeke Armstrong series?
Daniel: Matthew writes short stories, and he has also started work on the first EZEKIEL TOBIAS novel by himself, but we've decided to do those books together. Matthew's also a gifted singer-songwriter; he spends a lot of time on his music. Since that's a talent we don't share, I'm going to stick with writing books. I'm now working on a grown-up mystery series centered on a character who is, in a lot of ways, an adult version of Zeke Armstrong.
KRC: What sports do each of you enjoy?
Matthew: Soccer. Baseball. Basketball. I've broken bones in all three. I do some inline skating, and I like riding mountain bikes.
Daniel: Mountain biking is the only sport in which I've broken a bone, and it's still my favorite. I used to participate in a lot of mountain biking races, but I don't do as much of that now. Inline skating, skiing and squash (it's similar to racquetball) are a lot of fun. I discovered sailing last summer, and I'm totally hooked on that. Since WHITE OUT is a snowboarding mystery and neither of us knew how to snowboard, I went to Colorado and learned. What a great sport! I definitely plan to hit the slopes more in the future. Hopefully Matthew can come with me next time.
KRC: Is there an expected publication date for the third Zeke Armstrong mystery, WHITE OUT? We hear there is a girl character named Zoe. What can you tell us about her and the rest of the book?
Daniel: WHITE OUT will probably be a 2005 title. In that book, Matthew and I introduce Zeke's eleven-year-old cousin, Zoe, who's something of a younger, more modern-day Nancy Drew. She's smart, she's intrepid, and she's a really good snowboarder. We're planning to put her in all the future Zeke books.
Matthew: In WHITE OUT, Zeke will learn some surprising things about his family, things that help him understand why he ends up in the middle of so many mysteries.
KRC: Can you share anything about future titles?
Daniel: After RED CARD, GREEN STREAK and WHITE OUT, we're planning to release BLUE MOON, ORANGE CRUSH and BLACK ICE.
Matthew: A couple of our other future titles are GOLD RUSH and YELLOW FLAG.
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