W.D. Visalli asked D.J. MacHale:

How did you start off your career as a writer? I know you have some early credits of writing for Are You Afraid of the Dark (or was it Goosebumps?) and several other tv shows. Is that where you started and how?

D.J. MacHale I actually starting writing books very late. I was a writer/producer/director of TV shows for years before that. I started writing novels for a couple of reasons. One was that people I worked with would tell me how much they enjoyed reading my scripts. So that gave me the confidence to eliminate the middle man. Meaning: the TV show. I started writing words that would go directly to the end user: the reader. The other reason is that the kinds of kids shows I produced weren't being done anymore. Meaning: dramas. So I started writing novels to continue writing the kinds of stories I wanted to write. But things are coming full circle so I'm putting my toe back into the TV world.

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