or over 25 years, Terry Brooks has been the reigning king of fantasy.
He grew up in Illinois, not far from Sinnissippi Park, which would become his inspiration for creating the Word and Void trilogy. His vivid imagination as a child began to blossom in high school,
where he first began to write stories in speculative fiction. He earned his undergraduate degree at Hamilton College and a degree from the School Of Law at Washington & Lee University.
While practicing law, Brooks wrote his epic fantasy novel The Sword of Shannara, inspired by the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. It was published in 1977, and became the first fiction trade paperback to chart on the New York Times' bestseller list. He followed up with The Elfstones of Shannara and The Wishsong of Shannara.
Brooks quit practicing law and pursued writing full-time when he published Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold!, as well as the Landover series, beginning with The Black Unicorn and Wizard at Large.
In 1993, Brooks finished his Shannara epic with the four-book series The Heritage of Shannara. He returned to the Landover series with The Tangle Box and Witches' Brew. He also garnered additional attention with the dark and brooding Running with the Demon.
This impressive list of credits spurred George Lucas to ask him to adapt the most anticipated sequel in the world of contemporary science-fiction films, Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace. Currently, he is writing more novels concerning the history of Shannara in a new trilogy, The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara.
Is there much of a difference between science-fiction and fantasy fans?
Brooks: The most obvious difference is that the fan base for fantasy is much broader. The readership for fantasy is four-to-one than science fiction—maybe larger than that. That is due to the fact that fantasy is a much more accessible form of literature. You don't have to have any pre-existing knowledge to get into a fantasy; you kind of feel that you do with science fiction because it has all that science in there.
There is an off-putting element to science fiction, unfortunately, that deters a lot of people from picking it up. Where everybody was raised on fairy tales, legends and myths—and so they can leap on into that.
It is also the reason that mysteries are so popular. It's not because they are all that wonderful, they are so easy to get into. It takes no effort to read one.
Your adaptation of Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace was a highly anticipated sequel. Was there any pressure writing that book because the Star Wars series was so successful? Was it easy or difficult to work within the framework of a Star Wars universe? Did you get any input from George Lucas about the book?
Brooks: There wasn't any pressure, first of all. I think one of the reasons I was chosen to do this adaptation, as opposed to someone else or someone working in the Star Wars world previously, is because I already had established a career and reputation—so it didn't much matter to me one way or another what happened with this project. It was intriguing. It was a great publicity thing. I wasn't in it for the money, I could stand up to George and say, "I don't like what I'm hearing," and walk away. That is the way I went into the project. If I met with him and I didn't like what I heard, I was going to walk away from it. I had such a terrible time doing [an adaptation for] Hook years earlier, I was really reticent about it.
On the other hand, working with Lucas and the people with LucasBooks was a very enjoyable experience. They were extremely helpful to me—gave me anything I asked for. I went down to meet with them before I started the project and had spent a couple days at Skywalker Ranch, talking to them, looking at the visuals, and asking questions, reading the script, that kind of stuff, and four hours of meeting with George. All of it went so well, I was extremely encouraged and felt they were going to be very supportive—which, in fact, they were.
George gave me a tremendous amount of leeway in writing that book. He allowed me to change his scenes, he allowed me to change his dialogue, he allowed me to rearrange things, he encouraged me to write original material for the book, because his initial idea was to approach the movie from the viewpoint of Anakin Skywalker—the whole Star Wars saga is really Anakin Skywalker's story. He couldn't think how to do it visually, and make it powerful. It's pretty hard to tell the story from the viewpoint of a boy. George asked me, "How well can you do this with the book?" I told him, "I think I can do it pretty well."
We changed the whole focus, which is why the book doesn't open where the movie opens. It opens with Anakin and stays with him for the duration of the story. We traded ideas.
George liked everything that I did in the end, and he was extremely helpful. It was a great experience; I enjoyed it thoroughly.
What was the guidebook, The World of Shannara, able to tell the readers that the series wasn't? The series has a long history and several characters and settings—is it hard to keep all the facts straight and not contradict anything you have written before?
Brooks: Yeah, that's one of the reasons I'm glad that someone did that Shannara companion—I can go back and find the answers [laughs]. It was somewhat nebulous before. The older I get, the tougher it gets for me to remember anything. God knows I go to all these events with the young kids who have the books memorized and they say, "So what do you mean when you did so-and-so?" and I think "Did I do that?" [Laughs.] I don't have any memory of it.
It was a companion book to the series. it was conceived by Del Rey—they wanted to do it. I said, "Great—I don't want to write it—get someone else to do it, I'm not interested." I've never been interested in peripheral stuff of any kind. I'm only interested in the books.
So they hired Teresa Patterson, a fan of the work, and she did a terrific job of researching everything, I spent several days with her and David Cherry [the artist for the book] both, talking about the way the [Shannara's] world works. And Teresa would say, "What do you mean by—" "What was your intention," "What do you think happened?" and in a lot of incidents I said, "Beats me. What do you think?" And she would go back and write it. They did a really great job with it. A lot of the book is Teresa's invention and her interpretation of what she thinks are the connections and what would happen and so forth, and all of it is David's visuals. All I did was edit and oversee the whole thing, then fill in the blanks—it was not a project I was enamored of undertaking.
In the first three Shannara novels, the books were more separate stories with recurring characters. The following five were more of a continuing series. Was this a shift in direction or something you planned?
Brooks: The first three Shannara novels were written while I was still practicing law. Each took a number of years to write. Sword took six or seven all together, Elfstones took almost three. That was after a misstep on what was going to be the second book, so there was a five-year gap between book one and book two. The next one, Wishsong, took another two or three years to write—there were big gaps of time in there, when I wasn't a full-time writer.
After I wrote Magic Kingdom and quit being a lawyer and became a full-time writer, I began to look at the writing in a different way. I still wanted to do the epic fantasy stories in conjunction with Shannara. When I sat down to work out Heritage, which turned out to be a four-book set, I envisioned it as a trilogy. I'm always looking to do something different, as before I used single books with one Shannara character and in the last book two, I decided I was going to write about a whole family and follow them through a set of books that would have a continuing storyline, that would have smaller storylines that would wrap up within. It was quite ambitious, but something different.
When I began to map Heritage out, it became clear that it would have to be four books. That's what it ended up being.
Then I was sick of Shannara again, which happens periodically—then I went off with Magic Kingdom for a couple of years. Then I was going to do The Word & Void series, but my editor said, "No, we need you to do another Shannara book first." And that is when I decided to respond to all the requests from fans for answers to what happened before the Sword in various ways; that is, where First King came from, which is a separate story altogether.
Now I'm back doing a whole different thing. I'm writing two trilogies that piggy-back off each other. The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara is a set of three books, and 20 years after that you'll get into a new set—which will use some of the themes and storylines started in the first one and a couple of the characters.
I don't like writing about the same characters over and over again. To me, it's more interesting to change the characters, but at the same time also to change the format, so that's what I have been pretty much doing.
What is your favorite book in the Shannara series?
Brooks: I don't think I can answer that question, and the reason I couldn't is because each of them means something different for me. Obviously, Sword was a breakthrough book—you have to say that was important to me; that is the book that really made my career. But Elfstones was a tremendous accomplishment, because I came back out of the ashes of a book that was thrown away to write that book. It was an extremely strong book. You can go on from there and talk about each of the other ones—it's really hard to choose.
The answer I usually give, which is probably true, is my favorite book is the one I'm writing right now. To me, it's the process that matters. I really love the writing process. It's what intrigues me, it's what keeps me fascinated and going. When the book is done, it's done—it doesn't belong to me anymore. It belongs to the readers.
Of all your books, which ones would you like to be made into a movie? Which are some of your favorite fantasy films over the years?
Brooks: Running with the Demon—that one would be the most adaptable into movie-making. I think the Shannara books would be extraordinarily hard to adapt. It might happen. It certainly would be difficult with Sword, because it's such a nebulous concept.
My favorite fantasy films? Well, The Lord of the Rings—it is certainly right up there. I thought that was a terrific achievement. I'm very fond of The Princess Bride and Field of Dreams. When I look at fantasy I look at a much broader spectrum than most writers do—not just the epic fantasies.
In fantasy, it is better to have limits on the power of magic. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Brooks: I agree. I'm a huge advocate that less is more. I use magic sparingly. I use creatures of all kinds sparingly. Because I don't think that's the thing that engages the reader. What I think engages them is characterization and storytelling and a sense of atmosphere.
You know how they've been talking about the movie Signs lately? And they've been comparing it to [Alfred] Hitchcock. What is so great about Hitchcock and his filmmaking is that he never showed you a whole lot of anything, he just suggested the presence of it. It was the suspense that made his movies so great. You were always on the edge waiting for the next thing to happen, you never really saw anything, maybe once or twice something overt happened and you weren't exactly sure. I think there's a lot to be said about that in your storytelling, too. You want to be careful of not overdoing it. You don't want to get into a place where magic is solving all your problems. That's poor storytelling.
Not only should magic be used sparingly, but it should have deep significance when you do it. I can't read fantasy where magic is commonplace and thrown out there at the drop of a hat. I'm supposed to accept it's how it is in that world. I think, oh well, who cares? I don't care. I want to know about the people. The magic on the people when they use it. Those are the things that interest me.
It's like presidents. Presidents go into office one person and come out another. What happens to them? They have all this power, and they use it, and it changes them in different ways. We've seen it time and time again.
These corporate CEOs, did they grow up little bastards? [Laughs.] They turned into greedy little bastards when they were in office, when they were in their positions of power with these corporations when they thought they could do anything. That's what's intriguing to me.
What can we expect from Terry Brooks in 2003?
Brooks: The same thing you can expect in 2004 and 2005 [laughs], which is another Shannara book. I have three more in this next trilogy that is coming up. September of each year there will be a new book which will complete the current Shannara cycle, and I will be going off and doing something else. That is what's happening on the fantasy fiction front.
I'm also writing a novella for The Legends of Fantasy which will be published sometime in 2003. That will include contributions by people like Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin and a whole bunch of people.
I'm also publishing a book called Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life. It's a small book on what I learned about being a writer from the past 25 years. Things that happened to me, what they taught me about and about the craft of writing and what I think is important for writers to know. What they need to do and that kind of stuff. That's coming out in March of 2003.
Last question—do you consider fantasy authors such as Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, Mickey Zucker Reichert and J.K. Rowling as your contemporaries or competition?
Brooks: I have no competition [laughs]. I don't look at writing as competitive, but as more of an embracing experience for the people involved in it. I don't think we compete against each other actually.
It's not like potential readers say, "I have $25.00, which of these authors am I going to spend my money
on?" [Laughs.] They go buy that book and that's their book for the year.
The fact is, they will buy as many books as we can put out, if they like our work. The problem is, we can't write fast enough.
I don't believe in awards and recognition for work done. I think as a writer, you have an obligation to be the best that you can. I don't think you should be rewarded for doing your job. I don't think we should be choosing one writer over another. I think we all do the best job that we can. We all work hard. It shouldn't be set up as artificial competition.
We all have people whose work we particularly admire, and we all have work that we particularly detest [laughs]. That's just the nature of the beast.
Also in this issue:
David Twohy of Below.
