Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons From a Writing Life

by Terry Brooks

  The short answer to the question of influences in the present is that I am inspired, still and always, by other books and writers. My intense love affair with books continues unabated, undiminished, and thankfully unsated to this day. I don’t think that will ever change. I think books define me. I am constantly on the prowl for something new and wonderful to read. I don’t care who wrote it or where it came from. I don’t care what it is about. I don’t care if it is fiction or nonfiction or something in between. I just want it to be wonderful. It must be a story that moves me. It must be a story that reveals incontrovertible truths about the people who are in it. Above all, it must be a story that makes me want to go directly back to my computer and write something just as good.

  Oddly enough, I am not particularly influenced by writers in my own field. No one ever seems to write the kind of story I want to write, or if they come close, it isn’t written in the way I would have written it. I am inspired by the best of them to write something equally wonderful, but never to write anything similar. I don’t know why that is. Friends who are fantasy authors sometimes studiously avoid reading their peers so as not to be influenced. I don’t worry about it. I find that almost all of my ideas and concepts and themes do not come from stories that have anything to do with what I write. To give you a concrete example, a book I have read on the difficulties of protection of the environment might suggest something about how the loss of magic in the Shannara world could trigger deterioration of its life-forms. That’s a big stretch, but one I am quite comfortable making. The connections are never direct for me. They always require translation or mutation of some sort in order to take shape.

  I am a sucker for a writer who does wonderful things with words and language, who creates images that are indelible and evocative. I will read any story where the author conjures up magic through fresh demands on my sometimes jaded imagination. Make me see something through fresh eyes, and I will follow you anywhere. Give me a reason to work a little at the pictures you are drawing with your words, and I will believe in what you tell me.

  Books influence me; writers influence me. My parents and my teachers are gone. Lester is gone. Many of the people who were crucial to my success as a writer are gone. But books and writers live on, an endless stream of stories and storytellers waiting for me to jump into the current of their words, to swim through their images, and to be swept away in their flow. I cannot imagine life without books any more than I can imagine life without breathing.

  I don’t expect that this will ever change.

  * * *

  Looking back, I know that I learned more about the craft of writing and about being a writer through

  that one experience than I learned from all the

  other writing experiences of my life combined.

  * * *

  * * *

  TOUGH LOVE

  * * *

  A YEAR AFTER the publication of The Sword of Shannara, I was hard at work on a second book and in deep trouble. Lester had been asking to see the book, or some part, or even an outline for months, but I had told him I would rather not submit anything until it was done. The trouble was that I could not seem to finish it. The ending, in particular, kept eluding me, no matter how diligently I tried to conjure it up. I had written more than 375 pages, and still something about it was not quite right.

  The book was a sequel to Sword. I did not write Sword with the expectation of doing a sequel, but as soon as I finished my editing and it was ready for publication, Judy-Lynn suggested, rather too casually, that I should already be at work on the next book in the series. I did not come over on a load of coal, as my father liked to say, so I began work at once. The second book featured Rone Leah, a descendent of one of the main characters in the first, as protagonist. The title of the book was The Song of Lorelei. Lorelei was a young woman who could work enchantment with her singing. Her powers were immense, but her past was dark and filled with deadly secrets. In chapter five or so, she was stolen away by a mysterious intruder while under the protection of Rone Leah. The rest of the book focused on Rone’s attempts to find and rescue her. Nothing was what it seemed, of course.

  All well and good, I thought. But almost four hundred pages into the book, with the secrets mostly revealed and the need for a resolution of the plot and the fates of the characters clearly at hand, I was lost. I decided that giving Lester a crack at breaking the logjam was the easiest and most efficient way to resolve the matter. He was a genius at picking out weak areas and devising ways of shoring up failing plotlines. Some rewriting would be necessary, of course, but it was better to get it out of the way now. Besides, I was anxious to hear how he felt about the parts that I considered strong.

  So I sent it off to him, asking for suggestions on how to finish the book and get it ready for publication.

  I waited a long time for a response. I knew he would write rather than call; he had advised me early on in our relationship that he preferred to communicate with his writers in this fashion. Letters allowed time and space for a writer’s contemplation of an editor’s comments and criticisms. They facilitated a more balanced consideration of the changes an editor felt necessary. I understood this, even though I did not believe that talking all this over by telephone would upset me.

  I was about to discover how badly I had misjudged myself. When the long-awaited letter arrived, it was nothing of what I had anticipated. Lester told me that The Song of Lorelei was a mess. He had considered it from as many angles as he could, and after doing so must advise me that there was no way it could be salvaged. Although it would be hard, I must let go of this effort and start over. I could ignore him if I chose. Certainly the success of The Sword of Shannara had opened enough publishing doors that someone would accept the book as I had written it and it might even do well based on the expectations of readers of Sword. But it was a bad book, and if I went this route, I would live to regret it.

  I was devastated. I could not believe he had rejected it out of hand, that he had found nothing about it worth salvaging. I was in such pain that I could hardly bear it, my disappointment crushing. For several days I sulked, working my way through a gamut of emotions, mulling over a series of inappropriate responses. I kept the news to myself, but I was so low that no matter where I went or whose company I kept, I was constantly looking up at the proverbial snake’s belly.

  Then Judy-Lynn called to ask how I was. Are you all right, Brooks? She always called me by my last name, and it felt like a term of endearment when she said it. I knew what she expected me to say, and I said it. I was fine. I was handling it. Of course, I was lying through my teeth. Perhaps she sensed that. She told me that these things happen, particularly with second books, and I shouldn’t despair. Nor should I take Lester’s comments personally. (How else should I take them? I wanted to ask, but didn’t.) Lester is doing what he must to make me a better writer, and I should listen to what he says. In fact, he is sending along some comments about the manuscript for me to consider. I shouldn’t do anything more about Lorelei until I received those comments and had a chance to look them over.

  She was encouraging and kind, and I knew she meant well. But after she hung up, I wanted to scream. I was looking for a lifeline for my sinking ship of a manuscript, and I had been tossed a bag of leaden platitudes. Nothing she had said made me feel one bit better or offered even the faintest hope that somehow, someway, I could resurrect what I now perceived to be my fading career.

  I remained miserable to myself and to everyone around me for at least another week, all the while contemplating ways to get around Lester’s rejection letter. I told myself that it was only one man’s opinion. He didn’t know everything, after all. He was a curmudgeon and so opinionated that at times I wanted to tape what he said and play it back to him later, just to let him hear himself. He might be wrong this time. Isn’t everyone wrong, now and then? Maybe it was his turn. The book had problems, I knew, but simply to throw the whole thing out . . .

  And on and
on.

  What arrived finally was nothing short of astonishing, although I did not recognize it for what it was right away. Lester had returned my manuscript almost exactly as I had submitted it. There were a few comments in the margins, a little marking up of the text, but not much of anything else written on the pages. Instead, there were pieces of yellow tablet paper inserted throughout, one about every three or four pages, filled with Lester’s handwriting. In his cover letter, he asked me to read through the manuscript one more time carefully, considering his evaluation of the problems it contained as I went. He asked that I make no judgments until I had finished.

  I felt irritated and threatened at first. I did not want to hear all the things he thought were wrong with my masterpiece. It was like enduring the death of a thousand cuts. But there was no help for it. If I was to find a way out of this mess, if I was to find a way to make him change his mind, I had to read in detail what he thought was wrong, so that then I could dispute him.

  So I did as he asked. I began to read the text, stopping where there were inserts to read his evaluations. I had made up my mind about what I would find and how I would deal with it—but a funny thing happened. I found that I changed my mind almost at once. Lester’s comments were concise, thoughtful, and right on target. I could see my mistakes. I grew less angry and more intrigued as I progressed. My mistakes multiplied like rabbits. They were everywhere, and they were obvious. I was astonished at how much I had assumed was working in my story and how little actually was. I was looking for arguments to offer in defense of my choices, for leverage to persuade Lester to change his mind, and I could not find a one.

  In the end, my thinking was transformed. Lester was right; I must abandon this story. After careful consideration, I could find no way to salvage it. Worse, I was so close to the material that any attempt to scavenge from it would be disastrous. Putting aside my disappointment and frustration, I released my death grip on the material and started over.

  This decision led me to write The Elfstones of Shannara, a book that readers repeatedly tell me they consider my best. (It presents a whole new dilemma when you are told you did your best work twenty years ago, but we will leave consideration of that for another time.) It required two years of work to complete an initial manuscript of more than six hundred pages, and when I submitted it to Lester he told me to rewrite the middle two hundred. I did so without a word of protest. I never once during this time even glanced at The Song of Lorelei. Later, I used Rone Leah and some of the other characters and a few of the settings while writing the third book in the series, The Wishsong of Shannara. But I took nothing from the plot or the underlying thematic structure of the earlier story. I had learned my lesson.

  That was a long time ago. What I remember most strongly now about that experience was how amazed I was after rereading the manuscript and considering Lester’s accompanying comments. I can’t begin to imagine how much time and effort he must have put into going through all 375-plus pages of Lorelei, writing out his thoughts as he did so on those scraps of yellow tablet paper each step of the way. What he had given me was the kind of education young writers can only dream about—the kind you hope and pray you might find in college writing programs, writing conferences, or even from editors, but seldom do.

  Looking back, I know that I learned more about the craft of writing and about being a writer through that one experience than I learned from all the other writing experiences of my life combined. It did not begin or end there. I was required to complete substantial rewrites on both Sword and Wishsong, the books that preceded and followed Elfstones. I rewrote a good chunk of Magic Kingdom for Sale, as well, which followed. But the heart and soul of what I know and who I am as a writer was formed in the crucible of that single experience.

  There are writers who will tell you how difficult Lester del Rey was to work with. Some remember him as harsh and sometimes arbitrary. Some remember him as impossible to reason with. Some grew weary of their constant struggle to protect the integrity of their material and departed for other houses. Some still just shake their heads when his name is mentioned and utter a few choice words under their breath.

  I will never be one of them.

  Lester carried a card that he handed out to everyone. I still have one. It reads: Lester del Rey, Expert.

  You might get an argument on the validity of that claim from others, but you won’t get one from me.

  * * *

  Trying to explain in rational, analytical fashion how we come up with our plots and our thematic structures threatens in an odd sort of way to reveal that we are

  all just humbugs hiding behind a velvet curtain.

  * * *

  * * *

  WHERE DO YOU

  GET YOUR IDEAS?

  * * *

  IT IS THE most frequently asked question of writers, particularly writers of speculative fiction. It is asked at virtually every book signing, appearance, and interview. It is a legitimate question, one in which readers have a bona fide interest. They are curious to know how writers come up with all those wondrous, unusual, and intriguing concepts that comprise the framework for their stories.

  But writers don’t like this question. They don’t like it because they hear it all the time and after a while it becomes such a cliché that they want to run screaming into the night. They don’t like it because it is hard to answer. Ideas don’t just happen. They don’t come out of a catalogue or the phone book. They don’t arrive propitiously in our dreams. (Well, now and then maybe, but I would hate to have to rely on dreams to make my deadlines.)

  Writers don’t like this question most of all because they are a little afraid of it. Writers are not necessarily superstitious, but they do tend to be a bit wary. Particularly about themselves and their craft. They don’t quite trust it. They are leery of looking at it too closely. Examining how it works might leech away a little of its magic. Analyzing it might make the entire process too claustrophobic to bear. Most writers tend to rely heavily on intuition and gut instinct, a sort of freewheeling approach to creativity. The writer’s mind might lock up with the realization that he does things in certain ways and for certain reasons, and his intuition and gut instinct might turn to stone. For the same reason, writers do not like to talk about what they are writing or intend to write until it is actually written. I am bad enough about this that I have forbidden my editor to discuss any aspect of a work in progress even with me, let alone third parties, unless I bring the matter up first.

  Where we get our ideas is at the heart of how we work and what we do. Trying to explain in rational, analytical fashion how we come up with our plots and our thematic structures threatens in an odd sort of way to reveal that we are all just humbugs hiding behind a velvet curtain. Better to let it all remain a mystery. Better to keep what little we can explain to ourselves.

  All well and good, except that taking this tack suggests we are cowards, and the word cowardly might work once in a while for lions, but it is bad news for writers. If writers are afraid of something, they are supposed to work it out through their writing. They are supposed to confront the questions and the issues that disturb them. They are supposed to make sense of the larger world and its complexities.

  So that is what I have decided to attempt here, to think back through the stories I have written and the ideas that prompted them. By examining a few, I hope to give you some insight into how the process works and where those mysterious ideas really come from.

  Let me start with The Wishsong of Shannara. This is how that book came to be written. I was musing on the traditional Sirens of Greek mythology who lured unfortunate sailors to their doom. Odysseus only just missed becoming a victim. Such power! I began to wonder what it would do to you if by singing you could destroy things. Or create, perhaps. What if by singing you could change the way things were? What would you do with such power? What would such power do to you?

  I took it a step further. Suppose there were siblings, and each had the power
of a Siren. A sister and a brother would do. What if the sister could actually change things, but the brother could give only the appearance of change? But, wait! What if the former fell under the sway of her own magic, a victim of the very power she relied upon, and the latter, the weaker of the two, had to rise above his limitations and find a way to save her?

  That was how Brin and Jair Ohmsford were conceived as the central figures in the book. The wishsong became an inherited trait, but a deadly one that could work both good and evil and was not always controllable by its users. Its magic, like the magic in all of my stories, was a two-edged sword that could cut either way. Brin and Jair would have to find a way to control it in order to save themselves.

  Perhaps you are already seeing a pattern to what I do to come up with ideas. I start asking questions. What if this? What if that? I ask these questions until I come to the central question of the whole exercise, and then either I find my story or I abandon the effort and start all over again. Sooner or later I find a set of questions that suggest a real story, and I am ready to put together a new book.

  All right, let’s try it again. This time let’s delve a little deeper into the process. The book I am going to use is Running with the Demon. I began writing this book in 1996, after thinking on and off about the story for the better part of ten years. I hoped to accomplish several things. First, I wanted a dark, contemporary fantasy. Second, I wanted a book in which the story’s magic fitted seamlessly with what we know to be true about the real world. Third, I wanted to write about growing up in a small town in the Midwest, and I particularly wanted to address the way in which children lose their beliefs about what is possible the more exposed they become to the world’s harsh truths.