Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons From a Writing Life

by Terry Brooks

  Of course, doing all this requires a lot of hard work, which is one very definite reason some writers steer clear of the outlining process entirely. Sure, the dreaming part is fun and freeing, but the organizing and writing down of plotlines and themes is tough business. It’s much easier to forget all that and just sit down and start writing and see what happens. But if you check what most writers who don’t outline have to say about their work habits, you will discover that they end up doing several drafts of a book and any number of rewrites afterwards.

  I don’t. I do one draft, one rewrite, and I’m done.

  Is this because I’m a better writer than they are? In my dreams. No, it has to do with how you want to allocate your workload. The truth is simple. You can either do the hard work up front or do it at the end. By outlining, you are doing the hard work in the beginning—the thinking, the organizing, the weighing and considering, and the making of choices. By doing it early, you can save yourself a lot of time and effort at the end. Put it off, and you pay the price later. Writing requires a certain amount of suffering for the pleasure it gives back. Nothing you do will ever change that. But you can help yourself by distributing the load.

  None of this is to say that by outlining you have eliminated the need for creative thinking during the actual writing process. What you have done is lay the groundwork. Writing the book will dictate the need for changes in your thinking. It will provide fresh insights into how the story needs to unfold. It will require new and better approaches to plot points you had earlier believed were good enough. But, gosh, look what you’ve got that other writers don’t! You’ve got a blueprint to refer to. You’ve got a way to determine how those changes and insights and ideas will impact the rest of your book, and you can make sure that the impact is a positive one.

  Moreover, you’ve freed yourself up to concentrate on the writing process itself, on the telling of the story, together with all its complex demands and mechanics. You don’t have to burden yourself with also trying to figure out what is going to happen every step of the way. Sure, sometimes your plot comes easily enough. You just know what you’re meant to do, and you do it. But lots of times it doesn’t work that way. Lots of times it’s tough sledding. You can grease your runners up a little bit by trying what I suggest and doing some of the hardest work up front. You can think your plot through before you start to write about it.

  Lester del Rey used to tell me that thinking about a book before you wrote it was as important as the writing itself. Too many authors, he opined, just rushed right into their story without giving a thought to what they were doing. The result was a lot of very bad books and a lot of hard work for editors who had to try to fix them. At the time, I thought he was just being curmudgeonly. Now, I think he was being insightful.

  A few years back, I started sending pictures of myself stretched out on a lounge chair, lying on a beach, eyes closed, soaking up the sun. I backed them on postcards that included a message that read something like “This is me at work.” It was meant as a joke, of course, but the truth is that this is exactly how a writer does some of his most important work. Dreaming opens the doors to creativity. Dreaming allows the imagination to invent something wonderful. Don’t cheat yourself out of a chance to discover how well this can work. Don’t shortcut the process.

  Make dream time the linchpin of your writing experience. Start right now. Put down this book. Find a lounge chair and lie down and close your eyes. Let your mind drift.

  Go some place you’ve never been, then come back and tell us all about it.

  * * *

  I told him what I wanted. He told me in response

  and in no uncertain terms that I was crazy.

  I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

  * * *

  * * *

  HOOK

  * * *

  I WAS SITTING with Judine in a café in Albuquerque’s Old Town in the spring of 1991 when I made one of the worst decisions of my life. It was midday on a Sunday, the weather clear and hot and dry, and the plaza outside the café filled with shoppers and sightseers. I was in the middle of a book tour and had nothing to do until a book event at two that afternoon at a store called Page One. Judine and I had come to Old Town to eat New Mexican food and drink margaritas, and we had done plenty of both.

  Because I was feeling so good about things, I decided to call Owen Lock. Owen had been editor in chief at Del Rey Books since Judy-Lynn’s death in 1986. He was also my friend. Owen came to Del Rey as Judy-Lynn’s assistant about the same time that The Sword of Shannara showed up on her doorstep, so we had sort of grown up together in the company. I reached Owen at home, and we talked about how the tour was going, what the weather was like, how Lester seemed with Judy-Lynn gone, and so on and so forth.

  Then, just before hanging up, he mentioned a piece of good news. Del Rey Books had bought the rights to the book tie-in to a new Steven Spielberg movie called Hook, which was intended as a sequel to J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Robin Williams would play Peter, who has finally grown up, and Dustin Hoffman would play Captain Hook, who has not. The movie should be a huge success, Owen said, so Del Rey was gearing up for doing the book adaptation and a series of spin-offs on related subjects. What they needed to do right now was to find a writer for the adaptation. He would let me know whom they selected.

  He hung up, and I went back to Judine to tell her the news. While sipping another margarita, I contemplated the prospect of a sequel to Peter Pan. It seemed a truly inspired idea. I was in love with it. More to the point, I wanted to do the book. After all, who better to write a sequel to Peter Pan than me, the boy who never grew up? Why should this project go to someone else when I was the best writer available? I was infused with sudden purpose. I had to write this book. I knew I could do it. I knew I could do it better than anyone.

  I told Judine of my feelings. She knew me too well even then to argue the matter. Instead, she told me that if I felt so strongly about it, I should call Owen back. So I did. I told him what I wanted. He told me in response and in no uncertain terms that I was crazy. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I persisted nevertheless. Had he seen the script? Yes. Was it wonderful? Yes. Did it follow the tenor and line of the original? Yes. If I wanted to do it, would the publisher let me? A long, heartfelt sigh ensued through the telephone receiver. They would love for you to do it, he admitted. But you won’t get paid anything, and you will live to regret the whole business. Movie people are not like us. They are not like anyone. Listen to what I am saying. Give it up.

  But I didn’t listen to him and I didn’t give it up. I was enamored of the idea of writing the sequel to Peter Pan, even if what I was doing was only an adaptation of somebody else’s work. I could shape it to my own vision, I told myself. I could embellish it with my own style. It would be wonderful, especially with a movie starring Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman to help publicize it.

  Thus did I run swiftly and foolishly to my doom.

  When I got home, I spoke with Susan Petersen, then president of Ballantine Books, and told her what I wanted to do. She thought it was a wonderful idea. We quickly came to an agreement regarding advances and royalties against earnings. I was so eager to do this project that I paid almost no attention to any of the financial details. What was important was the opportunity to (a) write in the world of James Barrie and (b) attract the attention of new readers for my other books. I was sent a copy of the movie script, which I read and loved. The script, by Jim V. Hart, was true to the original story of Peter Pan and very inventive. I could hardly wait to start work. All that remained was a quick trip to Hollywood to visit the sets and talk with the Spielberg people (perhaps, if I was lucky, Steven Spielberg himself or one of the movie stars).

  Matters started to deteriorate from there.

  I asked if I could speak with the screenwriter, to get an idea of his vision for the script, and was advised that he was no longer involved with the project. The script was already under revision.
That would be the same script that I found so wonderful, I thought. The first faint rumblings of uncertainty surfaced like poisonous gas, but I ignored them.

  The night before I was to fly to Los Angeles for a visit to the movie set was the last happy moment I would experience on this project until well after it was finished. On that night, I still had expectations of something good coming out of it.

  Judine and I had arranged to fly down and back on the same day. We would visit the sets, discuss the script, and obtain help with the details necessary to enable me to write the book. That was what we thought, at least.

  The reality proved to be somewhat different. When we arrived, we were driven to a trailer on the set and met by a midlevel functionary who clearly had better and more important things to do with his time than mess around with us. He told me right off the bat that we wouldn’t be meeting Steven Spielberg or any of the stars. Well, maybe a Lost Boy or two. Nor would we be allowed to visit any of the sets except for one. They were all closed to visitors or already dismantled. The one that was available was of the Lost Boy camp in Never Never Land. A bit dismayed, I agreed to accept the crumb that was being offered.

  We went to the one set we were allowed on. It was surprisingly small, about the size of a big toy assembly on a playground. I studied it dutifully, made some notes, and then asked if I might take a few pictures. Certainly not, our escort declared. No pictures allowed. I nodded meekly. No telling what I might do with those pictures.

  We returned to the trailer. I asked if there were any pictures of the settings or scenes or characters I could look at. Our escort produced a small set of perhaps half a dozen color photos and a somewhat larger set of pen-and-inks. They were useful, but there were not nearly enough of them. I asked if he had any other pictures or drawings that I could see. He didn’t. I asked if he could send me some later. He said he would let me know. I asked if I could take what he had shown me or make copies. He said no. He would check to see if I could have copies later. I would have to sign a confidentiality agreement, of course.

  I flew home in a funk. Judine, wisely, said nothing. I called up Ellen Key Harris, my editor at Del Rey for the project, and asked for help. She said she would see what she could do. By now I realized that this was going to be everyone’s favorite response on this project. I sat and waited. One week. Two. Three. Finally, out of sheer frustration, I began writing anyway, blocking out scenes and describing places and characters as best I could. I called Ellen and told her that I was writing the book and I certainly hoped it turned out to resemble in some small way the movie it was supposed to be based on, but if it didn’t, too bad, I was out of patience and through waiting.

  Within three days, a passel of pictures and drawings arrived—along with the ubiquitous confidentiality agreement, which I signed and returned.

  Then things began to get really weird. In the first place, the story opened with a Little League baseball game being played at Christmastime with umpires dressed as Santa Clauses. The scene involved Peter, who had forgotten who he was, and his son, who was a member of the team. The important thing to know is that the scene took place in New York City in December.

  Now, even I know they don’t play baseball in New York City in the winter. So I called to ask about this. Oh, that’s been changed, I was advised. The scene now takes place in Denver.

  Denver? Winter baseball in Denver?

  Before I could figure out what to do next, the scene was gone, replaced by a Christmas pageant about Peter Pan. But it was the beginning of a disturbing trend that would haunt me for the remainder of the time I worked on the book. Movie scenes, it seems, are not shot in order. They are shot on a schedule that has to do with locations, actor availability, and weather conditions. Worse, if the director decides he doesn’t like a scene he has already shot, he might go back and shoot it over entirely.

  Which was what was taking place while I was trying to write the book. Scenes were summarily dropped or reshot, with fresh script pages arriving almost daily. I tried to work around this, but it became an organizational nightmare. Scenes that were formerly dropped would suddenly be put back in again. Scenes that were changed were suddenly changed back. I quickly learned to throw nothing away because today’s garbage might well be tomorrow’s treasure. The movie was lurching all over the place, and I was lurching right along with it, trying desperately to keep the book consistent and the narrative tightly woven. It was like herding cats.

  Finally, the whole business ground to a conclusion. The movie was finished, the editing completed, the rewrites and reshoots over. The original script had disappeared as a recognizable whole, replaced by a series of cobbled-together parts that were truly scary. But I had done what I could and I was satisfied that the book worked. Enough was enough.

  I turned the manuscript in and thought I was out of the woods. I was sadly mistaken, as Owen could have told me, had he deigned to bother.

  Back came the manuscript with not one, not two, but three sets of rewrites from three separate movie people. I didn’t know any of them and had no idea what their connection was with the Spielberg company. What I did know, after a quick reading of all three, was that they did not agree on any of the changes they had suggested. In fact, in many places, they were in direct contradiction.

  Incensed, I called Ellen and used several four-letter words and a good deal of heat to describe how I felt about this whole business. I would not change one word of anything until there was some agreement between the people on the other end. In a huff, I sat down to wait once more.

  The response, when it came, was truly bizarre. Without any explanation as to whom the three commentators were, I was told the following about each. Number One was a person of no consequence, just someone the movie company was trying to placate and whom I could ignore completely. Number Two was someone I should pay attention to, but whose suggestions I did not need to follow unless I chose to do so. Number Three was the only person who counted, and I must do as she ordered.

  Fine. I tossed out comments from Numbers One and Two without another moment’s consideration, thinking that the problem was solved. It was not. Number Three, whoever she was, had clearly never been involved in editing and perhaps never even read a book. A sample of her suggestions went like this. For a sentence that might read, “The room was night-black,” the comment would be, “This action does not take place at night.” For a sentence that might read, “It was as quiet as the sanctuary of a church,” the comment would read, “The setting is the Lost Boys’ hideout, not a church.” A reference to Mickey Mouse brought a cryptic, “Delete all references to Disney characters.”

  I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say.

  Editing Hook became something akin to pulling teeth. I just went along with most of it, preferring not to get bogged down in the details. It was easier to delete than to argue. Those pages where I could not morally and reasonably give in, I handed over to Ellen to resolve, which she mostly did. In the end, it all got ironed out, and I refused all phone calls from Owen for a month.

  I had already decided I would never do this again. It got worse, of course. My name could not appear on the cover of the book in larger type than those of the screenwriters. There was to be no mention inside of my other work. I was not to talk about the book until the movie was out. When the movie opened, I did not get free tickets from the studio. I stood in line at the box office and bought them like everyone else. I never heard from Steven Spielberg or the studio about what they thought of my work. In fact, I never heard another word about the book from anyone involved in the movie ever again.

  The movie opened to mixed reviews and never lived up to expectations. The book did moderately well, but not well enough to make anyone forget sliced bread. It didn’t do a thing for me as a writer. I had learned a hard lesson, but I had learned it thoroughly. When I finally accepted a call from Owen, I told him this: No more movie adaptations for me.

  I repeated this litany for the next eight years at every bo
ok event where I was asked about movie tie-ins. Never again, I announced fiercely.

  * * *

  The reader wants to see something happen

  between pages one and four hundred, and nothing

  happens if the characters don’t change.

  * * *

  * * *

  MAUD MANX,

  PART ONE

  * * *

  OKAY, IT’S TIME for some fun.

  Not that we haven’t been having plenty up until now, of course. But all this talk about craft can be pretty dry in the absence of examples that remind us that writing should always be, first and foremost, enjoyable.

  I have some rules about writing that I follow rather rigorously, and this seems a good place to talk about them. They don’t mean much outside of their practical application, so I thought I would give you a look at the way I might use them in my writing. But I don’t want to tackle this task with anything serious and certainly not with one of my own books (Do you think I’m nuts?) so I have invented a story that I hope will illustrate the importance of my rules without putting you to sleep.

  Let’s pretend that I have decided to write a thriller. I’ve finished my dream time and come up with a fairly typical sort of tale. It involves a retired government operative, once the best in the business, who has been hunted down by her lifelong nemesis and now faces one final confrontation before she goes to that big CIA complex in the sky. This will be a classic kind of story, the hero alone against impossible odds, her courage and strength of character tested as she discovers that you can never really escape your past.