Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons From a Writing Life

by Terry Brooks

  Which brings us to rule number seven: AVOID THE GROCERY-LIST APPROACH TO DESCRIBING CHARACTERS.

  You know, remember to pick up the eggs, ham, bread, milk, Swiss cheese, and so on and so forth. If you take a look at our first example, the one that involves so much telling, you will notice that we learn about Maud through what amounts to a grocery list of characteristics. It reads like the author is checking off each item very much the way you do when shopping in a grocery store. How much more interesting and involving to work all this in through the narrative form employed in the second example, the one that involves showing us Maud through her movement and thinking. We still get everything on the list, but we don’t have the feeling that everything we learn is being doled out in accordance with some mysterious agenda. We have more of a narrative flow and thus better storytelling.

  I am not going to try to tell you that I have never violated either of these last two rules; I have. I expect all professional writers have at some point. But it helps to be aware of the probable consequences of doing so and to minimize the times you let one of these unfortunate lapses occur. To be good writers, we have to be wary of the bad habits that try to seduce us. We have to remember to look for them, to recognize them when they creep into our prose, and to banish them summarily. You can see for yourself the results of such diligence from the examples above.

  Next up on our list of rules is one that is easy to apply and tough to enforce. Rule eight is this: CHARACTERS MUST ALWAYS BE IN A STORY FOR A REASON.

  I like to think of my characters as actors on a stage, auditioning for a part. Some of them are quite good and very interesting, and I really feel they have something to contribute to the life of the stage. But what they offer isn’t always right for the story at hand. Sometimes you just have to tell them that they gave a great reading, but that you don’t have a part for them in this book and will call them back for the next. Meantime, it’s back to central casting they must go.

  You might remember that I mentioned this rule earlier in passing in the chapter on dream time. No matter how much I like a character—love a character, for that matter—I will not put him in a book if he doesn’t serve a measurable purpose. By measurable purpose, I mean that characters must do something to advance the story. In a very demonstrable way, they must contribute directly to the movement of the plot. If they are just standing around looking good and sucking up air, they are out of there. If they are providing nothing more than decorative filler, no matter how charming they might be, they are history.

  I am ruthless about this. Sometimes I will find a way to keep a character in a story by changing the plot so that the character can directly contribute. But sometimes a character just doesn’t belong and has to step back and wait for the right book.

  Why is this so crucial? Why not give a charming, memorable character a place in your story? Doesn’t that add verisimilitude and color to the narrative? Yes, of course it does. The trouble is, it does a couple of other things, as well, and neither of them is good.

  First, if the presence of the character doesn’t advance the story, it necessarily stops it in its tracks. All of a sudden, you are going nowhere, your pacing disrupted, your focus shifted from the important characters and plot to this intruder. The reader’s attention shifts, as well, and by letting that happen you are creating expectations you probably can’t fulfill. If this character is so wonderful, when will he or she do something that matters to the outcome of the story? When will this character prove important to the way in which the story develops? The reader will look for answers to these questions, and if you don’t provide them, you will necessarily disappoint their valid expectations.

  Second, by populating your story with characters who don’t contribute to its advancement, you risk diminishing the role of characters who do. If you draw attention away from the characters who matter, the ones who are in the story for a discernible reason, you may find readers losing track of whom the story is really about, or worse, wishing it were about the characters it isn’t! It reminds me of the way a magician distracts the audience from what matters by doing something obvious. The difference, of course, is that in the case of the magician the distraction serves a valid purpose. In the end, the distraction is integral to the performance of the trick. That isn’t true in the case of the writer, because the colorful character with which he has become enamored isn’t going to be connected in the end to anything.

  So what does this mean in practical terms? How would this rule apply in the case of the characters in Cat Chaser?

  We don’t have to ponder the importance of the roles of our protagonist and antagonist, which are pretty well determined going in. But we do have to consider our supporting cast. At present, there are three: little Johnny Gazette, the paperboy; Alfred Stamp, the postman; and Martha Handy, the woodswoman. There are also the cats, Kibbles and Bits, but I’ll let you skate on animals if they at least provide comfort and occasional entertainment for the other characters.

  There are a vast number of reasons for these characters to be in the book. They could be there to help illuminate the character of Maud. They could be there to provide a key role in helping her overcome Feral. They could be there as conversational partners for either, letting us shift from narrative to dialogue at crucial points. They could be there as cannon fodder. This is a thriller, after all. Someone is going to have to bite the dust fairly early on, and it would help if it were someone both Maud and the reader cared about.

  For example, Martha Handy might be widely regarded as a nut case by the local populace, but prove to be invaluable to Maud in helping her come to terms with her fears and doubts about her lapsed survival skills, offering fresh advice on woods lore or trap setting. Maybe little Johnny Gazette, in the course of his rounds, notices something that will help Maud discover what Feral is planning for her. Alfred Stamp might turn out to be cannon fodder, but in the course of giving up his life, does something that saves Maud’s.

  Once again, you get the point. No matter what you decide about the purpose of your characters in your book, the important thing to remember is that they need to have one.

  An important corollary to this rule, one that bears at least a mention, is that the attributes you assign to your characters should serve a purpose, as well. I am not speaking of mundane characteristics such as hair and eye color or size and weight. I am talking about attributes that set your characters apart from everyone else. These shouldn’t be assigned haphazardly and never just because you think it sounds neat. For example, if I take away Maud’s arm, that loss had better have something to do with either character development or conflict resolution during the course of the book. If Martha Handy is a woodswoman familiar with homespun skills and remedies, that needs to bear in some way on her place in the book. Giving characters odd attributes that seem to signify something important about their presence in the story should fulfill readers’ expectations in the same way that the presence of the characters themselves do.

  Let’s move on and take a quick look at rule nine: NAMES ARE IMPORTANT.

  You would think this would be obvious, but I find more often than not that it isn’t. Maybe part of the problem comes from not understanding what it is that names should do—because they should definitely do more than act as convenient labels. This is true not only of names of characters, but of places and things, as well. Names should serve two very specific ends. They should feel right for the type of story being told, and they should suggest something about the person, place, or thing they are attached to.

  I am acutely aware of this because of the type of fiction I write. In fantasy, where whole worlds are created from scratch, the writer has to give the reader a sense of both differentness and similarity. Readers have to be able to get a handle on what an imaginary world is like, which means they have to be able to recognize how it resembles our own and at the same time understand why it doesn’t. In taste, touch, look, and feel, in language and societal structure, in geography and weather, in a
ny way the writer looks at his own world, he will have to look at his imaginary one. I submit that it all begins with the names you use.

  Even in contemporary fiction, I find that names are important. If a name doesn’t feel right, it can bother a reader all the way through a book. The sound of a name, the way it looks on the written page, and the connections we make with it both consciously and subconsciously all play a part in how we feel about it. Sure, you can’t know how readers will react to a name you choose, because you don’t know their history with that name. But you can determine how the name works for you in relationship to your characters and your story. You can find a name that fits the use to which you have put it, at least from your own perspective. You can avoid the lazy writer’s approach to slapping something on without giving it any real thought.

  When I am asked where I get my names—something I am asked all the time—I say that I steal them. This is partly true. Maybe appropriate would be a better choice of words, but I tend to lean toward the dramatic. What I do is write down interesting names when I travel and put them on a big list. Some of these names come from street signs and storefronts. Some come from towns and villages. Some come from maps. Some come from ethnic sources. I even find one now and then when I do an autographing. Really, I get them from everywhere.

  Because of what I write, I look for names that are a little out of the ordinary. I don’t always end up using them just as I find them, however. I often morph or even combine them to make something different. When it is time to figure out the particulars of a new book, I take out my list and try to match up names with characters, creatures, talismans, places, and things I have conceived. Believe me, it is much easier to do this from an already completed list of possibilities than to try to think them up all at once. It doesn’t always work smoothly, of course. Sometimes a name will elude me right up to end of the book. But it helps to have most of them in place when I begin.

  So for Cat Chaser, I have given my characters names that are so obviously in keeping with rule nine that you can’t mistake my intent. I wouldn’t do this in a real book, unless it were a spoof, but I would want you to feel that names like “Maud Manx” and “Feral Finch” felt right for the characters in the story and told you something concrete about them. The same would be true, if less obviously so, about “Octogenarian,” Montana. We all know what octogenarian means. But as applied to the town in question, I hope the name might suggest something more—perhaps a sleepy community the rest of the world doesn’t much notice, where life is winding down, young people are leaving for fresher vistas, and old people are anticipating life unchanging. I would want it to sound a little odd for a town, yet somehow appropriate for this one—to sound, as well, just right for a place a former spook might choose to retire.

  My tenth rule for good writing is the most simple and direct of all: DON’T BORE THE READER.

  You can get away with breaking all of the other rules at least once in a while, but you can’t get away with breaking this one. Readers will accept almost anything from you if you don’t make them feel they have wasted their time and money. Remember, you can bore readers in a lot of different ways. It doesn’t necessarily take a dearth of action; too much action can get you the same result. Everything in writing, like in life, requires balance. Cardboard characters, plotless story lines, leaden prose, and unfathomable endings will cost you readers, but so will impossibly complex characters, impenetrable storylines, purple prose, and endings so tidy they squeak. All are such clichés that it is hard to believe anyone writing isn’t aware of their pitfalls, yet I see them crop up in new fiction time and time again. It is always a clear indication that the writer doesn’t have enough respect for the reader. Readers may not be savvy enough to figure out what it is about a book that doesn’t work, but they are plenty sharp enough to determine when they are being dissed. And nothing disses readers like boring them.

  Preparation will help you avoid this. Organization in the ways I have discussed previously will go a long way toward keeping you focused on what it is that you are trying to do, and that in turn will help keep your storytelling interesting. So will liberal use of your dream time. Don’t try to hasten or shorten the process; doing so will only cause you problems down the road. Writing isn’t rocket science, but it isn’t bricklaying either. You have to allow for gestation and rumination if you want the components of your story to develop fully. You have to think before you can write.

  A good rule of thumb is this one: If you bore yourself with your writing, you will probably bore your readers, as well. When you feel boredom start to set in, step back and reconsider what you are doing.

  There you have it—all ten rules. There are a lot more, but these are the ones that I think you need to remember. Pay attention to them, and you will have a better shot at doing some good writing.

  * * *

  I was on record as saying repeatedly that

  I would rather be tarred and feathered

  than do another movie adaptation.

  * * *

  * * *

  THE PHANTOM MENACE

  * * *

  IT WAS LATE in November of 1997, just before Thanksgiving, when I retrieved a phone message from Linda Grey, then president of Ballantine Books, asking me to call her. I was on my way out the door with Judine to do some Christmas shopping at Southcenter Mall, so I decided to hold off returning the call until later. But when I got to the mall, I found myself standing about with time on my hands because Judine had wandered off to the lingerie department, so I decided to go ahead and call Linda back before she went home from work for the day.

  I reached her right away. She told me that George Lucas wanted me to write the adaptation of the forthcoming Star Wars movie, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Would I be interested in doing this?

  Two distinctly contradictory thoughts crossed my mind instantly.

  First, I was on record as saying repeatedly that I would rather be tarred and feathered than do another movie adaptation. At every book signing, convention, conference, and public appearance of any kind, I had made this declaration. Vehemently. The Hook experience was still fresh in my mind eight years later, and I was not anxious to stick my foot in the bear trap a second time. No more movie adaptations for me, I had proclaimed. Not ever. No matter what.

  Second, if I turned the offer down for no better reason than this, I could not imagine how I was going to explain it to my kids. The oldest was a huge Star Wars fan and the other three were rabid enough to be considered dangerous. Whatever explanation I offered, they were not going to understand.

  So I asked Linda, who was not at Ballantine at the time of the Hook fiasco, if she was aware of the fact that I had sworn off movie adaptations. She said she was, but she insisted this was different. I said I understood. In truth, I did. For several reasons, this was enormously different. It was the most anticipated movie of the last twenty years. Everyone would go to see it. The exposure for a writer who did the adaptation would be huge. Hundreds of thousands of people read my books, but millions would go to see Episode I. If I took the project, I had a chance to reach them.

  If I agree to do this, I said to Linda, I want to meet first with George Lucas. I want to reassure myself that working with him is not going to turn out to be another Hook nightmare.

  Good, she said without missing a beat. He feels the same way about working with you.

  I hung up the phone. What had I gotten myself into?

  When I called Owen to find out—for with Lester’s death several years earlier, Owen was now my editor—he advised me that Ballantine had bought the rights to do various books based on the next three Star Wars movies. Clearly, they wanted to launch the book for Episode I with an author who was not associated with writing Star Wars books. He did not suggest that I had lost my mind by agreeing to consider the project. To his credit, he did not even ask me how it felt to eat my own words. Probably, he knew. Probably, he had eaten a few of his own over the years.

  I was schedu
led to fly down to Skywalker Ranch and meet with George and the LucasBooks staff in early December. But first, a contract had to be worked out between Ballantine and my agent. I had learned a few things since Hook, and one of them was not to take anything for granted or on faith when dealing with movie people. Another was to have an agent, something I had not had in the past. Janklow & Nesbit now represented me, and Morton Janklow would hammer out the agreement with Linda.

  The negotiation took place over Thanksgiving. I was back in Sterling with Judine so that we could be with my ailing father. We were staying at the house of friends who were elsewhere for the holiday. My father had gone back into the hospital, so Thanksgiving was celebrated without him. It was also celebrated in the midst of a flurry of phone calls from New York that suggested an agreement on the Star Wars project might not be reached after all. At one point, Mort called and asked me if I was prepared to walk away from the book. I took a big gulp and said I was.

  What the heck, I had been saying it for eight years now anyway. I supposed I could say it one time more.

  In the end, however, an agreement was reached, one that satisfied both parties. Afterwards, I broke down and told the kids what was happening. The huge fan kid was ready to pack her bags for Skywalker Ranch, and the others would have been happy to join her, but I reined them in. This wasn’t settled yet. I still had to meet and talk with George Lucas and company. I still had to find out what sort of experience this was going to be.

  I had one advantage this time that I did not have during the Hook debacle. I knew someone who worked with George. Lucy Wilson, whom I had met several times before, was the contact person with LucasBooks. She was the person with whom Ballantine and I would be dealing. I liked Lucy, and I thought we would get along fine. If she was indicative of the sort of people with whom I would be working, I could stop worrying.