Sometimes the Magic Works (12 page)

 

What strikes me as odd is that very few of those who choose to draw comparisons between Tolkien and
myself mention the one that I think is the clearest.

 

O
N THE
T
RAIL
OF
T
OLKIEN

IT MAY COME as a surprise to you to learn that I did not set out to write fantasy. What I wanted to write, almost from the moment I was old enough to make the attempt, were adventure stories. But it took me a long time to find the right form for doing so. Deciding what to write, it turns out, isn't quite as easy as it seems.

I am often asked these days if I have ever considered writing anything besides fantasy. A mystery, maybe. A legal thriller. My questioner will point out that I was a lawyer once upon a time—as if I needed reminding—so I must have some stories to tell about the legal profession. My response? If I had known how well John Grisham was going to do, maybe I would have written legal thrillers instead of fantasy and be retired by now.

Of course, that isn't the way writing fiction works. A writer doesn't just sit down and write whatever type of book will sell the most copies in the current market. I know of only one writer who has written successfully to what he perceived to be the needs of the marketplace, and he did so only after years of experimenting with other forms. Most writers can write only one kind of story well enough to make a living at it. A few can write more than one. A still rarer few can write almost anything and expect it to sell, but you can count the number on two hands.

I have a theory about how writers work. There is a tendency to categorize writers of fiction as either literary or commercial. The implication is that either a writer chooses to write for the masses or the discerning few, for money or critical acclaim, for the here and now or the ages. There isn't always a clear delineation between the one and the other, and sometimes a book will achieve recognition both as commercial and literary fiction, but mostly not. Basically, this is how fiction writers are grouped.

But I don't believe writers choose their material based on how they think it is going to be received. I don't even believe that they make a conscious decision to write in a certain fashion. Rather, I think that writers just try to do the best they can with what skills they possess. I think they are imbued with a desire to write about certain subjects, and mostly that is what they do. It isn't a matter of sitting down and saying, “Okay, I think I'll write the next Stephen King thriller and get on all the best-seller lists and make millions.” Writing requires passion and commitment in order to come alive. Writers write about what intrigues and compels them, what speaks to them in the same way it will speak to their readers once they find the right way to set it all down.

I cannot speak definitively for other writers on this matter, but I can certainly speak for myself. Perhaps you have heard the old saw that in order to be successful as a writer, you must first find your voice. Think about that for a moment. Does it mean that you have to find the right way of speaking through your stories? Or that you need to locate the narrative style within you? Or that you have to discover a form of storytelling that doesn't sound false? The answer to all three questions is yes. But mostly, finding your voice means that you have to discover what it is that you can write and write well. You have to discover that one type of fiction, that one area of storytelling that allows your passion and talent to provide the reader with a reason to believe that you both understand and love what you are writing about.

I came to my discovery of that elusive voice in the same way most writers do—through trial and error. I wrote many hundreds of thousands of words and the beginnings of many still unfinished stories to get to a point where I realized what it was that would work for me. I began my search by reading everything that interested me, because reading was my road map to the possible. Between the ages of twelve and twenty-two, my reading interests changed so rapidly that I could barely keep up with them. From Ray Bradbury to William Faulkner, from Jules Verne to Thomas Hardy, I read every writer whose books I could get my hands on. Then I tried to write like they did, experimenting with their styles and types of stories. Because that's what young writers in search of an identity do—they try on the clothing of successful writers to see if anything fits. Mostly, nothing does. But it is necessary to go through the process of trying everything on to find this out. This is what happened to me. I would read an author whose writing I loved. I would try to write like that author had written. I would lose interest. I would move on. Tales of science fiction, westerns, mysteries, family sagas, coming-of-age stories, and thrillers—each gave way to the next and none of them led anywhere.

All the while, I was searching for a format in which to set an adventure story on the order of the ones written by Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, and Arthur Conan Doyle. I wanted to write
Ivanhoe
or
The White Company
or
Treasure Island
or
The Three Musketeers
. Or all of them. But I didn't want to set my story in a historical context, and I kept thinking that using a different format—a mystery or a space opera, for instance—would reveal to me the setting I was looking for.

Then, in 1965, I read J. R. R. Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings
, and I thought that maybe I had found what I was looking for. I would set my adventure story in an imaginary world, a vast, sprawling, mythical world like that of Tolkien, filled with magic that had replaced science and races that had evolved from Man. But I was not Tolkien and did not share his background in academia or his interest in cultural study. So I would eliminate the poetry and songs, the digressions on the ways and habits of types of characters, and the appendices of language and backstory that characterized and informed Tolkien's work. I would write the sort of straightforward adventure story that barreled ahead, picking up speed as it went, compelling a turning of pages until there were no more pages to be turned.

It was an ambitious goal, one that I did not immediately undertake to achieve. Mired in college studies, I set it aside for later. It took another three years for me to pick up again, and then only after I became so bored with law school that I felt I had to do something to break the monotony and so went back into writing fiction as a diversion. Incorporating an unlikely mix of Tolkien and Faulkner to construct a framework and relying on characters and storylines similar to those of the European adventure story writers I so admired, I spent seven years developing the book that would eventually become
The Sword of Shannara
.

While writing it and even afterwards, I always thought of it as an adventure story. I understood that it was in the epic fantasy tradition, a direct descendant not only of
The Lord of the Rings
, but of the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
, of the Greek, Roman, Norse, and Celtic myths, and of legends, fairy tales, and folklore since the dawn of Man. But at its heart, at the place where it meant something to me, where the passion and involvement found their touchstone, I always saw it as an adventure story.

My books are compared most often to Tolkien's, sometimes favorably, sometimes not, less so now than once, but frequently nevertheless. This is understandable. When
Sword
was published, Lester and Judy-Lynn chose to draw potential readers to it using words similar to these: “For all those who have been looking for something to read since
The Lord of the Rings
.” Such language invites comparisons, good and bad. I have written nineteen books in three series along with two movie adaptations since I began my career with
Sword
, and the comparisons continue. I suspect they always will. It goes with the territory.

What strikes me as odd is that very few of those who choose to draw comparisons between Tolkien and myself mention the one that I think is the clearest. Remember those pieces of clothing I mentioned earlier, the ones belonging to established authors that young authors in search of an identity seek to try on? Well, the piece of clothing I borrowed from J. R. R. Tolkien, the one I wear to this day and refuse to take off, is the one that defines my protagonists. Whether it is Shea and Flick Ohmsford from Shady Vale in
The Sword of Shannara
or Ben Holiday in
Magic Kingdom for Sale
or Nest Freemark in
Running with the Demon
, my protagonists are cut from the same bolt of cloth as Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. It was Tolkien's genius to reinvent the traditional epic fantasy by making the central character neither God nor hero, but a simple man in search of a way to do the right thing. It was the most compelling component of his writing, and I think it remains so. I was impressed enough by how it had changed the face of epic fantasy that I never gave a second thought to not using it as the cornerstone of my own writing. I had thought to see it used by other writers of fantasy after the success of
Sword
, but to this day very few have chosen to do so. Most still prefer to make their protagonists kings and wizards and men of power. I think that's too bad. Ordinary men placed in extraordinary circumstances are far more interesting.

In any case, it is in the nature of writing that writers follow in the footsteps of those who wrote before. Lester used to tell me that there are no new stories, only old stories told in a different way. Given the propensity of readers to want to read the same kinds of stories over and over, I expect that this is true. We are creatures of habit and seek the familiar and comfortable. Why should writers be any different? There is room for innovation and expansion, but that isn't the way writers usually start out. As with most things, we take the paths others have taken until we are comfortable enough with the journey to blaze a few trails of our own.

I wonder sometimes what younger writers think when they are compared to me. How do they feel about being told that their books are similar to those of Terry Brooks? I guess I hope that they feel much the same way I do when mine are compared to Tolkien's—that it's not a bad standard to try to live up to. I hope they remember that we share a common destination as fellow travelers on the writing trail—to write the best book we can, because no matter who we are compared to, at the end of the day how we feel about ourselves is what matters most.

 

If you do not hear music in your words,
you have put too much thought into your
writing and not enough heart.

 

F
INAL
T
HOUGHTS

THERE ARE A few last things that need to be said that I haven't found a place for elsewhere in this small book. They are directed to writers of fiction, but I hope they will be of interest to readers, as well. I have phrased them as admonitions because I feel strongly about each. Most are expressed in a sentence or two.

They comprise my beliefs about what it takes to write fiction.

Three character traits are essential—determination, instinct, and passion. Each has a place in a writer's life; each acts as a balance for the others. Determination teaches a writer to be patient; without it, commitment quickly fades. Instinct tells a writer which fork in the road to take; without it, as many wrong turns are taken as right. Passion imbues a writer with fearlessness; without it, no chances are ever taken. None of the three can be taught; all are a gift of genetics and early life experience.

There is poetry in fiction. If you cannot see it and feel it when you write, you need to step back and examine what you are doing wrong. If you have not figured out how to write a simple declarative sentence and make it sing with that poetry, you are not yet ready to write an entire book.

If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.

If you do not ever wonder what happened to your characters after you stopped writing about them, you did not care enough about them in the first place and do not deserve to know.

If you think that by having published you will become a happier person, you are mistaken. If you think that the finished book is of greater value than what you learned from the writing process, you are mistaken yet again. If you think the acquisition of money and fame is the most important reason for writing and publishing, you need an attitude adjustment.

If you do not proof your work sufficiently, both as to content and grammar, you must not count on anyone else doing the job for you. You have a better chance of winning the Pulitzer.

If you are ever completely satisfied with something you have written, you are setting your sights too low. But if you can't let go of your material even after you have done the best that you can with it, you are setting your sights too high.

If you do not love what you do, if you are not appropriately grateful for the chance to create something magical each time you sit down at the computer or with pencil and paper in hand, somewhere along the way your writing will betray you.

If you don't think there is magic in writing, you probably won't write anything magical.

If anything in your life is more important than writing—anything at all—you should walk away now while you still can. Forewarned is forearmed.

For those who cannot or will not walk away, you need only remember this.

Writing is life. Breathe deeply of it.

 

B
Y
T
ERRY
B
ROOKS

THE MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER

Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold!

The Black Unicorn

Wizard at Large

The Tangle Box

Witches' Brew

SHANNARA

First King of Shannara

The Sword of Shannara

The Elfstones of Shannara

The Wishsong of Shannara

THE HERITAGE OF SHANNARA

The Scions of Shannara

The Druid of Shannara

The Elf Queen of Shannara

The Talismans of Shannara

THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA

Ilse Witch

Antrax

Morgawr

THE WORD AND THE VOID

Running with the Demon

Knight of the World

Angel Fire East

Star Wars:
^®

Episode I
The Phantom Menace
™

Hook

Sometimes the Magic Works