March ASK TERRY Posted

Bill Smith writes: I can’t tell you how excited I am that some of your work is finally getting the treatment it deserves, and it sounds like MTV is giving it the attention it needs. If you’re excited about it, so am I!
When it comes to “additional content”, as we’ve learned about from your own hints and from the casting calls for new characters, I, among other readers, are understandably nervous. Can you please comment on the creative control you’ve had over this new content? Are the newer elements of the Elfstones show as “Terry Brooks-ish” as the older parts?

Terry Brooks replies: I keep thinking I’ve got this covered, but your question keeps popping up anew on a regular basis. So here, once and for all, is the definitive answer. I am an executive producer on the show. My job is to work with the writers on the scripts for each episode – not as a writer, but as a benevolent overseer. So I have seen everything and approved everything and am satisfied with everything. The changes were necessitated by the requirements of filming something that had formerly been only a book. Some things won’t translate directly. As well, I encouraged the writers to expand and invent new material. That’s what an adaptation should be. I learned this at the feet of George Lucas in adapting Phantom Menace. This will allow for a new experience and some new and unexpected twists and turns. You are going to love it.

Susan Supon writes: Landover. Anything new?

Terry Brooks replies: As a matter of fact, yes. This very day I spoke at length with the writer who has been brought on to do the screenplay for Warner Brothers. I found him warm and welcoming and filled with great ideas about how to carry this off. We traded ideas and thoughts and promised to talk further about issues that might prove troublesome. He was everything I had hoped to find earlier in a writer and never did. I think this time we have the real deal. As for Landover writing, stay tuned. I just turned a Ben Holiday short story into Shawn for his Unfettered II. More news on that soon.

Cody Meldrum writes: What has been your favorite part thus far in creating the TV adaptation for The Elfstones of Shannara?

Terry Brooks replies: Well, I like working with Al and Miles, the show runners, about the scripts for the various episodes. They are so good and so ready to find a way when something proves troublesome. I was hoping for a collaborative spirit and I found it. I would work with them again on anything. Their insights, experience and writing skills have been a revelation. But, really, there isn’t anything about working on the show i haven’t enjoyed. This is a great team from the top on down. I feel very lucky.

Ryan Baca writes: Will the Ilse Witch ever come to redeem herself and, if so, will she ever be involved in the Druid Order again? I love that character, but was disappointed with her involvement and development in the last series she was featured in.

Terry Brooks replies: Can’t talk with you at this point about future stories. That’s a strict rule of mine. Talking about it does something to steal away the magic. So I will simply ask you to be patient and we will find out together if Grianne Ohmsford’s story is finished.

Tamera Floyd writes: Will you be writing more adventures of Pantera Qu explaining the exodus out of the valley? Or writing a book that would explain how the world of Shannara came to be from when they left the valley to how it is in The First King of Shannara? This is a huge conundrum for me and I am anxious to solve the mystery.

Terry Brooks replies: These are books I have set aside for the future. I am hoping to finish more of them during this coming decade. I still have to cover the period ending with Measure of the Magic up to the formation of the First Druid Council. Promised I would. Will do my best to keep that promise. If not, someone else will. Brandon Sanderson, are you listening? Oh, wait. I think Shawn might have other plans . . .