Lev’s Comments (group member since Sep 23, 2014)

Lev’s comments from the Ask Randall Munroe and Lev Grossman group.

Whoops -- we're supposed to stop now. Thanks everybody! This was great.

Randall wrote: "Lev, I have a question: Do you feel surprised by your characters or feel like they're acting on their own, or do you not really think about writing that way? I was listening to some writers talk ab..."

For many (=approximately 15) years I thought it was bullshit when writers talked about how their characters behaved independently and they just transcribed their whims and clever remarks and that's how they wrote novels! But this ended with one particular character, Julia, who was meant to be a one-off character who appeared in the first scene of The Magicians and never again. But she wouldn't go away: she kept turning up. Quentin would turn around, and there she would be, popping into my mental model of the scene, and saying a bunch of stuff that came from I-don't-know-where.

Then in the second book, when I gave her a chapter of her own so she could explain to me who she was and what she was up to, she was so adamant that the books were about her and not Quentin that she ended up taking over the novel.

So: usually characters do what I tell them. But not always. And when they contradict me, they're always right.

I’ve always admired/imitated-on-my-blog your use of alt text. Do you have a favorite? Tips for the writing of Great Alt Text?

Sub-question: stick figure drawings vs. ASCII art: fight!

Lukas wrote: "Lev, I cannot overstate how much I adore your trilogy. Quentin has become my sort-of hero in my ongoing struggles with depression and I find so much to relate with in all the characters.

As a que..."

Thanks Lukas. Oddly enough I can tell you pretty exactly what the inspiration was for Eliot. He's about 1/3 Sebastian Flyte from BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, 1/3 late-teenage John Lennon, and 1/3 my roommate in college (who was/is gay).

Eliot was always gay. But it was really important to me that his gay-ness not be treated as a BIG DEAL -- I didn't want it become an issue-oriented after-school special, and I didn't want it to be his entire identity. He's just gay. It's a thing.

If I have a regret it's that Eliot didn't get a proper love story. I may have to write another sequel after all.

C-3PO: Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.
Han Solo: Never tell me the odds.

Apologies if this is covered in the book, or if you've been asked a jillion times, but back-of-the-envelope, do you think C-3P0's anywhere near correct on this one?

Also: how much does it piss you off when journalists cap the first letter of Xkcd?

Alan wrote: "Lev,I read your piece in Time on "Never Offline" and was wondering if you or Matt Vella wrote the paragraph about smart devices "mak[ing] reality feel just that little bit less real" and "one is ap..."

That particular bit was mine. We were under a lot of time pressure to produce that story, just given the timing of Apple's announcement (we didn't get an early look) and Time's print deadlines, so it made sense to double-team it. Matt was out in California and did most of the reporting and technical research. I did more of the think-piece type stuff.

Juergen wrote: "Lev G: Apart from What If?, what were some favorite comics growing up? If you still read comics, what are you excited about now?"

For some reason the kids on my block were all Marvel kids. That was the thing, we didn't really read DC. So I read a lot of Dr. Strange (obvs), and Silver Surfer, and the X-Men, New Mutants, etc. Though the X-Men were heavy into the Brood Saga at that point, which was pretty dark and depressing.

Later on I read Miracleman and Watchmen, and those changed everything for me. You can see Alan Moore's influence in pretty much everything I do.

Sarah wrote: "I read somewhere that The Magicians got picked up by Syfy. How closely are you going to work with the show creators?"

You read right. I'm in close touch with the creators (Sera Gamble, John McNamara, Michael London; they recently added a director, Mike Cahill), and I've seen a lot of drafts of scripts. I comment on them, but I have no real power -- my title is something like 'creative consultant.' Though if the show turns out really well -- which I'm hopeful it will -- I'm going to take as much credit as possible.

Do you get a lot of questions about magic/fantasy? In a way the Magicians books are basically just a big cluster of hypothetical answers to what-if questions about fantasy novels:

-- What if Harry Potter were American?
-- What if Hogwarts were a college not a high school?
-- What if there were no Dumbledore to give Harry advice/guidance counseling?
-- What if the Harry Potter books were written by Casual-Vacancy JK Rowling instead of Harry-Potter JK Rowling?
-- What would really happen if, per The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, you dropped a bunch of children into the middle of a civil war in a magical country about which they knew nothing?

Etc. Though my answers are totally unrigorous and based on zero research. And with no drawings. I can't draw.

Anna wrote: "This is a question for Mr Grossman, The Magicians is my favourite book series and every time I wonder why so many names start with J? It's not a particularly important question, I'm just curious. T..."

It's a good question. Wish I had a good answer. I can remember one of the early conversations I had with a Hollywood studio, when they sent back notes on a draft of a Magicians script, and the main one was: WHY DOES EVERYBODY'S NAME START WITH J? WE CAN'T TELL THEM APART.

I think in that one Josh's name got changed to some non-J name. Then they killed the entire project. Lesson learned.

Molly wrote: "How exciting! The Magicians series and What If are among my favourite, and most-recommended, books.

Mr. Munroe: I've been recommending What If especially strongly to parents, but I think it's prob..."

I actually have something in the works -- pretty far along in the works -- that deals with characters who are slightly younger than the characters in The Magicians. My own teenage years were so critical, and so disastrous, I think I still have some questions about them that I'm working out in fiction. Also I have a 10-yr-old daughter who's just about to embark on that period in her life, so I've been thinking about that a lot too.

But I think that might be it for me for young characters, at least for now. I have another outline I'm tinkering with, and every time I come back to it I tack on another five years to the characters' ages. I want to try writing something that's more about my life now.

Irene wrote: "Oh, wow. I'm a huge fan of both of your works, but in very different ways, as I'm sure is obvious. :) In particular, Mr. Grossman, I really love the focus of your Magicians trilogy on mental-heal..."

Good Q's. Even if that wasn't technically a Q. I'll just add that a) if the books are about any one single thing, to me, that thing would probably be depression: what it feels like, what it means, how and why you fight it. And b) that's a really good point. I love Harry Potter and Narnia more than I can say, but I also wanted to explore the question of what it feels like to have the fate of the world NOT rest on your shoulders. What if you're not the chosen one? How does it feel to be unchosen? To have the world not really care who you are and what you do?

I have a lot of questions for Randall but I’m going to try to keep them to a steady trickle.

What’s your position on the Marvel What if comics? I read “what if the Avengers had become pawns of Korvac?” approx. a million times. But then again I’m really old. Did you read them? Did you have a favorite?

Obvs I'm sticking to the really important stuff here.

Tasos wrote: "Loved the trilogy Mr Grossman, very well done. One question: which was the easiest and which was the hardest character to write? I found them all quite fascinating and well-rounded but also quite d..."

Is this thing on? I think it's on.

Easiest: Janet. Janet just says the mean things I think all the time but don't have the stones to actually say. Writing her is just a matter of removing the filters.

Hardest: honestly? Quentin. Quentin is a lot like me when I was in my 20s. I was depressed. I wasn't an awesome person. It can be hard to revisit that period in my personal development or lack-thereof.