This isn’t a question, just me posting that it’s past 2 EST and I’ve gotta roll. Deadlines. Plus it’s a snow day here in NYC and all my kids (3) are out of school. Thank you guys so much for this, I’m a big fan of io9 in general and Evan in particular so it was extra cool to be here. Plus I gotta say I’ve answered a…
LevGrossman
levgrossman
Monsters are hard. Basically the key for me is that the monsters aren’t just ‘evil,’ like it’s filled in on their character sheet. They have to have something deep in common with the heroes. The monster is the hero blown out of proportion, his/her worst instincts allowed to run rampant. I mean when you think about it…
I thought he’d be good at it. And I thought it would be good for him. He and Fillory kinda needed each other. Plus look at the other options — Quentin, Josh, Penny. Eliot was really the only choice.
Yeah: I never thought about making Quentin likeable. I just wanted him to be a realistic, depressed, introverted 17 year old boy. Which I think he is, and God knows that’s not always a pretty sight. It gets pretty bad.
I do use beta readers. Hit up the contact form on my website.
You know there was a version of The Magician’s Land where Quentin came back and took possession of Josh’s palazzo. I really worked on that. And not just because I wanted to go back to Venice for more research. But here’s the thing: Josh left for Fillory unexpectedly. How does Quentin go to Venice and take over the…
I actually say ‘damn I wish I’d thought of that’ with some frequency when I’m watching the show. I remember in the pilot when one of the faculty puts Purell on his hands before casting a spell... I woulda done that if I’d thought of it.
Oddly enough The Magicians had already been set up at Syfy a couple of years earlier, in a totally different incarnation, which didn’t make it to the screen. So it was funny when we came back together for this. Basically a whole new management team had just taken over at Syfy, and they were fucking ravenous — they…
I’m at the halfway mark writing an Arthurian epic — it’s called THE BRIGHT SWORD (<— working title). I’m hoping to get it out next year. But I’ve also got two-three other projects on, both Magicians-related and non, in various different media, which I’m dying to talk about but can’t. But they’re coming. I just quit my…
I did what I could! Which admittedly wasn’t much. Sorry about that.
This is something I think about a lot. A lot. On the one hand, in a book you have the luxury of opening up a characters’ inner monologue, so you can show people the stupid train of thought that leads them to do shitty things, which can sometimes redeem an otherwise unpleasant character. On the other hand, on screen an…
Mmmmm ... that’s a good question. I’m pretty sure it’s Penny. Yes, definitely Penny. TV Penny is way tougher than book Penny. Also much much hotter. Book Penny’s kinda doughy.
Dunno! That would be cool though.
I don’t know. I agree that there’s a lot in there. Even within the chronology of the books, it would be cool to cover more of Asmodeus’s arc, and that year that Eliot spent captaining the Muntjac. But I need to recharge and do some other projects before I could think about coming back to the Magiciansverse. I often…
I’ve hung out with the writers, and the showrunners show me a lot of what comes out of the writer’s room — season arcs, episode outlines, actual scripts etc. But I’ve only been by the actual room a handful of times. They’re in LA, and I’m in NYC. Plus I don’t want to loom over them — I don’t want them to feel…
Dunno! That wasn’t one of mine.
The aging-up was one thing that didn’t bug me that much. I remember it was put to me by one of the producers with some trepidation, but it didn’t faze me. I’ve been to grad school, it’s not that different. So much of the books came out of my (mostly unsuccessful) struggles to get myself together in my 20s...I think I…
Not approval, but we talked about some of the decisions in advance. I was even present for a few auditions — I was passing through LA and sat silently and awkwardly in the back. I can remember being over the moon when Jason signed on. But basically I learned that casting is an art in itself and I didn’t and don’t…
For TV-related reasons the show moved past Q’s early days at Brakebills pretty quickly. I always wanted to see Q and Eliot in that rowboat.