Lives of Consequence: Writing Fantasy Terry Brooks ’69L started writing fantasy novels as a way to balance his academic studies in law school.

Photo by Michael Clinard

Terry Brooks ’69L entered Washington and Lee University School of Law wanting to be a fiction writer.

“But, you know, I’d also like to go to the moon,” Brooks says. “Becoming a writer seemed like a real long shot at the time.”

During a career spanning more than half a century, Brooks has clearly beaten the odds by becoming one of America’s most successful and influential fantasy writers, with 23 New York Times bestsellers and more than 25 million copies of his books in print.

And Brooks’ literary success is attributable, in part, to a miserable first year at W&L law school.

“I was terrible at law school. I was insecure. I was at sea,” says Brooks. “I finished my first year with about a D average. I went home and told my folks I was quitting.”

They asked him to try another semester, even offering to pay.

“We didn’t have that much money. If they were willing to do that, I thought I should go back,” Brooks says.

When he returned to Lexington for his second year, he eliminated all extraneous activity, even TV. He’d go to class and finish his studies by 10 p.m. Then he’d sit down to write, immersing himself in a fantasy world until 2 a.m.

Amazingly, his grades improved.

“By writing, I found a stable existence,” he says. “I found my niche and was a more whole person.”

Brooks celebrated his 81st birthday in January, and his law school memories have faded. “I barely remember much about my courses,” he says. “But I did make good friends and had a pretty good time. Mostly, it was a steppingstone
to writing.”

Emerging Theme

After W&L, Brooks joined a four-man law practice in his hometown of Sterling, Illinois. For the next 17 years, he worked on any case that came through the door. And he kept writing.

In 1977, the book he’d started at Washington and Lee, “The Sword
of Shannara,” was released. It was the first in his signature series of epic fantasy novels, and became the first work of fiction to land on The New York Times Trade Paperback Best Sellers list, where it stayed for five weeks.

Brooks has described the “Shannara” series as “an unlikely mix of [J.R.R.] Tolkien and [William] Faulkner,” with characters and storylines derived from European adventures he admired.

“Faulkner’s work had a huge impact on my life,” says Brooks, who wrote his senior thesis on the author while an English literature major at Hamilton College. “The ‘Shannara’ series is based on the way Faulkner linked his books together with different characters
in different times, but with the same themes over and over.”

Hamilton was also where Brooks found “The Lord of the Rings.”

“Once I read it, I thought that I wanted to write something like that,” he says of Tolkien’s classic. “But I wanted to write about what’s happening in this world in a totally different environment. I wanted to develop a world from Eden forward.”

Dream Scenario

Fantasy was fading as a genre when the “Shannara” series appeared, and Brooks became central to its resurgence in the ’70s and ’80s before “Harry Potter” exploded fantasy with books, movies, TV shows and computer games.

“Fantasy now dominates,” says Brooks, who left his legal career and moved from Illinois
to Seattle once he felt he could make a living as a writer.

Brooks is often asked why he stuck with fantasy instead of trying legal thrillers in the tradition of many lawyers-turned-novelists like John Grisham.

“I was too much of a dreamer for that,” says Brooks, whose active imagination can be traced to his childhood days of organizing the neighborhood kids in a joust with garbage can lids and broomsticks. “I’ve never tired of fantasy because it challenged me every time out. Besides, as I have often said, there’s hardly any difference between practicing law and writing fantasy.”

Brooks’ latest novel, “Galaphile: The First Druids of Shannara,” was released in March. His next is underway, but he’s unsure how much longer he’ll write.

“I’ve never been one who can’t see the handwriting on the wall. I know I’m about done,” he says. “I’ll probably hang in there for another few years and then be some kind of old retired person nobody really wants to talk to because they can’t shut up.”

This article first appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of W&L: The Washington and Lee Magazine. Contact us at magazine@wlu.edu.