A piece on Australian author John Flanagan

Will is a small, lively boy of 15 who enjoys archery. He has friends in sixteen countries, has appeared in the New York Times for eleven weeks in a row and is just about to star in his own Hollywood film. It's just too bad he's not really real.

Will is the creation of John Flanagan, the bestselling Australian children's author who has just struck a seven figure deal with United Artists Films to turn his fantasy Ranger’s Apprentice series into Hollywood blockbusters. But despite the hubbub, Flanagan remains modest.

“I’ve wanted to be an author for a really long time. I’ve always dreamed of making my living from telling stories, because it’s what I love,” Flanagan says. “I love the fact that I can say I'm an author when asked what I do. I even love writing it on immigration forms when I fly overseas.”

We're sitting in Flanagan's living room in Manly, on a deliciously stormy Friday afternoon – the perfect time for talking about books.

“I’ve had books rejected by publishers before, and I know what it’s like to hold your breath waiting for something to happen. One day things are magical; the next they’re in tatters. You can’t let things like this go to your head,” he says of the film deal. “Although I did take my wife shopping the second we were told the news.” Flanagan wants to stop right there for a moment. He directs me into the study so I may see his writing cabin, a small wooden construct perched on a second level of his backyard.

“I decided I needed my own shack, somewhere where I could drown myself in the world I’ve created. It’s where all my characters come to life.”

The Ranger’s Apprentice books began as something of a flight of fancy for Flanagan.

Nineteen years ago Flanagan’s son Michael was a little lacking in confidence, and the aspiring author felt the only way he could help his twelve-year-old son was by telling him a story. The story was about a boy just like Michael, shy and timid, but also brave and quick-witted. This turned into the story of Will – the character that’s earned Flanagan the reverence of teenagers worldwide.

Over a period of five months Flanagan wrote a new story for Michael every week. First there was Will, the agile hero of the books, then Will's mentor, Halt, and finally Horace, Will's best friend. Flanagan set the action of the stories in the Kingdom of Araluen, where Will is apprenticed to the Ranger Corps – a musketeer-like group who act as the King's eyes and ears.

“I wanted to base the central character on Michael, and write about the things he was interested in, like archery,” Flanagan says. “I even illustrated them for him – anything to get him to read! Then I got involved in a TV show and put the stories aside. Every now and then I'd take them out and fiddle with them."

Flanagan began life in advertising, switching to a brief stint filling is as a creative director and then making the move to television, where he worked for eight years as a writer on the Australian sitcom Hey Dad! While his days were busy in the corporate world, Flanagan filled his spare time by writing manuscripts, mostly adult thrillers, and indulging in his second passion of making music. This took precedence when he began working from home writing corporate jingles, and it was during this time at home with his kids when Flanagan finally decided to do something about Michael’s stories. The development of the original 20 short stories into a series of books took place over a number of years - most of the stories were incorporated as chronicles in the first Ranger's Apprentice book.

"Having had books rejected before, I wasn't getting my hopes up too much when my agent Rachel Skinner first approached Random House with the Ranger's Apprentice manuscript. We had decided to make it [the manuscript] a little more presentable, so we put the synopsis on a glossy page with a picture of an archer; it was a brochure. Two weeks later I was out in Dee Why buying something for my guitar when Rachel rang. She said to me ‘John, are you sitting down?’” Flanagan laughs. “This was a phrase that she began using every time there was big news to break. So I went outside the shop, sat down, and she told me that Random House had offered to buy the first two books."

But Flanagan knew better than to give up his day job just yet. His first book signing, after the first Ranger’s Apprentice book was published in 2004, did not quite go to plan. Flanagan sat awkwardly at a card table in Manly’s shopping district, waiting for someone to show up.

“I was waiting, in vain, for hours. I was waiting for someone. Anyone. Finally some guy came up to me, picked up the book, looked at me, shook his head, and dropped the book back on the table and left. I almost died.”

Luckily for Flanagan – and Will – it was a one-time hiccup. The years that followed produced an English agent for the Ranger's Apprentice series, followed by a US agent. The books began to be translated into different languages and to date, sales have exceeded 700, 000 copies in sixteen countries. In 2006 the first three books spent eleven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for children's series, coming in third place. The seventh installment, Erak's Ransom, was released in Australia in November last year and has already sold over 10, 000 copies. The seven books are currently Random House's best selling children's series. And all this fuss over a shy, bumbling, orphan.

“The thing about these books is they're fast-paced. They're exciting and adventurous and have very likeable characters that the reader can identify with,” Flanagan says.

“I love the fact that the Ranger's Apprentice books bring in reluctant readers. This woman came up to me at a book signing in Bundaberg and burst into tears, thanking me for bringing her wayward son back to her by writing this book. I got pretty emotional too, so we both sat there crying like idiots. You just feel fabulous when this stuff happens, when you think that all you did was set out to entertain. I get a lot of emails from kids telling me the same thing; the ones that are wonderful are the e-mails that are so badly spelt they're almost unreadable. And that's the real icing on the cake.”

Late November last year Flanagan received a phone call from his US agent, Rick, who told him that a Hollywood director was interested in buying the rights to the Ranger's Apprentice books.

"Haggis? I said. Who's Haggis?" Flanagan remembers, laughing. “I had no idea who Paul Haggis was.”

Paul Haggis, the Academy Award-winning director of Crash and screenplay writer for movies like Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima, had shown interest in directing the movie adaptations of the Ranger’s Apprentice books.

“The studio sent through his CV and after a quick Google search I knew all about him. I was blown away by all the stuff he’s done, especially one of his earlier series, Due South, which I absolutely love.”

Flanagan’s guess is that any book which spends longer than a week on the New York Times bestseller's list will get the attention of a Hollywood producer. He was having his coffee one Saturday morning when he got a call from Haggis himself.

"He told me he loved the books. He'd read them to his nine-year-old son, and he would be working on the screenplay with his daughter, who has written some television and was also a big fan of children's fantasy."

A couple of weeks later United Artists Films signed the deal, at the same time making it quite clear that Flanagan was to have absolutely no creative control. So how does a writer feel about putting all his hard work into the hands of a complete stranger?

“I know my baby is in good hands,” Flanagan jokes. “I’ve spoken to Paul and I’m confident he’s not going to screw it up too much. Besides, I know how this whole thing works in Hollywood. I know that the director doesn't want anything to do with the author. But I didn't want to lose Paul on the deal because I trust him. I’m scared shitless yeah, but I'm confident he's not going to ring me up one day and say, ‘Hey John, how about if Will talks to the animals in the forest?’ He didn't have to call me to talk to me about this stuff, but he did, and it's a good sign.”

Being an author means discipline. Flanagan’s routine is simple: after waking up and drinking his coffee, he marches up to his backyard writing cabin at 10am and doesn’t come out until he’s finished one chapter, which usually takes him around three hours. This routine continues five days a week, leaving afternoons free for day-to-day activities, or what Flanagan calls his 'thinking time'.

“I've always written in the morning, I don't know why. I tend to think about things in the afternoon and let them wash through my mind and I know if I do my writing in the morning I'll do it quicker and better.”

“I toy with an idea for a few months before I actually sit down to write anything. By now I've fallen well and truly in love with the Ranger's Apprentice characters so I automatically know where they're going and what they're going to do,” he says.

From then on the writing process begins; from rough notes to a story board written on post-it notes for easy manoeuvring, the process is methodical and efficient. Next: the big events – the highs, the lows of the plot and the setting of each book.

"Sometimes the settings come to me from obscure places, an Irish countryside or a drowned forest in Victoria. What great places these are for battles! I also draw upon historical things that interest me, such as the Mongols. Most readers are quick to see that the world my characters live in is very similar to England, Europe and Scandinavia during the Middle Ages.”

But sometimes readers forget it’s all a little bit of make-believe.

“It’s true that my characters often show traits and behaviours that may appear to be anachronisms. For example, a few of them are addicted to coffee. This is because I am too and I sympathise with them when they wake up in a cold camp with no fire. I once got this email from a very angry lady who told me that they didn't drink coffee in medieval times – they drank herbal tea! Can you imagine? A bunch of warriors drinking herbal tea? I don't think so. I wanted to be able to invent my own history, and not be hidebound by real events and political alliances. I opted for a fantasy world, based on the one we know. That's the best part about writing fantasy.”

The not-so-great part about writing fantasy is that Flanagan has had to restrain himself from reading any. The reason for this is simple enough: you never know when someone else’s idea is going to interfere with your own, and authors like Flanagan have to be careful about reading anything even remotely similar to what they are writing. The copyright laws are very strict, and consequently very damaging. Not to mention the realisation that you have to retire your vision due to someone else doing something similar.

Flanagan says this happened to him while he was reading the first Harry Potter book.

“I discovered the same two boys/one girl relationship that I had been planning for my books all along," he says, eyebrows furrowing. “So I just stopped reading, then and there. I didn't want to know where she [JK Rowling] was taking her story, because I knew exactly where I was taking mine.”

The same problem occurs when a fan of Flanagan’s sends him fan fiction – stories about the characters and settings written by fans of the original work.

“I'm actually quite scared of it you know, because ideas can pop up from weird places and you just never know. Kids love it [fan fiction] but I can't afford to encourage it because what it is, let's face it, is infringement of copyright.”

Flanagan relates a story about JK Rowling, something he's presumably heard on the author's grapevine.

"A woman came up to JK Rowling at a book signing and handed her an envelope. When JK put out her hand to take it, one of her minders quickly snatched it away. At the end of the session JK naturally asked what all the fuss was about and she was told, in the most severe manner, that the envelope probably contained a story, and there was no way in the world that her should go anywhere near this envelope. Because if at any time JK writes a story similar to the one handed to her by that woman… well, you can imagine the consequences. She could be sued for millions."

I look stunned.

"Believe, me it's happened," Flanagan replies.

Flanagan is a family man. He admits he has always looked towards those closes to him for inspiration, guidance and, most of all, motivation. Flanagan’s son Michael, who is now 31 and lives in Japan with his wife, still refers to himself jokingly as 'The Original Will'. Flanagan’s wife, Leonie, has also been of help to her husband, giving him ideas from time and time and guidance when he needs it. But there is a pact: Leonie cannot read anything her husband has written until it has been published. Flanagan's creative streak seems to have well and truly been passed on to his two daughters: the eldest, Kitty Flanagan, is best known to Australian audiences for her stand-up comedy and role on sketch comedy programme Full Frontal, while the youngest, Penny Flanagan, is a singer/songwriter and a one-time author herself. In fact, Penny had her book published before her father did.

“This was much needed motivation for me,” Flanagan laughs, showing me some family photos. “I thought gee, if Penny can do it, then I should be able to! It’s great how we’ve always managed to push each other on like that and applied just the right amount of scepticism to each other’s work.”

And speaking of scepticism, just what does Flanagan think about the proposed film version of Ranger’s Apprentice?

“There are concerns, you know. I think the most crucial elements will be the casting and use of CGI. There's no need for that stuff. There are no big battle scenes, the armies aren't big. There aren't ten thousand Orcs charging to the centre of Middle Earth. I want this to be character-driven with as few special effects as possible. I'm glad Paul is directing because he's Canadian so there’s no chance of him misinterpreting the great Australian sense of irony,” Flanagan says. Oh, and one more thing…

“I hope nobody ever, ever, shoots a bow horizontally!”

John Flanagan is currently writing book eight of the Ranger’s Apprentice series and has already planned book number nine.