When Brandon Mull was roughly 10 years old, he snuck into his grandma’s closet. Inspired by C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” he hoped to find a portal to Narnia in her home because, as he said, she “was old and she had a big closet.”
Mull pushed through his grandma’s coats and found a set of small doors. But instead of finding Narnia and Aslan the lion behind them, he found a room filled with canned peaches.
He was disappointed.
“I wanted to go to another world. I wanted to fight some monsters, probably become their king, and instead, I was lord of the canned peaches. It was my sad little domain,” Mull said during his spotlight panel at FanX in Salt Lake City on Friday.
But he didn’t let his disappointment hinder his imagination.
“Because I could not go into another world in real life, I started doing it in my head,” he said. “With some time and experience, I have learned that there was a portal to Narnia, and his name was Clive Staples Lewis. He was the portal to Narnia, and just like J.R. Tolkien was the portal to Middle Earth. Without them, we could have never gone there. We wouldn’t know about it.”
Mull himself has since become a portal, taking readers to the worlds he’s created in his own books, 19 of which are New York Times bestsellers.
The author revisited some of those worlds at FanX before he gave fans a glimpse into the new fantasy world from his upcoming book “Guardians: Forbidden Mountain” and shared an update on the movie adaptation of his bestselling series, “Fablehaven.”
What is ‘Guardians: Forbidden Mountain’?
“Guardians: Forbidden Mountain” will be the first book in Mull’s new three-book “Guardians” series. It will be released in April 2026.
Fans should expect the second book to be published in 2027 and the third in 2028, Mull said.
Mull gave his first update on the book and its first-ever public summarization in his first FanX panel on Thursday.
“It’s something that has been cooking in my head for lots and lots of years. If I have something that’s kind of like a masterpiece inside me, it’s probably either this or I already wrote it,“ Mull said. ”I think this might be like one of my best ideas. I’m really excited about it.”
Mull said he’s been planning the “Guardians” series for a decade. It took him 2½ years to write “Guardians: Forbidden Mountain,” when it usually only takes him six months to write a series’ first book.
“Guardians: Forbidden Mountain” is his first that will be set entirely in a fantasy world.
Mull said the book is for readers in “the upper edge of middle grade.”
‘Fablehaven’ movie update
For Mull and fans of “Fablehaven,” a film adaptation has been a long time coming. Multiple opportunities arose for the project, but it never came to fruition.
That has since changed.
Angel Studios will produce and distribute the film directed by Cameron Sawyer. On Friday, Mull invited Sawyer to join him on stage and discuss the film.
“I just want to tell you guys, it’s about time, isn’t it? We have a big movie, and I’m so excited,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer has “been obsessed with getting (”Fablehaven") made into a movie ever since” he first read it 10 years ago.
The director told the audience that he has two goals for the “Fablehaven” movie: to turn all five books into a movie and for the movie “to be true to the book,” he said.
To show his commitment to the book and “how big of a nerd” he is, Sawyer pulled out two “lookbooks” for the film that consist of “things that I think need to be in the movie, things that represent ‘Fablehaven,’” he said.
It’s been difficult to turn the book into an hour and a half long movie, Sawyer admitted, but they’re close to having a locked script. His goal is to begin filming next fall.
Future updates for the film can be found on its website.
Brandon Mull’s best writing advice
On Thursday, Mull spent nearly the entirety of his 50-minute panel answering fans’ questions. A majority of which revolved around writing and the steps to publish a book.
The bestselling author even allowed a fan to practice pitching her book to Mull’s publisher at Shadow Mountain Publishing, Chris Schoebinger.
Here is some of the advice Mull shared with the audience.
Shoveling sand and draft 0: One fan told Mull that he has several book ideas, but he’s afraid to put them on paper after he heard that sometimes an author’s first books are “trash.”
“To help you with this fear of not doing justice to the cool idea, remember that your first draft is draft zero if you need it to be. It’s not even draft one, it’s draft zero. First draft, you are shoveling sand into the sandbox so you can eventually make sandcastles,” Mull said.
Research before your pitch: Mull and Schoebinger encouraged aspiring authors to research the editors they’re pitching their books to. What kind of books is that editor looking for? What was their last book deal?
Schoebinger recommended a subscription to Publishers Marketplace to learn where and how to submit their books.
“Use your $25 that you spent to research who’s the best person to get this book in front of,” Mull said.
World building: When asked about world building, Mull suggested writers ponder the question of “what if?”
For example, Mull asked the audience to consider what would happen if an 1800’s science fiction novel included cars and how the addition of cars would affect society.
“All the ‘what if’ questions is the world building, right? So it’s amazing how you can tweak one little thing like adding cars and change the whole flow of a society,” Mull said.
ChatGPT as a tool: Mull emphasized that he does not use ChatGPT to write for him.
“If I used it to write for me, I would be cheating my audience, right? Because they’re paying me to write the story in my voice,” he said.
But Mull shared that he uses ChatGPT as a research and brainstorming tool. If writing a scene at a certain location, Mull might ask ChatGPT for 50 things that he would see at that location “to get my juices flowing,” he said.
Mull has also used ChatGPT as an encyclopedia for his books. Using his ChatGPT Plus subscription, Mull has uploaded his drafts into ChatGPT and asked it questions about the book that he doesn’t remember, such as his characters’ features.
The full Q&A session can be listened to in a future episode of Mull’s writing podcast, “Mulling It Over with Brandon Mull,” which he hosts with Jason Conforto.
