Movie deals and best-seller status are the latest developments in Y grad's fantasy writing career

Would you read a story that took the "Harry Potter" books' combination of magic and the mundane and mixed that with the idea from "Jurassic Park" of a secret preserve inhabited by fantastical creaturesfi

That's the basic recipe that resulted in "Fablehaven," a young adult fiction series launched last year by 32-year-old Highland resident Brandon Mull. ("Fablehaven" is also the title of the first book in the series.)

A number of reviewers have made the "Harry Potter" comparison, including best-selling author Orson Scott Card, who wrote in his weekly newspaper column in The Rhinoceros Times (Greensboro, N.C.) that "like 'Harry Potter,' 'Fablehaven' can be read aloud in a family with as much pleasure for grownups as for children. And solitary adults who pick it up for their own enjoyment will be well rewarded. Do yourself a favor, and don't miss the first novel by a writer who is clearly going to be a major figure in popular fantasy."

Now Mull's books have begun to bear out the "Potter" comparison in other ways. In May, the second book in the series, "Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star," showed up on the New York Times's children's best-seller lists. The paperback edition of series starter "Fablehaven" was published by Aladdin, an imprint of New York-based Simon & Schuster -- both books were issued in hardcover by Deseret Books's Shadow Mountain press -- and rose to the Times's children's paperback best-seller list last month.

The fast-growing popularity of the "Fablehaven" books, as well as Mull's most recent book, "The Candy Shop War," published in September, has even Hollywood paying attention. New Regency Pictures and producer Avi Arad (known for his Marvel Comics movie adaptations) have optioned both "Fablehaven" and "The Candy Shop War."

Given all of that success, you might think that Mull, a married father of two (4-year-old Sadie and 1-year-old Chase) and former ad copy writer, had been embraced by publishers from the start. His first manuscript, however, was rejected everywhere he submitted it, including at Shadow Mountain. That might have been the end of a barely begun career, except that Shadow Mountain publishing director Chris Schoebinger thought Mull had potential.

"I loved his writing style," Schoebinger said in an e-mail to the Daily Herald. "I immediately contacted him, set up a lunch appointment and we talked about the kind of manuscript I would like to see from him. Three months later, he dropped off 'Fablehaven.' "

To date, the first two "Fablehaven" books have sold almost 200,000 copies, which Schoebinger said is "a remarkable number, especially for a debut author."

Before Mull's big breakthrough, however, just getting feedback from a publisher seemed remarkable. Prior to the show of interest by Shadow Mountain, Mull said, "I hadn't been hearing back from anybody. It was exciting that they cared enough to talk to me in person.

Though he and Schoebinger had discussed revising his first manuscript, Mull said, "At the time, it was hard for me to picture scaling it back. I thought, 'Well, let's just start fresh.' "

Inspired by memories of the woods near the home where his family lived in Connecticut during his junior high and high school years, Mull wrote "Fablehaven" -- in which two siblings discover that their grandfather is the keeper of a special sanctuary for magical creatures -- in the evenings and on weekends. The series is projected to include five books, with the third book, "Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague," due on April 21.

When not traveling to visit schools (where he encourages literacy) or attend book signings, Mull is at work on the fourth "Fablehaven" book, with the encouragement of his wife, Mary. "We'll take walks in the morning with our little toddler and he'll tell me the ideas he has and we'll kind of talk through them," said Mary Mull. Then, as her husband writes each book, "I'll read them chapter by chapter and give him feedback."

Sometimes very pointed feedback. "In his second book there's a character called Vanessa," Mary Mull said. "She started out blonde and I have dark brown hair. I told him he always has blondes. I said, 'You need to make her look more like me.' She ended up looking more like Angelina Jolie, the way he described her."

At least the hair was the right color.

Daydream believer

According to the author's mother, Mull took an energetic approach to writing assignments in school, but didn't really get the itch to write something big until his freshman year at Brigham Young University.

"That's when he really got the bug, when he really started writing," said Pamela Mull, who also lives in Highland.

Mull remembers being encouraged to write by a teacher in high school, and said that he's always had stories rattling around in his brain. "I've loved to daydream my whole life," he said. "That's my default mode. When I get bored, I make up stories in my head."

That tendency, said Pamela Mull, goes all the way back to his toddler years, when the future writer would go into a room and stay there by himself for hours. "We called it playing games in his head," she said. "I used to kind of joke with his teachers that he lived in another world most of the time."

Mary Mull said that the tendency to become lost in thought is something her husband has never quite grown out of. "I think men in general are a little more one-track than women, but Brandon is hilarious," she said. "He'll be getting dressed because we're going out, and I'll find him sitting on the bed 10 minutes later with a sock in his hand.

"I tell him that's OK, because it's that kind of distraction that puts food on the table."

The oldest of five children, three boys and two girls, Mull grew up in California and Connecticut and expressed himself by acting, singing, drawing and leading his friends and siblings on what his mother called "crazy adventures."

Books were also an important part of Mull's formative years. "My parents always read with me, and I read all of the Dr. Seuss books when I was little," he said. When he started to read on his own, he had an affinity for fantasy from the beginning. C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien were favorites, as well as the non-fantastical boy-and-his-dog(s) story "Where the Red Fern Grows," by Wilson Rawls.

In college, Mull joined in with everyone else who might be described by the terms "reader" and "fantasy enthusiast," and read the "Harry Potter" books. " 'Harry Potter' was a defining thing for me," he said. "It helped show me an audience to write for."

Mull was into comedy at BYU, as a director of the long-running comedy improv troupe Divine Comedy -- he met Mary after a performance -- but found another outlet for his creativity after taking writing classes. (He majored in public relations, with an English minor.)

He enjoyed writing enough to contemplate graduate school, but his application to the University of Utah was rejected. He went to talk with a BYU creative writing professor, Douglas Thayer, whose classes he'd found inspiring.

As Mull put it, "He said, 'Look, if your goal is to be a teacher, go get the master's. If you want to write books, all they care about is that you write.' "

Thayer said that, in the end, the failed grad student got what he wanted the old-fashioned way. "I don't have a very high opinion of talent," Thayer said. Mull, he said, "stuck with it. He did what he wanted to do. So many students, they want to be writers, but they don't follow through."

For Mull, following through meant taking a year off from school and the workforce after graduation and devoting himself entirely to writing -- despite being newly married.

"I look back on that now and I wonder about it," said Mary Mull, who assumed the role of financial provider during that period. "What's happened with his career is not exactly normal, but I just never doubted that it would happen for him."

The result of that year was the manuscript that no one wanted -- and which Mull still hopes to publish someday. He'll probably have some takers the next time he offers it. The New York Times thing is always helpful that way.

• Cody Clark can be reached at 344-2542 or cclark@heraldextra.com.