He planned this parallel storyline in Battleschool to develop and show how Horace could help Will through his 'linear thinking'. Flanagan thought that the idea of a bully being bullied was a strong concept that was not in the original stories and was later incorporated into the novel. In the stories, Horace disappears after Will saves his life on the boar hunt, while in the novel, Flanagan was able to make Morgarath the main villain and 'rehabilitate' Horace to keep him as a main character. The character Horace was based on Michael's friend Jeremy, but in the original short stories Flanagan made Horace the villain. About ten years later, Flanagan returned to these stories and decided to write them into a full-length novel. Flanagan wrote one story each week for thirty weeks.

The Ruins of Gorlan was originally a set of short stories written by author John Flanagan for his son Michael to encourage him to read. Ten years later, he decided to turn them into The Ruins of Gorlan, the first book in the Ranger's Apprentice series. Flanagan first conceived the world of the novel in a series of short stories he wrote for his son to incite his interest in reading. It was first released in Australia on 1 November 2004, and in the United States on 16 June 2005. The Ruins of Gorlan is the first novel in the Ranger's Apprentice series written by Australian author John Flanagan. The Battle of Hackham Heath ( Ranger's Apprentice: The Early Years)

The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan