"Labyrinth" was being seriously discussed as early as March 1983, when Henson held a meeting with Froud and children's author Dennis Lee. Lee was tasked with writing a novella on which a script could be based, submitting it at the end of 1983. Henson approached Terry Jones to write the film's script as "his daughter Lisa had just read "Erik the Viking" and suggested that he try me as screen-writer." Jones was given Dennis Lee's novella to use as a basis for his script, but later told "Empire" that Lee had produced an unfinished "poetic novella" that he "didn't really get on with." In light of this, Jones "discarded it and sat down with Brian 's drawings and sifted through them and found the ones that I really liked, and started creating the story from them."