Test Drive Tie-in Fiction

Flexor the Mighty! said:

I didn't mean my last sentence to imply that you are only writing FR books for cash and not for love of what you do. Sorry if it came across that way.

Click to expand...

It did not come across that way at all. I just thought you might be interested to hear a reason or two why a writer might go with (or stick with, in my case) tie-in writing as opposed to non-tie-in writing.

In any event, I'm pretty hard to offend, but I very much appreciate the considerate tone you've struck. Internet message boards don't always feature that degree of civility.

Paul

Do you ever find that a cool story idea you have is shotdown due to what another author has done or what WOTC wants you to do? Do you get a specific story type as an assignment or do you write a novel then pitch it to them? I know in a podcast RAS said he had a contract for x number of books, but do you have limits on what you can write in them, within reason of course I know they wouldn't care for torrid sex scenes.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

Do you ever find that a cool story idea you have is shotdown due to what another author has done or what WOTC wants you to do? Do you get a specific story type as an assignment or do you write a novel then pitch it to them? I know in a podcast RAS said he had a contract for x number of books, but do you have limits on what you can write in them, within reason of course I know they wouldn't care for torrid sex scenes.

Click to expand...

I haven't had any ideas shot down, but that may be because I have written primarily character-driven stories, where the "idea" is more about character evolution than an "gib event" type plot. I've never gotten an assignment, as such. The process has been much more organic. More like: I tell my editor I'm thinking this or that. And he says, that sounds pretty good. What about if you add that to this and this? And so on until we reach consensus So it's neither an assignment nor a formal pitch. More like an free form discussion.

That said, in my most recent trilogy, the process got reversed and my editor asked me whether I'd like to tackle a certain subject matter that seemed to fit with the previous books I had written (shades, shadow magic, and the like). I jumped at that and we had a discussion of the kind I described above to define the scope of the trilogy. On the whole, I suspect it's not unlike non-tie in author/editor creative discussions.

There are some limits on subject matter. WotC wants its books at a PG-13 level. So you won't see sex described as GRRM does it, but you'll see it. You'll see violence, but not say, torture or something like that. It's not really a hard and fast set of rules. I've seen the content restrictions shift a bit over my seven years in the line.

There are also rules associated with using the signature characters of other authors, and or shaking up the setting too much, etc., but because of the stories I've wanted to tell, I've never really bumped up against those boundaries.

Thanks for the info, very interesting.

Have you written anything outside of WOTC yet? Just wondering since I'm not much of a FR fan anymore and don't care for Eberron.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

Thanks for the info, very interesting.
Have you written anything outside of WOTC yet? Just wondering since I'm not much of a FR fan anymore and don't care for Eberron.

Click to expand...

My short story, "The Signal," will appear in Horrors Beyond II, from Elder Signs Press (it's got a kind of Lovecraftian vibe). "The Spinner" will appear in "Sails and Sorcery -- Tales of Nautical Adventure," from Fantasist Enterprises; and my story, "Confession," recently appeared in Dragon 356. I have a few other stories in the publishing pipeline but cannot make any announcements about them yet.

I have twin toddler-aged sons and practice corporate law by day, so what little writing time remains is mostly filled by my FR work. I find I have time only for short stories outside of that WotC work. So I've decided this year to make a concerted effort to publish some of those stories in non tie-in venues that pay professional rates. Mostly I want to spread the creative wings a bit by writing something other than sword and sorcery fiction. But I also hope it will get my work in front of readers who otherwise would not see it because they are not interested in tie-in fiction.

Paul

PaulKemp said:

Flexor, do you take your position because you think there is no quality tie in fiction or because you think it's not worth your time to search out something you'd regard as quality tie-in fiction (whereas you feel that locating quality non-tie in fiction is not as difficult)?

Click to expand...

I don't know his exact position, but I do know mine. My current "to read" list is about a thousand books long. I have them sitting in piles along the wall in my living room, as well as several piles in my office. That pile contains no licensed fiction. I keep an excel file of all the titles I am looking for. That file is about five thousand titles long. The file contains no licensed fiction.

I tried licensed fiction - read a fair amount of it. And decided that it wasn't really worth the time. Some was average, most was really bad. I don't see a real need to clutter a pile that is already long enough that it will take me more than a decade to read. So, yes, reading licensed fiction, even if provided free, has a costs - it costs me time that I think is better spent on non-licensed books.

Storm Raven said:

I tried licensed fiction - read a fair amount of it. And decided that it wasn't really worth the time. Some was average, most was really bad. I don't see a real need to clutter a pile that is already long enough that it will take me more than a decade to read. So, yes, reading licensed fiction, even if provided free, has a costs - it costs me time that I think is better spent on non-licensed books.

Click to expand...

I hear that position a lot, SR. To my ear, it sounds exactly like this: "My current "to read" list is a thousand books long. Books clutter my house. I'm swimming in books. They're all literary fiction. None are genre fiction. I tried genre fiction, read quite a lot of it -- mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, horror. A few were average, most were awful. I don't see a need to clutter my house and offend my literary sensibilities with the escapist ghetto of genre."

Obviously I think it unfortunate that readers would exclude an entire category of books, but to each their own.

Paul

GSHamster said:

And a tie-in author--no matter how good--is not making her own world. And so you have to wonder about that, wonder about an author who needs to rely on someone else's setting in a genre which is defined by setting.

Click to expand...

I don't know that we're relying on it, though. I like to see authors take an existing setting and do something different with it, something I may not have seen before or hadn't considered.

Star Trek, for instance. Forty years and writers are still finding new things to write about. A lot of recent good work in that setting, really good, pushing the boundaries of what's known. The recent TITAN and VANGUARD series, and the recent TOS trilogy by David R George III covering fresh looks at Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The recent DS9 novels--taking the series and moving it forward in surprising new ways.

And I disagree with the notion that tie-in writers aren't creating their own worlds. Plenty of world-building going on in lots of tie-in novels. They may not be creating a complete setting on their own, but they may well be creating new worlds.

I have three Trek stories published, and another on the way next year. And I have a pile of proposals sitting on the editors's desks to try for more work. And I'm working on original short stories and novels at the same time. I love the Trek setting, so having the chance to write for it is a dream come true. In this case, I can have my cake (writing for a setting I love) and eat it too (writing original fic at the same time). Win win.

The readers who also love the setting get more stories to read. Win for them. The readers who don't care for the setting or who turn their noses up at tie-in work, well, they have the right to their opinion. Just like everyone else. I've read some tie-in work that I've enjoyed more than a lot of the original fiction out there, and I've read some tie-in work that I felt was an embarassment to the ink and paper it's printed with. But, I've also read some lousy original fiction. Tie-in publishing isn't the only segment of publishing with a wide range of quality.