Aaaaand, FINAL ROUND.

Go, visit the page for Part Three of this challenge.

Once again we return to the four-part story you’re all choatically cumulatively writing. Your task is to go to the comments of that link above, find the third part of a continued story, and then continue it by writing the fourth and final part of that story. Meaning: it’s time to write the ending.

You have another 1000 words to do this.

Make sure to identify which story you are continuing and who the writer was.

Do not continue your own story.

Definitely do end this story — you’re writing the final of four total parts.

You can partake in round two even if you didn’t participate in round one.

You must finish your next and final entry by noon, EST, next Friday (the 6th of March).

If you can and the original author approves — please compile all the stories into the single page, and credit the original author. (That may save folks from having to track back through multiple links to get the whole story so far.)

Time to stick the landing.

It begins with a rumour, an exciting whisper — anything to break the tedium of the harem for Afsar, the Shah’s eldest daughter.

A trader knows of a wondrous circus. Traveling with it is a man with a face so vile it would make a hangman faint, but a voice as sweet as an angel’s kiss. He is a master of illusion and stealth. A masked performer, known only as Vachon. 

On her birthday, the Shah gifts Afsar the circus. She is captivated by Vachon, and they are swiftly bound together by a heady web of fascination, jealousy, and murder.

Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran gives life to the Little Sultana from Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera, and takes us on forbidden adventures through a time that has been written out of history books.

You Know When You Come of Age

All writers start somewhere. No one ever arrived on the page fully fledged. In yea olden days, that process was fairly private. People wrote in the secrecy of their own homes, fingers stained with ink, shoulders hunched about their ears, until they had something worth submitting.

Nowadays, we’re not so bashful. If it’s not worth submitting, you can always blog it, self-publish or even vanity-press it. Our mistakes are there for all to see.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I seriously tried to write my first novel – just to prove I could. Everything after that has been practise. I’ve explored different genres, from horror to chick lit. I’ve fumbled my prose and played with pastiche.

With Rosy Hours, I feel as though I’ve come of age. There is a maturity to it that was missing in previous attempts. I’m not ashamed of what I wrote before, but this is on another level. I have found something that is mine.

A Little Encouragement Goes a Long Way

I published three other novels before Rosy Hours. For me, getting published has never been particularly difficult. Selling books, on the other hand, requires Sisyphean effort. My previous publishers were high on enthusiasm but low on marketing mulla.

Add to that a spell of crippling self-doubt in which I wrote a manuscript that will never see the light of day (my writing was getting worse, not better!), and you have the recipe for a quitter. I almost packed everything in. One hundred thousand words is a long slog when no one’s going to read what you write.

Ghostwoods Books really turned me around. One minute everything was crap, no point, why bother. The next the sun was shining, there’s a grin on my face, the world is a beautiful place. What a difference a year makes.

They reminded me that it isn’t all about sales. It’s about being proud of your creation. Knowing that you’ve given it the very best you can. Knowing that what you’ve written has been loved.

I’ve got my mojo back.

Moustaches are Sexy on Women

Rosy Hours is set in 1850s Northern Iran. The Shah at the time was busy selling off the country’s assets to expand his harem. One of the things I learned during my research is that beauty is extremely subjective. When I thought harem, I thought wispy Persian beauties draped in silk, dancing the seven veils.

When the Shah of Iran thought harem, he thought unibrows and coffee-stain moustaches.

It’s Really Emotional Hearing Your Characters Speak

One of the reasons I’m so excited about this book, is that it’s being turned into an audiobook.

It’s been a fascinating experience. Author and Hugo Award nominee Emma Newman has provided the voice. I’ll never forget receiving the sample chapter. Opening it up and hearing my words read back to me for the first time, the voices inside my head speaking to me in somebody else’s voice. It gave me goosebumps.

A few years of drama school and working in development have taught me that to create is fine, to collaborate, divine. I get a real buzz when art sparks art. When something I’ve written inspires someone else’s creation. After all, I was inspired by Leroux. Each piece of audio, or fan art, gives a sort of validation to the characters I’ve created. It attests that they have lived, and that their lives extend beyond what I imagined for them.

When It’s Good, It’s Easy

There’s this transcendental space, just above your head, where thoughts cease and good stuff happens. It’s like when you’re flying in dreams. You’re not thinking about flying, you’re just doing it. It’s the same with writing, there’s a zone. When you’re in it, everything is easy. The story just happens.

Rosy Hours is both the most complex novel I’ve written, and also one of the easiest. I look back at it now and I’m honestly surprised. Sometimes it doesn’t feel as though I wrote it. Sometimes I wonder where I got certain phrases from. Mostly, I don’t remember writing it.

You can’t force that zone, but when you’re sure that you have a great story to tell, the pieces sometimes just fall into place.

The story writes itself.

* * *

Marion Grace Woolley is the British author of four novels (historical, dark fantasy and LGBT) and a collection of short stories. She’s currently living in Kigali, Rwanda where — when she’s not writing — she’s an international development consultant. She’s just been appointed country head of a human rights organization, is up to her eyeballs in CVs, and is moving house on Thursday. She is fluent in British Sign Language, and plays the tin whistle.

Marion Grace Woolley: Twitter | Blog

Those Rosy Hours At Mazandaran: Amazon | B&N | Ghostwoods | Google Play | Kobo

Finally, Jackson Donne has it figured out. After leaving the private investigation business, he’s looking toward the future — and getting married to Kate Ellison. Donne is focused on living the good life — planning the wedding, finishing college, and anticipating a Hawaiian honeymoon — until he receives an anonymous email with a link and an old picture of him on the police force. Once Donne clicks the link, nothing else in his life matters. Donne sees a live-stream of the one thing he never expected. Six years ago, his fiancée, Jeanne Baker died in a car accident with a drunk driver. Or so Donne thought. He’s taken to a video of Jeanne bound to a chair, bruised and screaming, but very much alive. He starts to investigate, but quickly finds out he’s lost most of his contacts over the years. The police hold a grudge going back to the days when he turned in his corrupt colleagues, and neither they nor the FBI are willing to believe a dead girl’s been kidnapped. Donne turns to Bill Martin — the only man to love Jeanne as much as he did — for help. And that decision could cost him everything.

I Could Do It Myself

That may sound ridiculous, but it is true. I’ve always had beta readers at very early stages in my novels. Seriously, like after first draft stages. Sometimes I’d show people very early chapters just to keep my confidence up. Not with this one. I wanted to try and keep things quiet, and write for myself. Screw everybody else.

When I finally got feedback from editors and readers, they were more enthusiastic than critical and there was less to fix. That taught me to trust my instincts. I could now yell DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO at editors. (Note: I would never yell, “Don’t tell me what to do at editors.”) Hearing the positive feedback was so important for my confidence as a writer and going forward. I don’t feel as daunted by revisions. Given enough time, I can find what needs to be fixed.

Nope. Can’t Read.

I love to read fiction. Crime novel after crime novel after crime novel. But when I’m writing, I just can’t. Too often I’m distracted or can’t follow the plot. I get nitpicky about what I’m reading. I’m never drawn to a book. Probably it’s because I’m subconsciously focused on my own book. Plots are hard to follow because I’m still working on mine.

However, for some reason, I am really enthusiastic about reading when I’m writing. I always think I’m going to be able to plow through all this new and exciting books by authors I love. Instead, they sit—untouched—on my nightstand for months.

What I can read however, is some lighter fare. I can read comics—Marvel gets a lot of my money when I’m writing. And journalism. I love sports reporting and I read a lot of that for enjoyment.

Scheduling Writing Time with a Kid Is Tough

When I wrote my first three novels, I didn’t have a kid. Heck, I wasn’t even married. I could write all willy-nilly. Nights? SURE until 1 am if I wanted. Mornings? Afternoons? Whenever the inspiration struck—I could be at that computer pounding away at the keys.

Now I have a two year old. And he naps, so that’s good. But he doesn’t always nap consistently. I have had to figure out times when Ben is distracted or when someone will watch him for me. I get a good hour or two of writing in right after work—and when I do promotional work, it’s after he goes to sleep. All right, I lied. Right now I’m typing this blog post as Ben is watching a video. BAD DAD.

But it was something I had to learn. I always wrote every day when I was single or childless, but it was easier to wait for when it was convenient. Now it’s like Chuck says, Art Harder, Mother Fucker. You can’t just wait around. You have an hour now? Use it. Get it done. That was the tough adjustment.

Retroactive Character: Who is Jackson Donne?

Jackson Donne is my series character. He is a former private investigator that was mourning the death of his fiancée, Jeanne, in the first novel. But, as I came up with the hook for NOT EVEN PAST—Jeanne is actually alive—I had to learn more about Donne himself. And some of what I learned was retroactive.

Donne is more unhinged than I had already thought. He’s not the smartest guy, and his more impulsive than expected. These realizations kind of synced with the first two novels in a way I didn’t expect. I was able to look back at those novels—and at Donne going forward.

In a way, this is my comic book novel. Some retcons, a character coming back from the dead and I’m sure some continuity issues. I love that. This book and Donne are raw to me–their edges aren’t sanded. It comes at you in a flurry, I hope. And because of that I know more about Donne going forward and how he can grow and change.

I’m Different as a Writer, and That’s Okay

How do I put this? I learned a lot about myself as a writer with this one—and I think you can see that in what I’ve learned. I’d gone away from writing novels for almost two years when I started this one, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be like riding a bicycle.

And it wasn’t.

But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t still write. But I had a different process this time around. I wrote the first 100 pages of this book and then went back and started over. I outlined my revisions. I’d never done that sort of thing before. I always just pushed through, forced it when it wasn’t there and then fixed it later. Now, I’m more patient. I’m more willing to re-work mid-novel. People ask how many drafts of my novels I write. One my first 3 books I could have told you a true number on front to end revisions. Now I go back and play much more. I tweak a lot more.

I think that’s part of growing as a writer, maturing. And I was able to do it by myself, which was very cool to me.

 * * *

Dave White is a Derringer Award-winning mystery author and educator. White, an eighth grade teacher for the Clifton, NJ Public School district, attended Rutgers University and received his MAT from Montclair State University. His 2002 short story “Closure,” won the Derringer Award for Best Short Mystery Story the following year. Publishers Weekly gave the first two novels in his Jackson Donne series, When One Man Dies and The Evil That Men Do, starred reviews, calling When One Man Dies an “engrossing, evocative debut novel” and writing that his second novel “fulfills the promise of his debut.” He received praise from crime fiction luminaries such as bestselling, Edgar Award-winning Laura Lippman and the legendary James Crumley.

Dave White: Twitter

Not Even Past: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Writing a trilogy is tricky business. I just finished writing my first official one (the Heartland series, with The Harvest being the final book coming out in July), and I’m still not sure how to codify it, yet. So when Gareth said he’d like to take the bullet, hey, who am I to stop him? So, here he is to talk about what it takes to write a trilogy:

* * *

January 2015 saw the UK and US release of Macaque Attack from Solaris Books, the third novel in a trilogy that began with the BSFA Award-winning Ack-Ack Macaque in 2013, and continued with last year’s Hive Monkey. While I had previously written a couple of standalone space operas, these three ‘monkey books’ represented my first complete series, and I learned three main things while writing them.

1. CHARACTER ARCS

If you’re embarking on a multi-book epic, you need to make sure you’re writing about some compelling characters. Writing a trilogy is a huge commitment. Each of the books in the ‘Macaque’ trilogy took six months to write, which meant spending a year and a half of writing time immersed in the same fictional universe, in the company of the same fictional individuals.

And what I learned was this: if you’re going to be spending a lot of time – potentially years – in their heads, you have to give them the potential to develop and grow in interesting ways. Otherwise, you’re going to get bored of them, and if you do, you can be sure your readers will as well.

In the Macaque books, each of the characters has an arc that runs through the trilogy. For Ack-Ack Macaque, the titular simian at the centre of much of the action, that arc is a journey that takes him from loner to family man. He starts off as a traumatized escapee from a laboratory, angry and liable to lash out at the slightest provocation; and ends up (having gradually lowered his defences and allowed friends into his life) older, calmer and wiser. He goes from being indestructible and reckless to mortal and all-too-human, but gains so much along the way. He comes to understand the world, the true cost of his actions, and gathers around him a strange, barely functional ‘family’ of damaged individuals. In this sense, his story is the same one we all go through – of growing up, accumulating responsibilities and scars, and building meaningful relationships.

The other major character, Victoria Valois, is on the opposite journey. At the start of book one, she has lost her husband to a particularly brutal murderer. Through the course of the trilogy, she has to come to terms with this loss – a process made complicated by the presence of his electronic ‘ghost’, a self-aware download of his personality, taken shortly before his death. Her journey is one of shock, denial, grief and vengeance; but at the same time, it is one of empowerment. Through her pain and the situations in which she finds herself, she grows in confidence, ability and self-reliance.

These dual character arcs reflected and illustrated the main themes of the books, and allowed me to significantly change and develop the characters in each volume, creating an ongoing story over and above the main ‘plot’ of each novel. And the response I’ve had from readers has been fantastic, especially in Victoria’s case. A lot of people have been able to identify with her journey from lost and damaged accident victim to self-confident and resourceful badass.

2. CONTINUITY VS STANDALONE

With a series, it’s sometimes hard to know how much knowledge of previous installments you should assume on the part of the audience. Will everybody who picks up book three have read books one and two? How much should you recap and explain in order for them to enjoy reading it? And how much can you afford to explain before you start to bore those readers who’ve stuck with you from the beginning?

While the three books in the Macaque trilogy tell one continuous story, I also wanted to make each of them as accessible as possible to the casual reader. Therefore, each book opens with a short paragraph outlining the origin of the story’s world – a timeline where Great Britain and France merges in 1959. Beyond that, each book has its own self-contained adventure, with a beginning, middle and end, and it is the characters that provide the continuity and back story, via dialogue and moments of reflection.

I hope each book can be read and enjoyed on its own terms, but knowledge of the preceding books definitely adds to the understanding and enjoyment of the later volumes.

This is particularly true in Macaque Attack, in which characters from one of my earlier space operas [The Recollection, Solaris Books, 2011] make a surprise appearance. You don’t need to have read the space opera in order to enjoy the action, but you’ll get a lot more out of the story if you have.

3. EACH INSTALLMENT NEEDS TO CHANGE THE GAME

One of the things I was determined not to do was write the same book three times. If this was to be a trilogy, each book needed to add something significant. It had to justify its existence.

After book one introduced the world and brought the characters together, book two needed to turn everything on its head, introducing us to the darker side of our hairy protagonist, and the paths he might otherwise have taken. Then, with book three, I had to take everything up another notch, while simultaneously harking back to the beginning of book one, and the themes that had kicked everything off in the first place.

I had to provide a fitting conclusion while simultaneously tying up all the loose ends from books one and two, and bringing each character’s emotional and developmental journeys to a satisfying close.

TO RECAP:

1. Characters need to be strong enough to carry the weight of the story and hold the attention of the reader. They have to be characters we want to follow and find out more about.

2. Decide how accessible you want each volume to be for readers new to the series.

3. Each volume of the trilogy has to justify its position. It has to bring something new to the party – a new piece of the puzzle, more trouble for our protagonists, something we haven’t seen before. Think about the Empire Strikes Back and how it deepened and darkened the Star Wars universe after the bright optimism of A New Hope – every installment of your trilogy has to similarly turn the tables on the characters and the reader, taking the plot, the tension, the stakes, and the development of the characters themselves, up to a whole other level.

* * *

Gareth L. Powell is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author from the UK. His third novel, Ack-Ack Macaque, co-won the 2013 BSFA Award for Best Novel (tying with Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice). He has also had shorter work featured in Interzone and 2000 AD. You can find more of his writing advice at www.garethlpowell.com, or follow him on Twitter at @garethlpowell.

The Guardian asks the riveting, entirely original, never-before asked question:

“Why are so many adults reading YA and teen fiction?”

And I, alone, have the answer.

Me. The brave one. Who plumbs the depths none would dare.

I have done rigorous scientific testing with beakers.

I have traveled the earth and gone in many caves.

I have fought three bears.

I have consumed exotic poisons.

I have even been a teenager once, maybe, probably, I dunno.

And the answer is —

*reveals envelope*

*opens envelope*

*a smaller version of me climbs out*

*the smaller version of me hands the larger version of me a microphone*

*clears throat into mic*

*taps mic*

The answer is:

Because a lot of YA and teen fiction is really, really good.

*flings microphone in a lake*

Adam Christopher is a deviant and a murderer and must be — *checks notes* — wait, that can’t be right. Oh! Ah. Yes. Adam Christopher writes some of the most delightfully fun books I’ve read, and in addition, I’m pleased to call him a friend as well as my fellow co-writer of the upcoming reboot of Dark Circle’s THE SHIELD comic. So, anytime Adam wants to stop by here, he’s welcome — this time, he’s swinging by to talk about the intersection between fan-fiction and tie-in-fiction, just in time for the release of his new tie-in: Elementary: The Ghost Line.

* * *

Storytime.

In 1985, I turned seven. That same year, Television New Zealand began a repeat season of a show my parents — who had seen it back in the UK — thought I would like.

That show was Doctor Who, and from the first night of that repeat run (a double-bill of The Mind Robber parts one and two), I was most certainly hooked.

No, more than hooked. Doctor Who was an interest that turned to obsession when I discovered my school library had a huge collection of Doctor Who Target novelizations. For several years—quite possibly to the dismay of parents and teachers alike—I would read nothing else.

I also began to write.

My favorite Doctor Who author was—still is—Terrance Dicks. He wrote most of the Target books, and by coincidence, had been script editor on the exact period of the show I was then watching on TV. His books were journeys of pure wonder, and the weekly adventures of the Third Doctor on the small screen sent my imagination into a spin.

Back then, writing was actually part of every school day. We wrote whatever the hell we wanted. No rules, no restrictions. This class of seven-year-olds was told to let rip.

I still have a couple of journals from that year and, with rare exception, everything within is Doctor Who. If you step back and hold them up and squint a bit you might be generous enough to call them “original”, but really they’re a bizarre mash-up of whatever episode was on TV that week and my own wild tales of space adventure.

But it was a start.

Flashforward (cue the montage). Interests and ambitions waxed and waned. Exciting adventures with Daleks, Cybermen, and the last xerophyte survivors of Zolfa-Thura were hardly suitable for creative writing in high school English, but my love of the show endured even if my fiction output (thankfully) broadened in scope.

Then one day I discovered there was a New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club. The fan club had a fanzine. The fanzine published fan fiction.

So I sat down and wrote a short Doctor Who story. I wrote another, and then some more. I submitted. I was rejected. A lot. I kept writing. I kept submitting. I kept getting rejections but those rejections started coming with editorial notes.

Then I was accepted. I kept working on my craft, and soon the acceptances began to outnumber the rejections.

My first published fiction was Doctor Who fan fiction. Writing that fiction taught me… well, it taught me everything. It taught me about storytelling, about plot, about characters, themes, voice. The whole shebang.

Thirty years after those first steps into creative writing, I’m a professional writer. I’ve had five novels published, another five or six under contract, a couple of comics on the boil, and I’m doing what I love to do.

I think my seven-year-old self would be pretty pleased with how things turned out.

TIE-IN FICTION IS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE FAN FICTION…

According to Wikipedia, a tie-in is:

“… a work of fiction or other product based on a media property such as a film, video game, television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property. Tie-ins are authorized by the owners of the original property, and are a form of cross-promotion used primarily to generate additional income from that property and to promote its visibility.”

Those Target Doctor Who novelizations I devoured as a kid are one of the best examples of the tie-in — they even say they are TV tie-ins, boldly and, I think to like, rather proudly, on the back cover. I read them because I was a fan of the TV show, but the TV show wasn’t enough.

I wanted more.

Perhaps that’s a defining feature of fans: we want more. Whether it’s Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Fringe, Supernatural, South Park, World of Warcraft, Pacific Rim or Beverly Hills: 90210, there is a chunk of the audience—a sizeable chunk—who want to go beyond the source material. Tie-ins are an important part of collective fan experience.

But there’s something which tie-ins are not.

They are not fan fiction.

And I don’t mean they’re not fan fiction because they are officially approved and legally published, and the writer gets paid professional rates to write them. Tie-ins are not fan fiction because it unreasonable—even impossible—to expect the writers to be fans of the property in question.

Sure, the writer needs to know the property. If they don’t, it’ll show, with disastrous results. And if a writer doesn’t like the property, then it’ll be a miserable experience for everyone—writer and reader alike.

But writers are professionals and tie-in fiction is one of the different kinds of jobs available to us. The writer must therefore fulfill the brief to the satisfaction of the license owner, and they have to craft a story that people want to read.

But hey, we’re professionals. That’s all part of the job.

All of which means: the writer doesn’t need to be fan. A property can be learned. Help is available too—script, story bibles, development notes, concordances. And there’s the source material, of course—the film that is going to be novelized, eighty-nine episodes of the TV series, the console game and the art book. All of this material is available to the writer, and part of the job of writing a tie-in is to study it, and study it well.

Let’s go back to Terrance Dicks. I’m lucky enough to have met him—my seven-year-old self can’t stop grinning from ear to ear—and when I did, I learned one important thing.

Terrance Dicks is not a Doctor Who fan.

This is a man who has written more Doctor Who than anyone else, who has shaped the childhoods of millions of people like me. When I really boil it down, I’m a writer because of Terrance. I owe him everything.

But… he’s not a fan. He’s a professional who was doing his job, and doing it well. He has an in-depth knowledge of the show. He knows what makes Doctor Who tick. He has an untold wealth of experience from working on the program itself.

His books are the best Doctor Who books. They were my favorites when I was growing up, and they are my favorites now.

But Terrance Dicks is a professional, not a fan, and that’s the primary qualification requires to write tie-in fiction, because tie-in fiction is not fan fiction.

…BUT IT DOESN’T HURT IF IT IS

This year, my first official tie-in novel comes out. It’s not a Doctor Who book—that particular ambition is still high on the bucket list—but an original novel based on the CBS TV show Elementary, which stars Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as Joan Watson in a modern interpretation of the Holmes mythos, swapping 19^th century London for 21^st century New York City.

I’m a professional writer, and this was another book contract. It also just happened that, Doctor Who aside, Elementary is my favorite TV show. The program sunk its claws deep into that particular part of my brain from the very start.

In fact, you could call me a fan.

Being a fan has some advantages. Elementary is a show I know inside-out and back-to-front. I know the universe, I know the characters, I know the stories. More importantly, I know how these three factors come together to create something unique to the show.

Knowing what makes Elementary tick gave me a hell of a head-start on the novel. Sure, I had all the help I needed—all the episodes at my fingertips, scripts, the top-secret story bible. These were valuable assets, but they weren’t a crutch. They were there when I needed them—and I did need them—but I was able to get to work straight away, with confidence and excitement.

Being a fan of a property will show in the finished work, and while this is a good thing, it can also be bad.

The good thing is that the tie-in should feel like the real deal. This is the most important thing about tie-ins. There are tie-ins where the book bears little resemblance to the show or movie the reader loves love, despite using all the right characters and all the right locations and all the right plots. If a fan knows the property, they’ll know how the property should feel. If the reader isn’t a fan, they’ll still be able to pick it up, even subconsciously.

The tie-in will feel right.

But being a fan can be dangerous. Fans can get carried away, the resulting work being indulgent and conceited, packed with every reference and obscurity imaginable. That’s when a tie-in truly becomes fan fiction—fiction that only a fan can read, or even understand.

I’ve read a few of these. They aren’t pretty.

TIE-IN FICTION IS EASY

The characters are ready-made. The universe is provided, fully-furnished with en suite bathroom and sea views. The story fits a formula, a template carefully constructed by the creators.

All you have to do is write. You know how it all works. You know what makes Stargate: SG1 Stargate SG:1 and Murder, She Wrote Murder, She Wrote. Get it right, understand the property, and it writes itself. All you are doing is transcribing the wild adventures that you can see in crystal clear 4K UHD in your mind’s eye.

Writing tie-in fiction is a piece of cake.

TIE-IN FICTION IS HARD

…but if you get it wrong, you’re in trouble. Star Trek fans want to read about the continuing voyages of the Enterprise or, erm, Voyager, and they want to see what their favorite characters will do and how they will tackle whatever diabolical obstacle course the writer has carefully laid out for them.

Listen, very carefully. This is important.

We’re in some very treacherous waters here, because what we’re talking about here are favorite characters. Fictional creations, brought to life on the screen by talented professionals in performances that people not only love and have loved for decades, but feel they own themselves. It could be Harrison Ford as Han Solo, William Shatner as Captain Kirk, Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor.

Which means one thing: the writer has to get it right.

Plot and story is largely incidental, so long as you’re within the boundaries of the property. Story may be King, but with tie-ins, character is God-Emperor.

And make no mistake, capturing the essence of a character that has been long-established by someone else—whether it’s another writer or showrunner or actor—is hard work. It requires study. It requires the writer to be at the top of their game.

Writing a good tie-in novel is damn hard work. Immensely rewarding, fantastically satisfying, and the best fun ever.

But, boy, it ain’t easy.

SAY HELLO TO YOUR NEW AUDIENCE

Some writers make their break in tie-in fiction, but often they’ll come in with their own steadily climbing back catalogue of “original” fiction. That back catalogue—and that writer—will have their own readership, their own fans.

Tie-in fiction comes with its own audience—the audience of the show or the film, the readership of the last two hundred novels in the series. While an author will bring their own readership to the property, they also be introducing themselves to a whole new audience.

That audience might be huge. Tie-in novels frequently appear on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s possible for the writer to reach many new readers; if the tie-in is in a genre they haven’t previously written for, that potential pool is even bigger.

New writers, new readers. Tie-in fiction is an opportunity for both sides to discover something new and wonderful.

It doesn’t get more exciting than that.

TIE-IN FICTION EXISTS IN A WEIRD TWILIGHT ZONE 

Tie-ins have been around forever, and in the past they’ve been overlooked, even sneered at. They’re not real books, some would argue. They’re not original novels, they are a lesser form of fiction and they are easy and lazy because most of the work has been done for the writer. The writer doesn’t hold the copyright, doesn’t get paid that much, the royalties are terrible—if there are royalties at all.

There are exceptions, but tie-ins don’t usually appear on This Year’s Most Anticipated Books That Will Save Civilization As We Know It! lists. They tend to be skipped over for Last Year’s Books That Blew My Mind And Changed My Life Forever! lists. They don’t win awards. They aren’t even considered for them, unless there is a specific tie-in category.

For the writer, there is a strange period of quiet prior to release. There are no Advance Reader Copies and there are no advance readers. There are no early reviews. The day the book is on the shelf in the store is the day that anyone will be able to get hold of it.

In a way, this means that tie-ins are genuinely books for readers. They come with no preconceptions, no baggage. Only a sense of excitement and anticipation.

…BUT TIE-IN FICTION IS STILL ORIGINAL FICTION AND, Y’KNOW, JUST AS WORTHY

Look, let’s quit with the literary snobbery. Tie-ins are not some “lesser” form of fiction. That’s ridiculous. Tie-ins are “original”. There is no flow-chart or algorithm to follow, no random number generator that will fill in the plot while the author merely pilots the pre-existing characters through it with one eye on the clock.

A tie-in novel is exactly that: a novel. It’s the blood, sweat and tears of the author. It’s the work of the writer trying very hard to write the best thing they ever have. It’s long hours and late nights and office walls covered with post-it notes.

Just like any other novel. And just like any other novel, a tie-in is something a writer should be proud of. This is creation out of nothing, art out of thin air. Yes, with a tie-in the writer is supplied with a toolkit and a few blueprints, but the novel is theirs, the story is theirs. 

BUT ABOVE ALL, TIE-IN FICTION IS HELLA GOOD TIMES

Tie-in fiction is a celebration. Tie-in fiction is the opportunity for a writer to work—and play—in an amazing world that is beloved by millions. It’s a privilege and an honor to be given the keys.

Tie-in fiction is the chance for fans to explore new horizons, new stories, to see their favorite characters face new challenges and defeat new enemies.

Tie-in fiction is hands-down, pedal-to-the-metal fun. It’s a real joy, for the writer and the reader both. Tie-in fiction is for readers who want more, and there is no way on Earth that can be a bad thing.

I love tie-in fiction. I grew up with it. My home is filled with shelves of it. And now I’m writing it.

Seven-year-old me would be very, very happy.

ELEMENTARY: THE GHOST LINE

A summons to a bullet-riddled body in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment marks the start of a new case for consulting detectives Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson. The victim is a subway train driver with a hidden stash of money and a strange Colombian connection, but why would someone kill him and leave a fortune behind? 

The search for the truth will lead the sleuths deep into the hidden underground tunnels beneath New York City, where answers — and more bodies — may well await them…

Adam Christopher: Website | Twitter

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