Q: You draw us in at the beginning of the book with your personal discovery of the tie-in form. That autobiographical touch is an undercurrent throughout the book. While any non-fiction book reflects the point of view of its writer, the line of demarcation can be variable. Where does yours draw the line between the subjective and objective points of view, as regards media tie-in history, literary appraisal, author biographies and examination of how-they-approach-it craft?
A: Interesting question; the answer may need a bit of context, so I’ll start with this:
The book’s subtitle begins with the words, “an affectionate history,” so my bias is pretty much on the label. Although I couldn’t extricate my bias if I cared to. The reason for my book’s existence is to champion the cause of media tie-in books, plus their authors, artistry and craft.
And that’s because adaptive and original media tie-ins constitute a literature—a genuine literature—that has a history well over a century old. That history encompasses thousands of writers of all stripes: dedicated pulpsmiths, genre specialists, dramatists, historians, journalists, internationally renowned brand names, unknown writers whose tie-ins make their names a brand—who have collectively produced millions of books. And have certainly delighted many millions of readers; not to mention inspiring countless aspiring writers who go on to significant careers; and admit their inspiration without shame. I very much among them.
Yet, media tie-ins have been under-appreciated, often dismissed as hackwork, crass tools of merchandising, when in fact, effectively going from filmed property to prose involves no less a degree of artfulness—and is no more commercial-minded—than going from prose to filmed property. (Equally artful is the creation of original stories “borrowing” the characters and conventions of a pre-existing storytelling universe.) The Novelizers exists to correct that false impression. Definitively and for all time. Smiley emoticon, but I’m not kidding.
Which brings us to the dividing line between passion and probity.
I’ve learned that if I impose assumptive guidelines before I start writing, I can easily head down a false path and get stuck. Whereas if I write for a while, trusting the flow just feel right—and it can take a while to get there—the true destination eventually emerges. Whereupon I have this “vision,” if you will, of a line drawn backwards from the endpoint to my start-point. And that gives me the path to follow. So with The Novelizers, it was less about consciously drawing the line than subconsciously filtering, which happened gradually and organically, as appropriate to the subject or topic at hand.
For example: There are historical chapters…about the beginnings of media tie-ins, starting circa 1915 through the mid-30s…about the British Book of the Film series that dominated the mid-to-late 1940s…about the rise of paperback tie-ins starting in the 1950s…about US and UK television novels and their differences, etc. Those are very richly detailed chronicles of development. I’m “present” in those narratives to be sure, but only as a kind of tour guide.
Contrastingly, my detailed profiles of the late, legendary Michael Avallone (who authored many novelizations, plus originals based on The Man and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Mannix, Hawaii Five-O, etc.) and the late thriller novelist Walter Wager (who wrote the brilliant I Sy novels as “John Tiger”) are appraisals as personal as they are biographical, because they meant so much to me, and I knew them. My profile of the late William Johnston (most prolific tie-in author ever, novelizations and TV drama originals—Ironside, Ben Casey, among others—but best known as the sitcom specialist who wrote originals based on Get Smart, The Flying Nun, Happy Days, The Brady Bunch and many more) is more of a primer about a singular career. My chapter about the late Stewart James is about tie-ins as a conduit to discovering great, forgotten voices. (My “rediscovery” of James even led to four of his non-tie-ins, deceptively published as ‘60s sleaze, being reissued in new trade editions.)
My profile of the astonishing, still-living, still-active Linda Stewart (novelizer who as “Sam” and “Kerry” Stewart, adapted the McCoy pilot, Harry and Walter Go to New York, Fun with Dick and Jane, Absence of Malice among others)—while somewhat fueled by my personal admiration—is a deep-dive craft discussion dominated by her voice and documentation: detailed letters to editors, retained in her files. (Gold, I tells ya. Treasures!) I had similar live interaction with such notables as John Peel (Star Trek, Doctor Who, many others), Martin Noble (Private Schulz, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Tin Men, others), Tom Graham (Life on Mars) and the editors of the Powys Media Space: 1999 “integrated continuity” project. All of those chapters, sections, passages reflect the authors’ personalities, philosophies and approaches, with many supporting excerpts.
For the new, Second Edition chapters, I had the privilege of interviewing Canadian authors Diane Baker Mason (who novelized Men With Brooms from a Paul Gross-John Krizanc screenplay), Norman Allan (Lies My Father Told Me, based on his father Ted’s screenplay) and bestselling legal thriller novelist William Deverell (Street Legal, a novelization of his own original, forgotten two-hour pilot script). Each one of them fantastically unique. Yet part of a giant literary tapestry.
And throughout the process of both editions there was this constant thrill of discovery, as I followed threads and clues to facts and and backstories that had never before been connected to their books or their eras. While writing the new chapter on Canadian tie-ins, I tracked down the identity of Barry Morgan, the very small-print, almost anonymous by-line on a novelization of the pilot episode for Wojeck (first Canadian TV drama series with continuing characters, about a big-city coroner, written and created by Philip Hersch). Turns out Morgan was a nearly-forgotten CBC pioneer, a writer-producer who had himself specialized in legal drama, none of whose work seems to have been preserved. Except for copies of this fly-by-night-looking Wojeck paperback. (Which was the first-ever Canadian tie-in!)
And as it happens, the historical facts, the output of the featured authors, the prose examples, the considerations of craft, etc. all support the filter of enthusiasm for the literature; the facts prove the thesis. And in effect that created what you’re referring to: an alchemical fusion of subjective and objective perspective.
Q: Any creative art form evokes the zeitgeist of its moment, catching the scent of its time in the wind, whether or not the creators intend that. Do works of tie-in fiction—the books themselves, as opposed to the source material they’re based on—achieve this?
A: Very much so. Popular literature frequently pulses with changes in idiomatic language, social sensibility, storytelling style trends. In many cases, you could take two similarly themed tie-ins from two different eras and “blind” sample them—without titles, authors, or source attribution—and be able to tell which is more recent than the other. Even if the side-by-side books are not similarly themed, a distinct authorial voice can by itself suggest an era. Two books by the same author can even identify different eras within the author’s career. (I should add, there are authors so distinctive that, if you know their style-tells, can be identified without a byline, or through the ‘firewall” of a pseudonym.) And of course, the source properties themselves are a tell.
If, by your question, you’re asking if movie and TV tie-ins can achieve literary permanence, capturing lightning-in-a bottle for future readers and posterity—yes, that too. Irving Shulman’s novelization of West Side Story (1961) was released concurrent with the first film and has never been out of print. David Westheimer’s novelization of JP Miller’s Days of Wine and Roses (1962), about a married couple in the grip of alcoholism, was in print for decades. Fantastic Voyage (novelization 1965, film 1966)—about a miniaturized medical submarine and crew, injected into a dying patient—was a middling science fiction movie at best, but its impact has been made to linger for 60 years because the novelization, also still in print, was written by Isaac Asimov. In later years, two original TV tie-ins—Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse (2006) by Lee Goldberg, based, of course, on Monk; and Human Nature, a 1995 Doctor Who novel by Paul Cornell—were adapted (if somewhat freely) for actual episodes, reversing the usual process. And then there are novels that have stuck around simply because they’re linked to juggernaut properties, such as Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek and etc. Which have spawned many writers now considered brand names. And communities of writers who become brand names within the property brand; you think Doctor Who teleplay novelizations, the first name that pops to mind—among dozens—is Terrence Dicks.
Indeed, in many ways, because these books are born of popular culture, reflection of their era is built into the matrix.
Q: You’ve added a new section: 156 pages containing four new chapters. Talk about them.
A: There’s the chapter on Canadian tie-ins I’ve mentioned—
Q: Yes, well get back to that…
A: There’s a chapter on TV tie-in controversies; one involving a six-book series that was published without securing the rights to the legal drama source scripts that were adapted (L.A. Law); and another six-book series, about women in jail, that had both fans and the stars of the series, up in arms over what they considered a soft-porn delivery (Prisoner: Cell Block H). Adding to the ironies, the L.A. Law book series, based on an American TV show, was published in England, and written by mostly British writers; and the Prisoner: Cell Block H books, based on an Australian series, were published in the States and written by Americans. Which aren’t just peculiar details, but were vital components of each controversy.
There’s also a chapter on tie-in novelizations based on properties that were either Sherlock Holmes pastiches or variations on the Holmes-Watson template, with different characters, profiling three of the most influential.
And finally there’s a chapter in which I interview past-and-present leadership of IAMTW, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers: Lee Goldberg and Max Allan Collins, the award-winning, bestselling novelists who started it; plus Jonathan Maberry and Deb Stevenson (aka “Rigel Ailur”) who took it over.
Q: The longest of those new chapters is the one devoted specifically to a history-survey of tie-ins written and published in Canada. In the First Edition of The Novelizers you have passages and chapters that compare and contrast the differences between tie-ins from the US and the UK, which generate them, and authors of them, prolifically. But Canada has generated astonishingly few. As you say, eight; arguably nine. Why give Canadian tie-ins and their authors so much loving attention if they appear so rarely?
A: Most importantly, the books are uniquely and compellingly Canadian: The Rowdyman can be set nowhere except a paper mill town in Newfoundland. Wojeck, about a big city coroner, and Street Legal, about a storefront lawyer firm in Toronto, address recognizable urban controversies but via Canadian law and Canadian society. As to Men With Brooms: what could be more Canadian than a romantic sports comedy about curling, set in a fictional, close-knit Ontario town which combines aspects of Winnipeg, Uxbridge and Greater Sudbury? Lies My Father Told Me is a story peculiar to the Jewish ghetto neighborhood of post-WWII Montreal. Passchendaele (a WWI story) and Hyena Road (the war in Afghanistan) are about key events in the nation’s military history. A Gift to Last novelizes the first-season episodes of a series about life in the small Ontario town of Tamarack near the turn of the 20th century, whose central character is a colorful and irreverent Sergeant, later a veteran, of the Royal Canadian Regiment. Each of them is based on watershed material. With an authorial voice to match and enhance the imprimatur of its source property.
As notably—the second reason I chronicled these books and their authors—each tie-in broke through an infrastructure completely unfriendly to media fiction as a regular occurrence. It has to do with Canada’s not having a studio system as the primary mechanism—with ancillary promotional money budgeted into so many properties—but rather the Canadian Film Board as a kind of overseer of independent production companies. And as you might imagine, independent productions are not a lure for publishers who’d only acquire tie-in rights if they thought the resultant book’s odds of being a commercial success were very favorable. (This speaks to similar circumstances which make tie-ins from other English-speaking countries—Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland—similarly infrequent.)
And after having explored conditions that have allowed US and UK tie-ins to be prolific—again, with the understanding that tie-ins constitute a genuine literature, worthy of preservation—examining a phenomenon that practically forces each book to be not only a rare event, but a significant event, struck me as equally valuable.
Which in turn circles back to your first question. The subject of tie-in literature can be explored endlessly, and as with any other history, you never know when a passing fact you discover can be the key to unlocking an epoch, even an epic.
And, having backed into my little niche as the expert media tie-in historian—not something I ever consciously intended, but it happened—if I don’t preserve that history as I continue to uncover more and more about it…the history that proves again and again what a grand literature tie-ins are…who will?