TY - JOUR
AU - Clarke, M., J.
AB - Abstract This article examines the production of media tie-in novelizations in the context of contemporary network television and their attempts to expand content outside of the confines of traditional programming. Following a production of culture approach, the article combines interviews with tie-in authors with textual analysis of the texts they produce. Through a thorough examination of the drafting of a series of novels based on the American Broadcasting Company's series, Alias, I will suggest the ways in which the ambivalence towards networked creative labor, who are both connected and disconnected from the decision-makers of the on-air series, results in distinct series of work practices and textual strategies among freelance creatives and their intermediate supervisors. In conversation, one writer of media tie-in novels recently told me—half in jest—that his novels, in the grand scheme of multiplatform licensing strategies, rank “somewhere beneath the souvenir t-shirt in terms of importance.”1 This perceived low status for tie-in writers and their products is also well demonstrated in the fallout following Bad Twin, a novel integrated with the U.S. television drama series Lost. The book was sold as having been written by one of the ill-fated passengers on Oceanic Flight 815, from within the series diegesis, who died in the plane's crash. After the book was met with less than enthusiastic responses, the Lost showrunners attempted to distance themselves from the project, supporting the claim that the book's fictitious author, Gary Troup, was indeed the man flung into the wrecked airliner's engine in the series pilot and that, in the words of showrunner Damon Lindelof, “considering that I have now read Bad Twin, Gary Troup got exactly what he deserved.” Yet this derision is ironic when one considers the larger efforts of the makers of network tentpole TV programs to extend their reach into other media. As streamability—the ability of television properties to become franchised in this way—becomes more central to network programming strategies, numerically and economically, the contributions of the tie-in novel can be less dismissed as tangential to an audience's (or critic's) understanding of any given series (Murray, 2005). Concomitantly, an examination of any of these series cannot be complete without considering the creative contributions of these tie-in authors. For example, the tie-in writer Max Allan Collins has drafted six novels based on the fictional world of CSI for the publisher Simon & Schuster, another two for the series' spinoff CSI: Miami, three comic book miniseries for IDW Publishing, and two CSI videogames, along with another videogame based on CSI: Miami. Arguably, Collins has contributed as much to the “world” of CSI as many of its on-air producers and writers. In this essay I will consider the work of media tie-in authors, primarily through the rubric of one line of books, the so-called APO (Authorized Personnel Only) Series based on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) TV program Alias. The ambivalence concerning these projects and their relationship to the on-air programs echoes throughout the process of these books' production and has visible, textual consequences on the finished novels themselves. Here I am drawing on the production of culture perspective within sociology that “focuses on how the symbolic elements of culture are shaped by the systems within which they are created” (Peterson, Richard, & Anand, 2004, p. 311). Specifically, I will be looking at the organizational structure of tie-in production and consider how this work situation leads to a privileging of a certain set of vernacular aesthetics that provide “solutions” for the difficult creative situation of the tie-in authors.2 This difficulty stems from the ambivalence mentioned above. With this term I am simply referring to the fact that the production of these novels is central to the task of achieving streamability—a primary strategy of postdigital television networks—whereas they are, at the same time, distanced from the on-air productions. This distance is observed, for example, in the fact that, unlike the production of TV-based comic books, videogames, or Web sites, there is little fluidity between writing talent working on these novels and their television counterparts. This supervisory ambivalence directly informs a series of paradoxical constraints and restrictions placed upon tie-in writers, which one author described to me as a “strict maze” of “creatively crippling strictures.” However, my purpose here is not to decry the creative situation of the tie-in writers, but to demonstrate what strategies and practices they bring to their often-difficult line of work. Following Anthony Giddens's (1979) suggestion that “to study the production of the text is at the same time in a definite sense to study the production of its author,” I will ultimately demonstrate how these novels both reflect and reflect upon the unique circumstances of their production (p. 43). In the very least, this will serve to contribute a modicum of complexity and complication to the theorization of the lived process of streamability and synergy. To achieve this, I will use a series of interviews with APO authors along with the comments of supervisors and freelancers working on other similar properties. Lastly, I will amend this consideration of production with a textual analysis of the novels themselves. However, I begin with a broader consideration of the contemporary publishing industry in general and the importance of media tie-ins. Postdigital publishing and media tie-ins The slow death of the book may be with us (Senoir, 2008, p. 41). Like many of the other major cultural industries, publishing is currently marked by upheaval having to do with “the digital” in the broadest sense of the term, that is concerning the threat of potential alternative forms of production, exhibition, and, most importantly, distribution. This anxiety over the changing nature of the business, for example, has indirectly led to the replacement of head managers at three of the four top publishers—Random House, Harper Collins (HC), and Simon & Schuster—in the past 21/2 years (Rich, 2007; Rich, 2008b; Getlin, 2008b). Again, the perceived threat to publishing, as to other cultural industries, resides most squarely in disrupting the firms' dominance over mass distribution. Traditionally, major publishers have worked through a system of massive print runs sent to large bookstores and chain retailers, of which 20%–40% is typically returned to the publisher for destruction (Nias, 2008). This system has been profitable for the stores, who are all well-stocked; the printers, who work near capacity; and publishers, who, in the manner described by sociologist Paul Hirsch (1991), overproduce to find and exploit the next “hit.” However, this system has been disrupted by the appearance of online distribution, which bypasses both the need for physical retailers and large print runs via the use of print-on-demand manufacturing and direct-to-consumer shipping. In addition to indirectly leading to the bankruptcy of the U.S.'s #2 book retailer, Borders, these changes have tampered with the publisher's ability to market their product. Without the clear-channel conduit of market-dominating bookstores, publishers are in danger of losing their gate-keeping/agenda-setting role. Within the popular and industrial press, these problems have been answered with a litany of “innovative” firms and entrepreneurs working to embrace new models of business through some of the following strategies. Increased presence on the Internet—Trade and popular press reports highlight efforts made by publishers to make their content, as well as Web-original content, available online (Senoir, 2008; Getlin, 2008a; Rich, 2006). This includes full-text searches of books through publisher Web sites as well as streamed author interviews. Niche production—Several major publishers have reportedly moved into attempts to capitalize on underutilized markets, particularly through books in Spanish and books focusing on the demographic between “teen” and “middle age” (18–34), who are traditionally understood as light or nonreaders. Nontraditional outlets—Several articles report on efforts made by publishers to get books in subject matter appropriate, nonbook retailers, for example, placing DIY (do it yourself) books in the Home Depot hardware chain or books on upwardly mobile youth in the Urban Outfitters clothing chain (“S&S Turns,” 2006). On-demand—Publishers have also reportedly experimented with the idea of on-demand printing, that is, limiting book manufacturing to firm orders rather than overproducing, thereby eliminating waste and taking advantage of online consumerism. Such a scheme has been explored by former Hyperion founder Robert Miller, who, for HC, now heads a division that uses this risk-reduced model and offers potential authors a 50/50 profit-sharing deal, replacing advance schemes—the typical method of reimbursement in the era of mass production (Rich, 2008a). In other words, on-demand printing allows for new financial schemes whereby publishers profit from the very first book sold instead of waiting for the economies of scale to pay off. Cross-promotion—For our purposes the most interesting response to the digital threat in the publishing world involves the use of other media for cross-promotions. Of course, the book business has always relied on other media for exposure (as in excerpts printed in magazines) and content, but the exploitation of properties across media addresses the loss of marketing power, lost in terms of audience attention. Like television producers, book publishers often favor projects that have a multiplatform strategy. Or, in the words of Debbie Olsham, Fox's director of worldwide publishing, “it's such a competitive market, the more you reach out through many channels to get your property noticed, the better” (Maas, 2003b). Perhaps owing to the fact that publishers infrequently retain any subsidiary rights on their book properties (these are commonly retained by the author), book publishers have achieved this multiplatforming by more aggressively reaching out to partners (frequently in the same corporate umbrella) in other media forms interested equally in cross promotion. Licensed book titles have the obvious marketing advantage of having a major film release, a weekly TV series, or some other media event driving its sales. Media tie-ins, in their ability “to tap into a pop lexicon …. and sell to a built-in audience,” fit squarely within this strategy (Maas, 2003a). Film studies scholar Justin Wyatt (1994) finds the roots of this technique of cross-promotion, with respect to Hollywood product, in the “conglomeration of the industry, which sought a more financially conservative, less risky approach to filmmaking … with saturation releases creating a need for high awareness, the marketing forms—through commercials, music, and merchandising—developed to service this requirement” (p. 154). In other words, Wyatt is describing a more attenuated hit model than Dimaggio that uses ancillary crosspromotion to reduce risk. Such an agenda was arguably advanced as publishing became largely an adjunct to media conglomerates themselves. For example, News Corp purchased HC in 1989 and greatly expanded the publisher with the subsequent purchase of both Avon and William Morrow in 1999. Contemporaneously, Bertelsmann purchased Random House in 1998 and Viacom purchased Simon & Schuster in 1999. Yet more pointedly than even these ownership moves, one can look to the advent of several imprints formed within these larger publishers specifically to exploit entertainment properties, commonly within the same corporate umbrella. For example, on the occasion of the 1998 formation of the imprint Harper Entertainment (HE) within HC, HE executives announced that the imprint “will offer products related to movies, TV, celebrities and sports” and that “among the first properties to carry the HE logo will be books on the NBA, The X-Files, and NASCAR” (Milliot, 1998, p. 10). The later two brands, unsurprisingly, were in heavy rotation on News Corp's own cable and broadcast networks. More recently, the technique of cross-promotion can be observed in the formation of Simon Spotlight Entertainment (SSE). Founded in 2003 as an imprint under CBS's Simon & Schuster, SSE adopted a mandate to be entirely media-centric; in fact the firm's very logo is its initials superimposed on a lateral strip of film. In the words of associate publisher Jen Bergstrom, the intention behind the publishing house was to “launch an imprint that would be completely dedicated to taking brands and TV shows and celebrities and issues that are hot in the media and leveraging them into a new format” (Singer, 2004). By exploiting the media footprint of exogenous hits, the editors at SSE, and firms like it, have sought to capture more of the abovementioned 18–34 demographic. Part of this strategy has been the publishing of traditional tie-ins, that is, novels set within the fictional worlds of pre-existing properties. For example, from April 2006 to December 2006 SEE published a series of 13 books based on ABC's Alias, subtitled the APO Series. The production of tie-in novels is by no means unique to the contemporary moment. Indeed critic Jan Baetens (2007), referencing silent film catalogues as an early variety of textual transcription, has stated that “roughly speaking novelization is as old as film itself” (p. 228). The same could be said for television with respect to the adaptations of soap opera storylines into magazine digests or the screenplays of Hollywood telefilms into paperbacks. However, as I have suggested, there are qualitative differences between these earlier examples and contemporary tie-ins. Economically, the more recent books embody a heightened importance for both the uncertain television and publishing industries. Textually, they also constitute a difference in subject matter. In the past, tie-in writers would typically adapt pre-existing materials into a new medium. The APO novels (and other series like them) are “original” novels that expand what critic Matt Hills (2002) has called the hyperdiegesis of the on-air series, that is, the narrative world implied, but not revealed, in the original programs. Creative decisions made by current tie-in writers, consequently, have potentially lasting effects on an intellectual property as a whole and, as a result, its financial value. Such an observation goes a long way in explaining the ambivalent supervision to which tie-in writers are subject to in their writing process. Minimizing contact We usually know what we want to publish … it's then a matter of wrapping the right author and spokesperson around it. (Wyatt, 2005) Jen Bergstrom, Associate publisher of SSE In studying the practices of tie-in production, I have found many areas of overlap with my findings concerning TV-adapted comicbooks. Specifically, the production of both is marked by an overriding, implicit mandate to minimize contact and interaction between all the participants. To achieve this minimization, all the involved parties—producers (those employed by the producing studio of the on-air series), licensors (those employed by the licensing and merchandising divisions of the parent studio of the on-air series), editors (those employed by the publishing firm that purchased the licensing rights to the series), and the actual novel writers—undergo a series of typical practices that make communication altogether unnecessary, or at least as much as possible. Like most ancillary media, the production of tie-in novels is achieved by the combination of supervisory and freelance labor, and yet the assignation of either becomes problematic. With respect to writers, the editors are the supervisors. Writers are hired by the editors on a per-project basis, thereby minimizing a publisher's commitments to the authors, financial and otherwise. Even in cases where authors draft multiple titles for a series, contracts are still frequently based on single assignments. Compensation is typically given in the form of an advance with the possibility of royalties (at the typical rate of between 1% and 3% per unit) to be paid out on the successful accumulation of royalties in excess of the initial advance (“The Business … Part One”). However, with respect to the licensors, editors are freelancers. Publishers actively bid for the licensing rights to pre-existing properties, entering arrangements that could be based on either the production of a preagreed number of books or a preordained amount of time. Ultimately, these licenses lapse and licensors can cultivate deals with multiple publishers over the life of a property. Indeed such was the case with Alias, a program that was featured in a line of Young Adult books published by Bertlesmann-Random House's Bantam Books before SSE acquired the program license. Because these licensors represent the rights holders, they frequently have the final say in the projects, yet they have no responsibility over the physical manufacturing of the books themselves. One editor-writer has described this common arrangement saying “the licensor generally has the ‘power’ in these situations—a writer has to adhere to strict deadlines, while a licensor can drag its heels on approval and, unless there's a clause in the contract to help you, there's not much you can do—what you can never do is put out material that the licensor has not approved, either specifically or tacitly.” Temporary relationships, the norm for both editors and writers, reduce interaction between all the parties involved to a rationalized approval process. In tie-in writing, interaction between those working on single projects can be characterized as a process of double approval. The work of writers is reviewed and critiqued at two levels by both the editor and the licensor; as one APO writer put it, the authors are always “two steps removed” from the actual series. Often these separate layers of supervision result in different responsibilities for each. At least one APO writer recounts an instance where licensors were able to spot continuity errors that were ignored by publisher editors (Mata, n.d.). Continuity is a term often used by makers of serialized narratives in all media formats. It refers to the accumulated wealth of details and past plot information necessary to create noncontradictory additions to the franchise. This continuity becomes much more difficult to manage in serialized properties, wherein each addition potentially changes the rules of the series. It is then unsurprising that licensors would become the stewards of this continuity given that their relationship to the properties is much more long-term and far-reaching, that is, extending over multiple licensing deals and formats. One tie-in writer-editor has suggested that this results in an implicit division of labor, whereby “licensors should be concerned with how well the book represents their property, while publishing company editors should be watching for the elements that make a good book, but are not property specific.” Multiple layers of supervisor oversight establish a model similar to what Richard Peterson has called the characteristic “decision chains” of cultural industries, wherein projects must be sold and resold within their producing firms before ever being “finished” (Alexander, 2003, pp. 94–96). Later I will consider how this organizational pattern ultimately impacts upon the novels produced. However, we can now at least point out that editors, as middlemen in the chain, free up the resources of the licensors and minimize their own responsibility in individual projects and, thus, their need for interaction. Double approval also refers to the temporal process of tie-in production in which interaction is attenuated into two discrete moments: the review of the outline and the review of manuscript. It is, however, overwhelming during the former that comments, notes, and interaction between the involved parties is most pervasive. Typically a tie-in writer, in preparation for writing, will produce an outline, varying in length from 10 to 25 pages that are examined by supervisors. One APO writer described this process saying “ABC makes the overwhelming majority of their comments during the proposal stage as opposed to the manuscript stage. It is not unusual to go through several rounds of revisions on a proposal to make sure that it's perfect before being given approval to move ahead to the manuscript.” A writer who worked on a tie-in novel based on ABC's Lost described an even more involved series of steps involved in the preproduction saying “the process was that I had to write five basic plot ideas and then they [the licensors] chose one. And then I had to write a long synopsis for that one … they made me write ever increasingly detailed synopses. So, by the time that I got down to actually writing, I'd thought it out pretty clearly.” The practice of focusing on preproduction (that is, the outline stage) works in a manner similar to that observed in the production of TV-based comic books. Frontloading scrutiny achieves a basic level of trust that reduces the need for subsequent interaction between freelancers and supervisors. I described this in a previous essay by comparing it to Anthony Giddens's social theory that explains that consistency and self-identity is continually rebought through trust in others. Similarly, the porous “identity” of tentpole TV programs is won less through extensive scrutiny than through trust in collaborators. Conversely, the APO writers were typically given very little feedback at the manuscript phase. The same APO author quoted immediately above further stated that “once I turned in the manuscript, ABC's and my editor's comments were relatively minor.” Another APO author described the process of manuscript revision as “either serious or minor nitpicks … a lot dumb stuff like, let's tone down the violence or there's too much sex for Star Trek.” In the few instances where these minimal revisions are passed down from licensors to writers, they most frequently dealt with issues of canon and the concern of making the novels fit with the property. The focus on continuity also suggests that it is, ultimately, playing by the rules of the property that is of paramount importance in the production of tie-ins and is, therefore, singled out by both supervisors and freelancers as the essential attribute for tie-in writers. However, there is irony in the fact that both supervisors and freelancers consider their work in tie-ins as noncanon, that is, not “officially” part of the series. As I will demonstrate later, this attitude greatly affects who is hired to write these novels and how their work is done. But here I suggest only that supervisors often have little to say about manuscripts outside of considering how the novels play into the spirit of the series and, thus, avoid protracted discussion of the more cumbersome elements of novel writing (plot, character, point-of-view, etc.). The tie-in novels also frequently have extremely rapid production cycles and very tight deadlines. This is attributed to both the needs of the licensors/producers who need the novels published either concurrently with a broadcast premiere or hiatus as well as the needs of the publisher because tie-in books are “contracted as needed.” One APO writer describes this latter problem saying “because tie-ins are contracted as needed they [publishers] are less likely to have substitutes available, which would leave a hole in the line and result in lost revenue.” The rapid production schedules are exacerbated by the writers' freelance status; occupying the last position in the long decision chain, authors have little temporal control over their assignments. Additionally, there is a fundamental nonisomorphism between the timing of television work and publishing which frequently forces the latter to speed up to catch the former. Tie-in writers are given anywhere from two-and-a-half weeks to six months to write a novel with three months being the most typical deadline. Writers cope with this organizational constraint by making timeliness a cardinal virtue of their profession. As one APO writer put it, “almost in a weird way, and I don't want to sound derogatory, reliability and dependability is almost more important than sheer talent.” Similarly, author Steve Perry has flatly observed that, in tie-in production, “the deadline is set-set, and that's it, end of story. If you take the job, best you meet the date. If you don't they tend not to rehire you” (“The Business … Part One”). In my own research I also detected shades of a hot-shot mentality among the writers, one that takes pride in the breakneck speed and seeming intellectually precariousness of their work. For example, one prominent tie-in writer, Keith R.A. DeCandido, confessed in a recent article: “I love the looks on people's faces when I tell them that I’ve written a novel in 3 weeks with plenty of time” (“The Business … Part Three”). Making matters more difficult for freelancers is the fact that, typically, any time spent on the outline phase fails to alter the final deadline. When taking a job, tie-in writers must be sure that they can make the deadline regardless of subsequent complications, or as one APO writer put it, “having the confidence to say yes to [the] deadline is an absolute necessity in this business.” Again this limited temporal commitment to the series also works toward the implicit mandate of minimal contact, which is controlled in a very tight timeframe. Protracted discussion is simply not possible given the rapid production schedule. Related to both the mandate of minimizing contact and the practice of rapid deadlines is the rationalization of tie-in work. As in other industries (creative or otherwise), laborers attempt to boil work down to a regularized, machine-like process—or as much as possible. As one tie-in writer-editor put it, “I knew sometimes some very good writers … but I would not necessarily hire them for tie-in [work] because that's something that you need to be able to do, churn them out on a regular basis.” Regularity is also facilitated by writers' self-stated attempts to mimic the on-air series as closely as possible. In terms of minimizing contact, the close mimicking of the on-air program series serves to reduce the need for communication between the links in the decision chain, as the tie-in's relation to continuity is already emphatically established. This is advantageous to supervisors who can split their attention between projects, but the same could be said of the freelance authors who, given their rapid work style, can turn around into multiple projects. One APO writer stated in interview, “I try to write six or seven books a year because that's how you make a living … If you spend a year writing on an Alias book, that's a recipe for bankruptcy.” It could be argued that, just as important as a tie-in writer's familiarity with the on-air series is, their familiarity with the process of writing tie-ins in general which is held with as much weight and at least partially determines a writer's ability to have success and secure employment in the field. One APO writer describes the importance of “playing by the rules” in his explanation of the job: “we are playing with somebody's else's ball in their backyard. That means they get to make the rules, we get to stay in the yard. If we don't we’re going home.” The metaphor here was used to underscore the necessary humility in the tie-in writer, but can just as well be a reference to all the formal and informal “rules” of the production of tie-ins, having to do with both the textual specifics of individual series and the regular practices of the production of the novels in general, that is, what is normally allowed and not allowed, how the novels should relate to continuity, etc. With respect to the latter issues, supervisors commonly follow a series of hiring practices to maximize trust with freelancers and assure themselves that all the “rules” will be followed in advance. Tie-in editors tend to use and reuse the same stable of freelancers in multiple projects. More so than in other ancillary media, the tie-in labor pool seems even more protracted, as the same writers work on any number of tie-in series based on several different properties. One APO writer describes this practice of what we can call lateral hiring saying “when editors are looking for writers for a specific line, they will often ask other editors for recommendations.” The result of such a practice can be seen in the biographies of the APO writers, all of who (with one exception) have written extensively for other tie-in properties. Greg Cox (author of Two of a Kind, Namesakes, and The Road Not Taken) has written CSI, Star Trek, as well as several books based on Marvel and DC comic book properties. Paul Ruditis (author of Vigilance and Mind Games) has written books based on the TV series Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Roger MacBride Allen (2005), a writer of Star Wars novels, has bluntly described this practice in an essay entitled “Media Tie-ins: Why They’re Nearly Impossible for Beginners to Publish,” stating “ALL of the writers hired to do the Star Wars books had written and published books of their own before they were approached. They had track records.” For example, hiring practices also differ from those of the tied-in comicbook with respect to the fluidity between job roles. In the case of comicbooks, there has been a movement between those working on the on-air series and the writing tasks of drafting adaptations, seen both in the Heroes Web comic as well as recent translations of Warner Brothers' programs Supernatural and Chuck as well as FOX's Fringe, all of which were drafted by on-air writing staff. There is also a marked fluidity in the tie-in novel decision chain, but it is between editors, licensors, and the freelance writers. Indeed two APO writers (Emma Harrison and Greg Cox) have spent a considerable amount of time in their careers as editors, handling tie-in projects and one other (Paul Ruditis) began his career in the licensing department of Paramount. These career trajectories again underscore that it is an understanding of the practices and processes of writing tie-in novels that is seen as the most desirable trait in freelancers and most advantageous with respect to the implicit mandate of minimizing their contact with supervisors. Fandom I can't tell you how many times I’ve watched each episode of Buffy. I love the minutiae (Gorman) Nancy Holder, Media tie-in writer In his recent book, Media Work, sociologist Mark Deuze (2007) channels Zygmunt Bauman, by illustrating the collapsing boundaries of work, leisure, and rest in contemporary occupations, particularly in the cultural vanguard of media professions. This dissolution of barriers between work and not-work can be observed specifically in the manner in which the skills and products of fandom are deployed in the labor of tie-in novelists. In interview, tie-in writers typically espouse a previously existing devotion toward the properties they work on; indeed all of the APO writers I talked to discussed an attachment to Alias as a consumer prior to getting the assignment to write their novels. A comment by one APO writer sums up his attitude more generally: “I'm a big fan at heart, so I consider myself lucky to be able to do this for a living” (Brady, 2007). Sometimes these sentiments are taken even further as one APO writer, in discussing another property, stated “I was a HUGE fan of Buffy and Angel and really all things Joss Whedon (creator and head writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) for many years. Joss is one of the writers that I admire most in the world and one that I’ve often prayed to in times of literary need” (Mata). However, this fan's enthusiasm, found in tie-in writers, has more than a theological purpose. In the condition of minimized contact between freelancers and supervisors, tie-in writers use fandom and nonwork viewing habits as an informal source of research. In a previous essay, I described this in terms of Howard Becker's (1982) conventions—social norms that allow for collaboration across an artistic field. Fandom can be characterized as a similar form of social knowledge, facilitating the work of tie-in writers. Intimate connection with the series gives tie-in writers easy access to the minutiae of continuity, already seen to be paramount among the concerns of licensors. For example, one APO writer describes breaking into tie-in novels by virtue of his encyclopedic knowledge of the DC comic book character Batman (Brady, 2007). This fandom also hypothetically gives the writers easier access to their implied reader, arguably facilitating the conception phase of their work. Or, as another APO writer put it, “it all starts with the fact that I'm usually a fan of these shows myself. So, I always begin with what I want to see in a book like this” (Haag, 2004). In addition to tapping their own fandom, tie-in writers also mine the fandom of others, using fan-created artifacts as shortcuts in their own research processes. Quick access to fans on the Internet is particularly helpful when, for example, “there's a minor demon that I can't remember the name of,” or when you can “drop into an Alias chatroom and then ask, ‘hey, what kind of car does Sydney drive?”’ Another tie-in writer commented on his work on a line of books based on the WB's Roswell, stating “we even communicated with a few uber-fans to see if they knew details of character information that might be helpful” (“Writing”). These examples again both have to do with the minute details of continuity; yet, as I will demonstrate below, this fan's devotion to continuity has further reaching effects on the practice of tie-in writing. Just as often as tie-in novelists insist upon their prior devotion to on-air properties and the advantages of this devotion, the writers frequently make efforts to distinguish themselves from “hardcore” fans in general. In conversation, one APO writer stated “now there is a difference between being a fan and being a fan. I’ve never really been a hardcore fan of any show. Never dressed in costume for a convention. Never got into a heated argument about whether Buffy loved Angel or Spike more.” The beginning of this last statement is particularly surprising when one considers that its author has drafted several complete episode guides to a number of television series. Yet I would argue that the writer's final statement—having to do with debates over meaning within the show—gets at the heart of the matter and the cause of distancing fandom. Another tie-in writer explains—using a similar example—that there's a serious, hardcore contingent of Angel fans who believe that Buffy is Angel's soulmate and he can never be happy unless he's with her. There's an equally large and vociferous group, though who think the same thing about Angel and Cordelia. The writer can't please both constituencies, so the best thing to do is to present the characters and their relationships at that given moment in the series continuity. In other words, tie-in writers can use many of the tools of fandom (for example, minute details won by focused and repeated viewings as well as access to cooperative communities based on the accumulation of series continuity), but must shy away from speculation. Henry Jenkins (1992) describes the former as a fan's mode of reception, whereby “viewers watch television texts with close and undivided attention, with a mixture of emotional proximity and critical distance. They view them multiple times, using videotape players to scrutinize meaningful details to bring more and more of the series under their control” (pp. 277–278). However, in the end, tie-in writers must avoid fan speculation that would, one, fall in error of the principle of playing by the rules of the on-air series and, two, potentially invoke the ire of displeased fans. Avoiding this Scylla and Charybdis means simply avoiding anything that could be construed as interpretation. In his masterful discussion of Quattrocentro Italian painting, art historian Michael Baxandall (1972) goes to great lengths to explain how the so-called masterpieces of that era were deeply in conversation with the broader social context of their creation, going so far as to argue that “the 15th-century experience of a painting was not the painting we see now so much as a marriage between the painting and the beholder's previous visualizing activity on the same matter” (p. 45). In the author's more adventurous moments, Baxandall considers that the paintings were created to be in accord with the mental peculiarities, or “period eye,” of the mercantile patrons of the arts. For example, the author attempts to demonstrate how paintings exploit the visual habits of gauging—that is visually estimating the volume of containers—and setting proportions, two skills essential for the practice of trade and early capitalism among the patrons. I would argue that tie-in writers also craft their works with the visual attention of their implied readers in mind, in this case fans of the series. Indeed, I have found that, frequently in interviews with tie-in writers and their editors, it is the implied and actual scrutiny of fans that drives their attention to detail. Discussion of this scrutiny even takes on an adversarial tone. One APO writer reports on a catch of a continuity error by a licensor thankfully saying that she was “pleased that someone saw it before we moved forward … I know that the fans would have kicked my ass over it” (Mata, 2007). Another APO writer comments upon the particularly exacting standards of series fans upon tie-ins saying “people will trash a book simply because the author got a character's eye color wrong.” The period eye of the implied tie-in reader then is one that dissects the details of the tie-in and gauges them minutely against voluminous knowledge of on-air continuity. The visual skills brought to reading are those won through intensive television spectatorship. The cultivation of the particular period eye was achieved, in Baxandall's case of gauging and proportionality, by the expansion and propagation of arithmetic education. In our case of Alias fans, the period eye is facilitated by the fannish reading practices of incorporating texts into one's social life, repeated viewings and dissections of individual episodes. The latter practice has been made much more available, if not in practice then in theory, thanks to advances in home entertainment technologies and the exploitation of these advances. Earlier forms of fandom, as outlined by authors like Jenkins, can be described as social formations wherein desires outstripped product as fans produced their own media artifacts. These practices continue, but, arguably, the poles of desire and availability have been inverted as media accessibility, among a certain strata of consumer, increasingly moves toward complete temporal and spatial ubiquity. Or more simply, in our era of media abundance, one can see anything, anywhere at anytime. In the world of tie-ins, this abundance is a double-edged sword as it facilitates both authors' research as well as deeper scrutiny by fans. For example, many tie-in writers discuss an immersive research technique wherein authors use media abundance to become “instant experts” on the canon of the adapted series. In preparation for writing tie-ins, the authors often rewatch any number of on-air episodes, yet, ironically, they occupy themselves much less with tie-ins by other authors. Such a practice is described by Max Allan Collins, who outlined his preproduction work on the CSI books saying “I tend to not watch it, but record it and then watch a number of episodes in the days leading up to my starting the book … that immersion in the character and style of the show is extremely useful” (“Writing”). This immersion, in the opinion of at least one APO writer, makes the process much “easier,” particularly in comparison with “horror stories of people trying to write Get Smart novels back in the sixties when they basically had to watch the shows on the air” (Brady, 2007). If immersion has to do with volume, that is, watching a number of episodes in a concentrated fashion, one can also point to a separate practice among tie-in writers of close reading, wherein the authors try to grasp the structure of the on-air series, catalogue all its pertinent continuity details, and understand the property's more ineffable features (tone, mood, theme, etc.). One tie-in writer-editor describes his own, very extensive system of close reading saying “I make an effort to create my own ‘episode guide’… noting personality details, background details, location details, etc.,—anything that might become important in recreating the world of the show on paper.” Such observations won by focused, repeated viewings give the tie-in writers access to exactly what is neglected in minimized contact: the series boiled down to its incontestable core and broken apart into its essential details. It also allows the writers to make pronouncements concerning the nature of the adapted property, such as those of a tie-in writer who described the Buffy works by combining the “hero story” with lessons in humor and humility (Mata). Here we once again arrive at the very fine line distinguishing the tie-in writer with the fan. Immersion and close reading, on the surface, appear to be similar to the devotion paid by a fan, and the conclusions won by close readings seem dangerously close to what one could call fan speculation. It seems that the principal distinguishing feature between the two is simply the amount of rigor (perceived or actual) applied in the practices. One tie-in writer working on a Doctor Who novel described his own practice of immersion, saying “my most recent effort featured the fifth Doctor and one of [the] companions, Nyssa, so I sat [and] watched as many of the TV stories feature these characters as possible, to get the voices of the actors in my head” (“Writing”). Expanding upon this author's technique, I would argue that more generally immersion and close reading are often in service of achieving character “voice.” In my experience achieving “voice,” that is, making characters on the written page “sound” like the characters on-air, is chief among the accepted virtues of adapting tie-ins and the most telling characteristic in judging the relative success or failure, aesthetic or otherwise, of a project. As one of the APO writers put it, “one of the most flattering comments that I have received is that, in dialogue, my characters tend to sound exactly as they do on TV.” Another APO writer, discussing work on a different property, describes her own process of achieving voice, saying “Sometimes I write a line and then I think, wait a minute! Paige would never say that. That's a Piper line! Then I make the change. I figure that if diehard fans are reading my book they’ll pick up on things like that, too” (Haag, 2003). Again it is the implied scrutiny of the fan that drives deeper immersion and consequent fidelity to source material. Another indirect consequence of media abundance is the importance of making tie-ins value-added. Simply put, the contemporary production of tie-ins is marked by both an editorial mandate and an authorial aesthetic that focuses on giving a reader something more than what is presented in the on-air program itself. Having hypothetical instant access to all the episodes of the series via any number of channels, the implied reader is understood as no longer interested in simple retellings or reworkings of on-air events. Many editors have sought out new methods of attaching tie-in narratives to the series proper outside of mere repetition, particularly through the use of integration, that is, giving the book a place in the actual diegetic world of the series, as in our introductory example of Bad Twin. At least two problems, however, arise. Integration requires a large amount of coordination between supervisors and freelancers, a form of activity that, as we have seen, is generally in short supply. Moreover, “adding” elements to a series is fundamentally at odds with the other mandate of playing within the rules of a series, making it just one more example of the frequently paradoxical situation of the tie-in writer. The solution to this riddle employed by many tie-writers is to exploit the “unexplored gems” of the series. In the words of one APO writer: “Often times in developing tie-ins, you’re looking for that little unexplored gem; something that the original creators never had the time or interest in developing further but something that's worth more thought.” Another APO author described a similar process in slightly different terms: “with Alias, occasionally I try to find things—filling in the blanks—that they [the producers] don't flesh out too much in the TV show or throwing together different combinations of characters.” Tapping the unexplored gem means drawing on elements implied in the on-air series, but not directly addressed. Such a technique can be observed in several of the APO novels. For example, Namesakes (Cox, 2006) revolves around a revenge plot engineered by an ex-SD-6 agent whose life was ruined when the covert organization was exposed (in season two of the on-air series). Here the author is considering the unintended and unexplored consequences of an on-air event. Similarly, A Touch of Death (York, 2006) concerns the re-emergence of an SD-6 villain years after the group's abovementioned neutralization. This book uses the same on-air event and considers that it was not as final as the series protagonists had assumed (however, finality is reachieved with the antagonists' death at the novel's conclusion). Although the use of unexplored gems solves the paradox of value-added tie-ins, this practice is predicated precisely upon the forms of research mentioned above. In the case of our two above-mentioned examples, the authors needed an understanding of the so-called rebooting of the series in season two when SD-6 was dismantled. However, the use of unexplored gems further clouds the specific type of fandom that tie-in writers practice; at which point does the drawing out of the implied become interpretation or speculation? In the very least, one conclusion can be made concerning the above section: tie-in writers practice a very specific form of fandom—writing these novels, in the words of one APO writer, would be torture without this fandom—that marries a devotion to the series with a devotion to the rules of the series surmised through a regiment of strict research. The closest analogue that I can find is with academic television studies itself. Both disciplines share a research methodology of minute, concentrated observation, and both must find ways of using and managing media abundance and both must maintain a semblance of fidelity to the on-air series in their own writing. However, the most important distinction between the two camps is that TV studies has largely traded away what little contact is had by tie-in novelists for unlimited leeway of approach, subject matter, etc., making us, from a certain perspective, the least tied-in of tie-in writers. Constraints and solutions In an article entitled “A Methodological Framework for the Sociology of Culture,” Wendy Griswold (1987) introduced what she considered a holistic method for the study of all cultural expressions. The first step in this method was the consideration of the “intention” of producers or “the social agents purpose in light of the constraints imposed on him or her in the production of and incorporation of cultural objects” (p. 5). The construct of intention (“construct” because it could never be fully reconstituted) can be shaped into an intuited contract or “brief” which considers all the influencing factors (both impeding and facilitating) in any given work: social expectations, patron concerns, immediate circumstances, education, physical media, etc. As one brief example, we have already observed how the understanding of the period eye guides the work of tie-in professionals. On a more practical level, one overriding factor in such a hypothetical brief applied to the context of novelization would concern the difficulty of translating a property from a visual to a printed one. Most notable is the expectation of novels to deeply investigate the interior life of characters, a feature ostensibly absent in television episodes. One APO writer described this distinction stating “the books are different because we can get ‘inside their heads.’ In some ways we can be more intimate with the characters than the show can. This can lead to all sorts of difficulties.” Although those working, for example, on the Heroes Web comic frequently use internal monologue to rearticulate motivation, APO writers take a slightly different tack. Each of the novels is structured by a diffuse, shifting point-of-view, punctuated by brief, italicized passages of characters talking to themselves in self-directed asides. Arguably this device demonstrates how the authors work to “solve” the problem of subjectivity by applying another, previously mentioned, aesthetic standard, that of achieving character “voice.” These subjective asides are most frequently used to either make passing reference to on-air events, or to make explicit links between novel and on-air characters. For example, in Cox's Namesakes: “She [Sydney] figured Rivera's head would explode if she actually gave him the full particulars of her rocky relationship with Michael Vaughn. Like the time I stabbed him in the ribs and left him bleeding in a ditch, just to maintain my cover. Or the time he married a duplicitous double agent who tried to get us both killed” (p. 60). Or the asides can be used to elaborate on echo characters (thus serving to symbolize the measured, paradoxical connection that tie-in writers have with respect to the on-air series). For example, Sydney draws a parallel between herself and the novel's villain in Two of a Kind: “Had Maya led him astray, turning him from harmless stunts to major international espionage? If so she had gotten her alleged fiancé in seriously hot water. Just like I got Danny killed” (Cox, 2005a, 2005b, p. 62). Many APO writers also mention the difficulty of translating the pacing or distinct temporality of the on-air series into novel form. Alias, the television series, frequently featured exceptionally swift storylines incorporating rapid scene shifts and an unusually high number of set-ups. This caused problems for several of the APO writers, one of whom reported that he had gone two-thirds the way through his original outline, resulting in only 80 finished pages. This author then found a “solution” to this problem by intercutting another subplot involving series regular Nadia Santos. And, indeed, all of the authors' subsequent as well as all the other APO novels are marked by frequent intercutting between several intertwined plots, or between several perspectives on single events, often motivated by the use of walkie-talkie-like gadgets (an aesthetic device cribbed more or less directly from the on-air series). All of the APO writers use similar techniques to simulate the on-air series' jaunty pace. Several books make frequent use of what I would call after-the-fact plotting, wherein depicted events occur just after other important story events that have been elliptically excised. The end result is that the hypothetical pace is quickened by condensing present-tense actions and past-tense description together. Also several novels make liberal use of repeated events, whereby the same action replays multiple times from the perspective of multiple characters. This device functions in an opposite way with respect to after-the-fact plotting, extending rather than condensing events, with an arguably similar total effect, that is, a sense of juxtaposition. On a more rudimentary level several of the APO novels employ timed sequences, wherein a running clock (often attached to a bomb of some sort) accompanies the actions of the characters. In sum, all these techniques serve to demonstrate that writers must experiment with temporality to achieve a suitable adaptation. On a more theoretical level I have found that the brief for tie-in supervisors and freelancers can be understood as a combination of two paradoxical mandates that manifest both explicitly and implicitly in the production of the novels. On the one hand, all parties involved are guided by the constraint of nonrepetition that disallows anything that too closely resembles the on-air series. In response, tie-in authors ideally attempt to consider ideas/topics/plots in someway addressed, but not elaborated, in the on-air series. The vernacular aesthetics of the writers favor what I called unexplored gems to avoid, in advance, supervisors' need to eliminate anything that may overlap with previous or upcoming episodes. One APO writer referred to this constraint as the “bane of Star Trek writers,” whereby writers “come up with a brilliant plot and they [supervisors] come back and they say, ‘sorry, we’re doing that next season, you can't do that.”’ On the other hand, because tie-in writing is not, in the words of one tie-in novelist, “a free creative decision,” both the supervisors and the freelancers are subject to the constraint of noncontradiction whereby a tie-in novel must never openly contradict the on-air series. We have already seen this in supervisors' (in particular the licensors') attention to continuity and freelancers' tendency to mimic episodes and play by the rules. Put in more simple terms, tie-in writers find themselves in a situation where they must not replicate the on-air series, while simultaneously not being able to add anything different to the series. This is precisely the conflict isolated in the previous section, wherein authors immerse themselves in the details of a series to find an original angle on the pre-existing elements while carefully avoiding anything that could be termed interpretation. Moreover, the predicament returns us to the issue of this essay's introduction, that tie-in writers are incorporated in the series through repetition of key distinguishing features, but are held at a distance from the series by their limited textual power. These two paradoxical constraints, I argue, are central to the hypothetical contract between freelancers and supervisors and that one can understand the resultant novels as solutions to these problems presented primarily to freelance authors. However, I can, in the beginning of this discussion, point out that these constraints can have—by the accounts of producers and readers—deleterious effects on the novel produced. In conversation one author recounted to me the difficult process of writing a Lost tie-in novel: those were my rules to begin with: they [the novel's characters] couldn't do anything that would have any impact on what was actually happening on the series. And the main character had to be a character, one of the other 48 [survivors], one of the sort of background [constraint of nonrepetition]. But he could only interact with other people from the show [constraint of noncontradiction]. There couldn't be anyone else on the island. So, in other words, I couldn't use more than one of the background people. Subject to these two constraints explicitly imposed by supervisors, tie-in writers find themselves in a situation with only a minuscule amount of leeway, a situation that one tie-in author has characterized as a “strict maze.” More generally, freelancers employ a number of strategies to address each of these constraints individually. Noncontradiction, in the case of the APO novels, compels writers to include in their work the familiar elements of the on-air series such as exotic locations, rapid costume changes, and a requisite amount of emotional angst. More abstractly the APO writers, both in their novels and their discussions of them, work to maintain the status quo of the series. In other words, the APO authors craft their books such that they are hermetically sealed from the larger plot questions of the series. This is particularly ironic and problematic for the tie-in writers given the highly serialized nature of the on-air variant of Alias. Isolating their work as standalones is preferred by both supervisors and freelancers as a technique of both avoiding the possibility of contradiction and of minimizing the need for coordination and contact. One APO author in conversation recounted his stumbling upon this technique: [Alias] constantly shook-up who's on whose side, everybody's a triple, double agent who's actually working for this. I really needed to know what was going on and they [supervisors] sent me stacks of scripts and we [the author and show writer Jesse Alexander] had this long talk on the phone. Even then I discovered that it was probably best to stay away from any of their ongoing arc-plots [and] do a nice stand-alone, beginning-middle-end spy adventure for Sydney that didn't tie into what Sydney's mother was doing this season … I would have liked to use characters like Sark and Irina, but they had this tangled continuity that it was better to just invent my own villains and stay away from whatever was the ongoing conspiracy of the season. The aesthetic impact of maintaining the status quo can be observed in the marked finality of conclusion used in the APO novels themselves. Mostly avoiding the cliffhanging endings that recur throughout the on-air series, The Road Not Taken (Cox, 2005a), A Touch of Death and Old Friends (Hanna, 2006) all introduce new archfiends who are emphatically dead—strangely enough all three plummet to their deaths in the novels—by the narrative's end, prohibiting their subsequent recurrence. Such a repeated device may seem to be obvious given the author's brief; however, I would argue that it displays a fundamental understanding of the rules of the series, which often depicted the death of antagonists, put in the service of noncontradiction. However, in utilizing finality, tie-in authors arguably run up against noncontradiction in the manner in which the resultant novels neglect the serialized, cliffhanger structure of the on-air series. Conversely, APO writers are compelled to abide by the constraint of nonrepetition. We have already touched upon this above in the discussion of creating a sense of “value-added,” to the experience of the on-air series. Because of this necessary difference in tie-ins, both supervisors and freelancers emphatically insist that their products are not part of the official canon of the series. The relationship between the two is a one-way street characterized by one APO writer who stated “I always have to explain that, no, my Star Trek or Alias novels are not going to be turned into episodes of the TV show. That never happens.” This isolation between the tie-ins and the series also creates a sense of freedom that one author called a “dead-end alley of continuity” (“The Business … Part Three”). Because tie-ins never tie back in, their authors can take certain liberties with the series, within reason. Most obviously one can point to the introduction of new characters in APO novels (a leeway only provisionally granted to the Lost writer mentioned above). Indeed the plots of many of the APO novels hinge upon the “introduction” of old acquaintances, as in the appearance of Sydney's old college chum in Old Friends (Hanna) or Sydney's German terrorist nemesis in Namesakes (Cox, 2006). Besides working with respect to one set of constraints or the other, tie-in professionals have also developed a novel set of practices to address both and find a middle ground between. Specifying time frame—Often tie-in writers focus on very specific temporal moments within the life of a property. Indeed the initial premise of the APO series is to follow the series characters as they worked for the covert organization, APO, something that only happened in the program's fourth season. Working within this fourth season was an explicit editorial mandate handed down to the authors. Even as the on-air program moved into its fifth season, at least one APO writer was told to continue plotting as if it were still the fourth. Moreover, this specification is favored by writers as a way of solving ambiguity within series continuity. Another tie-in writer addressed this stating “the best thing to do is to present the characters and their relationships as he or she understands them at that given moment in the series continuity … there's usually some moment at which the writer can get a story and say, ‘here’s where the characters were, emotionally, at the moment.”’ This impulse is taken to its extreme in one APO novel that begins with the novel's exact temporal position in the series, between specific on-air episodes. This technique cordons off a space where writers can be certain about the bounds of noncontradiction, but have the leeway of temporally unexplored gem. Seeding the past—To situate themselves within the continuity of the series, the APO novels frequently make references to formative on-air events, usually motivated through the use of character memory. The authors use this same technique to introduce noncanon elements, particularly new characters. Writers seed the past by using flashbacks and recollections to subtly suggest that these new elements (nonrepetition) were part of the characters' lives all along (noncontradiction)—a practice known as retroactive continuity, or ret-conning, in the world of comicbooks. In my analysis, I have found that most of the APO novels contain at least one instance of this practice at work. Both Two of a Kind (Cox, 2005b) and Namesakes (Cox, 2006) begin with introductory flashbacks, both prior interactions with characters that become the current narrative's antagonists. More generally, all of the APO novels introduce new characters of whom it is revealed that the principle characters already had prior knowledge. For example, both Two of a Kind (Cox, 2005b) and Faina (Gaborno & Hollier, 2005) introduce computer hacker characters of whom it is revealed that a principle character—in this case series regular and APO technician Marshall—already knew of their existence. The author of Touch of Death freely comments on this technique within the diegesis of the novel itself, omnisciently pointing out that “it seemed as if ghosts were rising from the past to haunt the APO team” (York, 2006, p. 124). Echo characters—As stated above, the introduction of new characters is an important aspect of tie-in writing. However, to combat the possibly disruptive effects of such inclusions, writers often base these new characters on pre-existing ones, making them echo characters. Often this technique has a prudent origin. One APO writer reports that he planned to incorporate a character for the series' first season, a mercenary named Anna Espinosa, but was vetoed by supervisors when it was revealed that the character would be subsequently returning to the on-air series (constraint of nonrepetition). To solve the problem the author simply changed the character's name: “in fact if you’re inclined to read that book … just basically go in—I can't remember what her name was … in the first draft she was Anna Espinosa—my own Anna Espinosa.” More generally, many of the APO writers in their work use frequent comparisons to establish new characters. Thus, the eponymous Faina is an extremely gifted young girl, contrasted with Sydney herself. In Faina, the protagonist spells out the comparison: “Sydney's fear was forming in her mind as she realized the extent of Faina's skills. She's even more like me than I imagined” (Gaborno and Hollier, 2005, p. 137). The antagonist of A Touch of Death (York, 2006), Gai Dong Jing, is, like series regular Arvin Sloane, an ex-SD-6 member who has managed to elude capture after the criminal organization's dismantling. The character of Sloane points out this mirroring during the course of the novel in describing the antagonist: “he held back something from the Alliance, hiding his assets, hoarding them … you wonder how I know that? … I know, Jack, because it was precisely what I did” (York, 2006, p. 13). And in The Road Not Taken (Cox, 2005a, 2005b), series regular Michael Vaughn frequently compares an unfaithful wife to his own cheating spouse, Lauren: “He [Vaughn] watched the blackmail footage play out on the display screen of his cell phone … he couldn't help superimposing Sark's and Lauren's faces on the amorous couple in the video …Serves her right, he thought. She made her bed, so to speak. Just like Lauren had” (Cox, 2005a, 2005b, pp. 154–155). In all these examples, the writers introduce and describe characters that are indisputably new to the series, but can be understood as minor variations on the regular cast. Echo themes—The APO novels also navigate the middleground between repetition and difference by elaborating on a set of themes borrowed from the on-air series. In particular, a preoccupation with the fragility of social institutions, prominently the permeability of work and family, recurs through both manifestations of the program. The series examines this theme by juxtaposing the covert operations of double agents dismantling secret organizations from the inside with the soap opera developments of Sydney Bristow's broken home. Through this comparison the series depicts the fluidity between these two overarching institutions—work and family generally—whose barriers have broken down, making one susceptible to the other (much in the manner outlined by Mark Deuze). As astute viewers and scholars of the series, all of the APO writers made efforts to incorporate into their plots narratives of broken families and the “dangerous” combination of work and home. This is most clearly rendered in Old Friends (Hanna, 2006), in which a character slowly discovers that her husband is a failed secret agent after a series of revelations prompted by instances of domestic abuse. Later, it is revealed that these violent acts were “necessary” to maintain the husband-agent's “cover”; again the dismantling of work and home is depicted as a consequence of their mutual fluidity. And, again, family and work collide with disastrous consequences for each: The husband's cover is blown and his wife leaves him. Similarly, Faina (Gaborno & Hollier, 2005) begins as the home of the eponymous character is raided by political terrorists aiming to use both Faina and her father in their plot to sabotage the world economy. The subsequent story becomes the effort to reunite the family. In both cases, the writers have taken a repeated theme of the on-air series and adopted it to a new set of characters. Throughout the course of the paper, we have seen how the recurring ambivalence concerning the advance of tentpole TV has affected both its organizational and textual forms. It affects the relationship between collaborators, prompting temporary workers, like tie-in novelists, to seek sources of information, such as fandom, outside of official channels. This ambivalence also inflects the textual mandates (both explicit and implicit) on the part of supervisors, shaping the approaches of temporary workers and the solutions they craft to abide by these mandates. Ultimately, this paper suggests that the streamability that tentpole TV producers covet is bought on a complex and conflicted sociological process. The texts produced within this tentpole regime give indirect evidence of these complications in their very stylistic choices. I argue that all of these stylistic choices of APO writers, and other temporary creative workers, are, to borrow Geertz's (1973) terminology, “models for” how relations between collaborators in separate media can be managed and “models of” these relations whose aesthetic “solutions” symbolize and reflect back upon the position of tie-in writers within the phenomenon of tentpole TV (pp. 93–95). Notes 1 " My informants requested that I leave their comments anonymous. 2 " Film theorist David Bordwell, in his book On the History of Film Style, recommends a similar problems/solutions model to understand changes in film aesthetics. However, Bordwell's system is problematic in the way that he conflates his own interpretations of film elements with the hypothetical “solutions” with historical film workers. 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TI - The Strict Maze of Media Tie-In Novels
JF - Communication Culture and Critique
DO - 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2009.01047.x
DA - 2009-12-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-strict-maze-of-media-tie-in-novels-fq9Ju40APs
SP - 434
VL - 2
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -