Writing in the Dark: May 2025

Today – May 14, 2025 – my latest how-to-write book, Just Add Writer, is officially unleashed upon an unsuspecting world! This book focuses on writing media tie-in fiction and nonfiction, and to whet your appetite (and hopefully get you to order a copy), I’ve posted the first chapter below.

About the book:

This one-of-a-kind resource provides everything needed on your journey to become a professional author of media tie-ins, including:

Sample pitches, outlines, and chapters
Advice on honing your “shared world” writing skills
Real-world examples of IP assignments
Strategies for finding IP work
Tips for completing jobs quickly

Plus, there are interviews with industry professionals included throughout the book, so you get different perspectives on the craft and business of writing tie-ins.

JUST ADD WRITER

CHAPTER ONE

OVERVIEW OF MEDIA TIE-IN FICTION

What is Media Tie-In Fiction?

A media tie-in is an officially licensed work of prose fiction based on characters/settings/scenarios created and owned by someone else. And these IP’s – intellectual properties – originally appeared in different forms of media: a movie, a TV show, a videogame, a board game, a comic, etc. A writer is hired specifically by the license holder – often via a publisher – to produce this work. The license holder is boss, and the writer is a hired hand. You create what the license holder wants and the final product must meet the license holder’s approval. Your name will be on the book, but the license holder owns everything in it – every character, event, and setting, even the ones you’ve created whole cloth. While you have restrictions regarding what you can and can’t do with the IP, there is room for individual creativity and style, just not as much as when you write your own original fiction.

Why would anyone want to write under these conditions?

Writing tie-in fiction is fun

Like any other writing, it’s work, but it’s fun work. I published my first tie-in story in 1997, and in the decades since, I’ve gotten to write fiction based on Supernatural, The X-Files, Alien, Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Transformers, Halloween and more. My imagination was shaped by pop culture as I grew up, and it’s been wonderful to make a contribution, however small, to so many media properties I’ve loved.

It’s challenging

We’ll go over specific techniques for writing tie-in fiction in later chapters, but tie-ins require you to understand the media property – the milieu, the characters, their voices – and bring it to life in prose form while adding much more depth. You need to collaborate closely with the license holder and please them, while also writing a book you’re proud of. It’s a complex balancing act, and I find it stretches me in different ways than writing my original fiction does.

You may write in different genres, so there’s variety

One time you write a kids’ novel based on a space adventure property, the next you write a novelization of a fantasy film, after that you write a military adventure based on a videogame, and then you write a short story about an iconic horror villain for an anthology. Sure, some tie-in writers find a niche – such as writing Star Trek novels – and stick with it throughout their careers, but others enjoy the freedom that comes from not knowing what their next gig will be.

You develop different writing skills

I already mentioned several such skills when I discussed challenges above. In addition, you have to learn how to take something that’s primarily experienced by the senses and communicate it in words. Food critics, sports writers, nature writers, travel writers all do the same thing. With media tie-in fiction, you’re usually taking visual media of some sort (often with sound effects and special effects) and translating it into prose. You also may broaden your research skills because you’ll need to find information on some specialized topics, like what an elephant smells like, how high satellites orbit the Earth, or how fast Sonic the Hedgehog can run.

You have a knack for it (not every writer does)

Some writers can move between genres and styles easier than others. Same for those writers whose imaginations can slip inside characters and worlds they didn’t create. Some writers can work within the collaborative dynamic of tie-in writing, some prefer not to, and some would rather die than not have total control over their fiction. If you do have the knack and the right temperament, tie-in writing might be for you.

You get paid

You’re not going to get rich writing tie-ins. For that matter, you’re not going to get rich writing any kind of fiction. Yeah, there are authors who are exceptions to this rule, but not many. If you want to make money writing, write nonfiction or get into ghostwriting. I write fiction because I love it, and it’s the truest, deepest expression of who I am. The type of fiction I love to write best is horror and dark fantasy, the weirder, the better. Because of this, most of my novels have been published by medium to small presses, and the advances range from okay to laughably small (or nonexistent). I tend to get higher advances for tie-in novels than for my original fiction (but not always). I might get ten times the advance from a tie-in publisher than I would from a small-press one. I have a day job as a college English professor, so I don’t have to live off my writing, but my bank account always welcomes money from tie-in advances. And there’s been more than one time when that money has made a big difference during unforeseen disasters, such as suddenly needing to buy a new car or replace the roof on my house. If someone were able to write several tie-in novels a year and could count on the income being steady year in and year out (which is a mighty big if), they could conceivably support themselves entirely from their writing.

Types of Tie-In Fiction

Novelizations: a film script turned into a novel.
Novels, Novellas, Short Stories: new fiction using characters or a setting owned by a license holder.
Comics: new stories or a film adaptation featuring characters or a setting owned by a license holder.
Fictional Nonfiction: A nonfiction form such as a journal, memoir, autobiography, or guidebook that is written as if a character owned by a license holder composed it.
Material for Young Readers: Writing for young adult, middle-grade, and child audiences in any of the above categories.

How is Tie-In Fiction Different Than Fan Fiction?

The key difference appears in the first sentence of this chapter: officially licensed.

Just like a scriptwriter is hired to write an episode of your favorite TV series or a sequel to a movie you love, tie-in writers are professionals hired to write fiction based on a media property that you love. We might be fans of the property too, or we might not. (If we aren’t, we might become fans during the process of writing about a property.) Fan fiction is written by enthusiasts who want to interact with a media property they love in a creative way. I’m by no means knocking fan fiction. My version of King Kong vs Godzilla was fan fiction, and so were my Bionic Team comics (especially since I would sometimes have media characters like Spider-Man, Darth Vader, or Kermit the Frog show up in stories. Did I mention the comics were comedy as much as adventure?).

Fan fiction writers are amateurs, maybe only in the sense that they aren’t being paid for their work, but also because they may be new at the craft of fiction writing and are still learning. Since they aren’t writing at the direction of a license holder, they can do whatever they want in their stories with no restrictions. They can even have characters from one franchise interact with characters from another, something the individual license holders might never permit. People read, write, and share fan fiction for fun, and there’s not a damn thing wrong with that. And some people use it as a training ground before going on to write original fiction of their own.

License holders, including creators of original work, are officially supposed to disapprove of fan fiction because if they don’t, they’re giving others tacit permission to use their IP, and they might end up losing the copyright to it. My guess is that most writers don’t care if fan fiction based on their characters exists or they’re actually flattered by it, but they have to pretend they don’t approve of it in order to maintain copyright to their work. So don’t use any of my original characters or settings in your fan fiction. I do not approve (wink, wink).

Later in the book, I’ll talk more about writing fan fiction as a way to prepare yourself to write tie-in fiction.

How Tie-In Fiction DOESN’T Work

· You can’t decide to write a piece of tie-in fiction on your own and then publish it. I once received an email from a gentleman who’d finished an Alien novel and wanted to know who at Titan Books he should contact about getting it published. I felt terrible for this guy, but I had to explain to him how the tie-in process works. Book editors obtain a license to publish a certain amount of tie-in novels about a specific IP, like Alien, they seek out established authors and contract them to write the books. The editor and the license holder shape the idea for the book along with the writer, and once they approve a final outline for a novel, then the writer can begin writing it. I advised the man to make enough changes to his book so that it no longer was a strict tie-in to Alien but a piece of fiction that was clearly inspired by Alien while still being original. Pro writers refer to this as filing off the serial numbers. I don’t know what the guy did, but I hope he started writing original fiction.

· You can’t begin your writing career by writing tie-in fiction. There are exceptions. For example, if you work for a game company that wants to start producing tie-in fiction based on their properties, and they intend to publish it themselves, they might hire someone from within the company to write it. But this is rare. Editors and license holders want to hire established writers to produce tie-in fiction.

· You won’t land a tie-in writing gig just because you’re a huge fan of a media property. Editors and license holders like it if you’re a fan of an IP, but it isn’t necessary. They want to know that you’re a professional writer with a good track record of producing publishable fiction. They know such writers can learn about the IP quickly enough to get up to speed.

Myths About Writing Tie-In Fiction

· Tie-in fiction is inferior hack work. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, it wasn’t uncommon for some publishers to bring out quickly written tie-in novels that had simplistic plots written in equally simple prose. But those days were over a long time ago. Tie-in fiction writers today work as hard at their craft as any other writer. Since tie-in fiction is written to entertain, you’re not going to see experimental narrative techniques or in-depth character studies more common to literary writers, but you will get a damn good book to read.

· Tie-in fiction is easier to write than original fiction. It’s no easier or harder to write than original fiction. It’s just different, and it’s not even all that different. All the same basic skills of writing good fiction apply – characterization, plot, setting, description, dialogue, use of language, pace . . . The collaborative nature of writing tie-in fiction might make it harder for some writers, though, along with adapting their voice and style to that of the IP property.

· Tie-in writers only care about money. Hell, who doesn’t care about money? Writers have to eat just like everyone else. But money isn’t the sole motivation for writers. If all we wanted was to make money, we would’ve become doctors or lawyers. But tie-in fiction writers consider themselves professionals, so of course they wish to be paid for their labor. Beyond this, since the license holder will own all the rights to any work tie-in writers produce, writers can never make any additional profit off it. If they aren’t paid for writing a book or story, they won’t receive any money for their time, effort, and creativity.

· Writing about public domain characters is tie-in fiction, too. Tie-in fiction is officially licensed by a license holder, remember? Public domain characters and settings are no longer owned by individual people or companies. They’re owned by the world. That’s why people can write books, produce comics, and make films based on Dracula and Frankenstein. Beyond the legal reason, there’s an artistic reason such works aren’t tie-ins. You have the freedom to do whatever you want with these characters. Want to make Baron Frankenstein into Baroness Frankenstein? Go for it. Want to make King Arthur an android sent from the future to be King of Britain? Write that story! Want to make Winnie-the-Pooh into a horror movie villain? Too late – someone’s already beat you to it. There’s no one to tell you what you can and can’t do with these characters, and you can follow your creative impulses wherever they take you. Later, we’ll talk about how you can use writing about public domain characters as preparation for writing officially licensed tie-in fiction.

You could make the argument that fiction genres like science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror, mystery, western, etc. are actually tie-ins, in the sense that they’re based on successful stories that were once original and considered Literature with a capital L. These stories influenced publishers and writers to imitate them, and readers loved them and wanted more. Over time, the tropes in these genres became so codified that writers could consciously follow them. Writers have lots of freedom when employing these tropes, but they have restrictions, too. Murders must be solved by the end of mystery novels, romance novels need to have a happily ever after ending, etc. Writers of literary fiction tend to view writers of genre fiction as producing formulaic fiction (which is why I think it’s hysterical when some genre writers look down on tie-in writers.)

OTHER TYPES OF TIE-IN FICTION

Fiction Written Under House Names

A house name is when a publisher creates a book series where each volume may be written by different authors, but for marketing purposes, is credited to a single, shared pseudonym. Sometimes this name is an author who started the series, and the publisher buys the right to use their name as the author on future editions. For example, Don Pendleton, creator of the Men’s Adventure hero The Executioner, wrote thirty-seven novels featuring his character. The rest of the books in the series – all 416 of them – bore his name but were written by other writers. When writing under a house name, the true author may or may not be credited in some small way. The Executioner books would include a statement inside the book, practically hidden among the publishing information, which went something like this: “Gold Eagle acknowledges REAL AUTHOR’s contribution to this book.” House names were much more common in the past, but they’re still used for children’s book series, with Erin Evans of Warriors fame being a notable example.

Are these books tie-ins? It depends on who you ask. A lot of publishing professionals regard tie-ins as works of fiction based on other media properties, such as movies, video games, etc., but not based on other people’s literary creations. On the other hand, as long as someone else owns the IP, some do consider books written under a house name to be tie-ins. They’re basically the same in terms of both craft and business concerns, so I tend to think of them as tie-ins. And if they aren’t exactly the same thing, they’re closely related.

Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting is when an author is hired to write a book that will be published under someone else’s name (often a famous someone), and that person gets all the credit for the writer’s work. That person will also see all the profits from the book. Writing under a house name is a form of ghostwriting, except the publisher is the one who gets the lion’s share of the money. Ghostwriting is far more prevalent in nonfiction than fiction, and often the “author” is kind enough to mention the real writer’s “assistance” in the acknowledgements. (This is called a semi-visible ghost because the author’s name does appear in the book, even if the full extent of their contribution isn’t spelled out.) William Shatner did this with his Tek War series, always making sure to credit Ron Goulart as a co-author.

Some years back, fantasy author Dennis L. McKiernan – my friend and mentor – was offered a gig to write a tie-in based on a fantasy computer game (I don’t recall which one.) Dennis told the publisher he wasn’t interested, and they asked if they could use his name as the author and have someone else ghostwrite the book (paying Dennis a fee for using his name, of course). Dennis politely declined.

Gothic thriller writer V. C. Andrews wrote seven books before she died. Her family hired Andrew Neiderman to produce more books under her name, and they kept his identity a secret for many years before finally allowing him to tell the public. Neiderman has been writing as “V. C. Andrews” longer than the actual V. C. Andrews did, and he’s produced almost 200 books under her name.

There are also famous writers who eventually tire of producing new books on the schedule that readers and publishers demand (or who burn out entirely), and sometimes they or their publisher hire ghostwriters to continue producing books under their name. I have no idea how prevalent this practice is, but I’ve been told that it happens a lot more than you’d think. So if you read the next novel by one of your favorite authors and it sounds like it wasn’t written by them, maybe it wasn’t.

Is ghostwriting a form of tie-in writing? It depends on the type you do. If a business person hires you to write a book for them so they can put their name on it and bolster their credentials as an “expert,” then it’s not tie-in writing. Neither is penning the autobiography for a famous movie star, pop singer, or athlete. But if you ghostwrite a novel based on an IP someone else owns, then it does count. And, of course, the demarcation can be fuzzy at times.

There’s a moral question at the heart of ghostwriting. Is it fraud? Publishers sell a book as written by a specific person, and when readers purchase that book, they expect it to actually be written by the credited author. If it isn’t, they’re purchasing a product that’s been falsely advertised. The V. C. Andrews estate included a note with each of the novels ghostwritten by Neiderman, saying the family selected a writer to write novels based on notes and outlines left behind after the real V.C. Andrews died. This was true for a few books, but Neiderman soon started writing Andrews books on his own, and the note never changed. So not exactly total truth in advertising, but a hell of a lot better than most ghostwritten books. Ghostwriting has been around for ages, and publishers don’t consider it fraud, but I’m not so sure they’re right. I’d rather know who wrote the book I’m buying.

Why would anyone ghostwrite? Some people love to write but they don’t care whether they receive credit or not. Plus, ghostwriting can pay well, sometimes really well. But unless you get permission, as Neiderman eventually did, you can never tell anyone that you ghostwrote that wildly popular novel currently sitting atop the bestseller lists. (Your eternal silence is part of the deal.)

I’ve never ghostwritten a book, but I was a semi-visible ghost for two books written with Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of SyFy’s Ghost Hunters fame. It was a good experience, the guys were great, and I got my name on the cover (even if my name was smaller than Jason and Grant’s). I don’t count these books as tie-ins, though, since they contained original characters and storylines.

CURRENT ATTITUDES TOWARD TIE-IN FICTION

In the past, many people wrote tie-in fiction under a pseudonym, as if they didn’t want people to know they’d done something so shameful. But attitudes toward tie-in fiction have changed dramatically over the years, especially among younger readers and writers. Writing tie-in fiction is seen as cool and something to aspire to. Maybe these younger folks grew up even more saturated in popular culture than my generation did. And maybe the mainstream success of properties like Doctor Who and Marvel superheroes have helped to change attitudes toward tie-in fiction. It’s not uncommon these days for people to ask me about my tie-in novels more than my original ones, and they often seem impressed by the fact that I write tie-in fiction. Do I resent people not caring as much about my original fiction? No. I’m just glad people care about my work at all.

Now that you have a solid foundation in the basics of writing tie-in fiction, starting in the next chapter, I’m going to tell you what it’s really like to be a tie-in author. Buckle up! But first . . .

EXERCISES

1) Are there any tie-in novels that you’ve read that you especially enjoyed, even loved? Make a list of them. The go through the list and write down the specific qualities each book had that made it so enjoyable for you. When you’re finished, look over the list and see if you can find any common elements that stick out. Did the characters affect you the most? The setting? The action? Getting a sense of what narrative elements you respond to most strongly can give you some insight into how you might write your own tie-in fiction. More character-oriented, more setting-oriented, etc.

2) Are there any specific IP’s that you’d love to write for? Make a list, and for each item write a reason why this IP is so attractive to you as a writer. Doing this can give you insight into what kind of IP’s you might like to write for someday – specific ones, of course, such as Star Wars or The Fast and the Furious, but also different genres, like action-adventure, science fiction, or romance.

3) Do you think you’d prefer to write tie-in fiction for adults or for young people? Why does writing for one audience interest you more than writing for the other? Do you think you might like to focus your efforts more toward one audience than another? If so, why?

Purchase Links

Raw Dog Screaming Press

https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/just-add-writer/

Amazon

Hardcover: https://tinyurl.com/mubb4xt

Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/mrpntydd

Kindle: https://tinyurl.com/28yxzzer

Barnes & Noble

Hardcover: https://tinyurl.com/bdhn56hn

Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/4tnmh7xm

eBook: https://tinyurl.com/j3psv6h6

DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION

Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God

Speaking of media tie-in novels, I have aConan the Barbarian novel coming from Titan Books in October! It was a hell of a lot of fun to write, and I hope fans of sword-and-sorcery action will enjoy it.

You can find various preorder links (for Titan, Amazon, and B&N) at the Titan Books site: https://titanbooks.com/72365-conan-spawn-of-the-serpent-god/

Synopsis:

In Zamora, the city of thieves, Conan meets Valja, a thrill-seeking thief. She entices him to join

her on a heist, where they steal a golden statuette of Ishtar, said to contain the goddess herself.

After killing a dozen guards and failing to escape, the pair are saved by priestesses of Mitra. But

Conan knows that nothing is free.

The priestesses have need of their skills. They have waged war against Set, god of chaos and

serpents, who demands constant sacrifice from his subjects and massacred thousands of his

followers. Yet they are no match for Uzzeran, a powerful sorcerer, who has been performing

unspeakable experiments on humans in the name of Set. To defeat Uzzeran, they will need a

legendary warrior on their side. They need Conan the Barbarian.

A former student of mine interviewed me about writing my Conan novel. You can read the interview here: https://www.blackgate.com/2025/05/11/a-challenge-worth-smiling-about-tim-waggoner-on-writing-conan/

Exalted: A Shadow Over Heaven’s Eye

In 2025, my ninth novel came out. It was a tie-in based on White Wolf’s Exalted game, a wuxia-inspired fantasy setting. It was out of print for nearly twenty years, but now Crossroads Press has brought it back in both trade paperback and eBook formats!

In Defiance of Destiny

Maylea is a young noblewoman in the city of Yane, whose future was mapped out on the day she was born—how she would live, what she would do, who she would marry… But Maylea is not content to blindly consign herself to destiny. And when Swan, a freelance diplomat who is supposed to be dead, arrives at her father’s estate, Maylea begins to realize that her true destiny might be writ larger across the stars than anyone ever suspected.

Exalted: A Shadow Over Heaven’s Eye is the fifth in a series of novels based on the hugely successful Exalted property.

Amazon

Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/3t2ju4nm

Kindle: https://tinyurl.com/3kmy3mu8

Barnes and Noble

Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/yjy2nwjy

eBook: https://tinyurl.com/w5jp722d

Scheduled Appearances

StokerCon. June 12^th to June 15^th. Stamford, Connecticut. I’m one of the guests of honor!

Signing at Vortex Books. June 26th, 5-7pm. Columbia, Pennsylvania.

Horror on Main. June 27th to June 29th. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I’m a guest of honor here, too!

Gencon Writers’ Symposium. July 31st to August 3rd. Indianapolis, Indiana.