Put everything back where you found it
by danabnett on Jan.20, 2010, under Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill
I’ll start this morning by picking up on Morgan’s admission that one of his all-time favorite comic book characters is Adam Warlock. Me too. Absolutely. This is a fine example of the fun I was talking about yesterday. When I’m working on Guardians of the Galaxy (the Marvel cosmic team book in which Warlock is a key player) it comes dangerously close to ticking the ‘too-much-fun-to-actually-be-work-at-all‘ box.
It would also be remiss of me not to mention at this point that my Guardians of the Galaxy run is being released in easy-to-collect trade paperback editions, so you can share that fun…
The mainstream comics industry is dominated by several ‘universes’, the most obvious of which are the Marvel and DC Universes. Each is a shared world continuity in which all that company’s (superhero) characters co-exist. All Marvel stories, for example, take place on the Marvel version of our Earth, in the Marvel version of our Universe (actually, there are some technical exceptions, but if I start to explain them, I’ll be here for more than two weeks). The Marvel Earth is pretty much identical to ours, except Spiderman is a real person rather than a comic book character, and so on.
Oddly, there is none of the snooty-ness I was talking about yesterday when it comes to working in these shared universes. Creators actively and proudly compete to become ‘the new Spiderman writer’ or the ‘new Superman creative team’ or whatever. There is no stigma attached. They want tenure on an existing, long-running character created by someone else in order to demonstrate what they can do with it. No one ever, I mean EVER, is forced to confess that they’re writing Batman, but they really want to write a ‘proper’ comic.
There are many reasons for this. Foremost, I would suggest, is that in mainstream comics you are encouraged to push the boundaries wildly. The editors (and the readers) want creative teams to come up with the craziest and coolest ideas, and do the most radical and deconstructive things possible with their favorite characters. They want them to break their toys in the most inventive ways to see how interesting the broken toys become.
This is all in a day’s work for a comic book scribe. We break toys because the comic book universes I’m talking about are incredibly resilient. Superheroes are modern folklore; they are myth and magic and fairy dust in spandex wrappers. Anything that gets broken or damaged can be put right at the end of a story in just a panel or two. Continuity can be repaired, normal service can be resumed. The writer takes the readers on a wild ride, and then he puts the toys back in the box. He puts everything back the way he found it.
(Sidebar: this ret-conning should of course be done with a light touch, wit and sensitivity. Sometimes, infamously, reboots have been as boorish and heavy-handed as the Mighty Thor turning up to help with the barn raising in Witness. So I’m talking broadly, okay?)
Beyond the mighty worlds of superheroes, universes are generally much more tightly controlled (‘Yes, you will put everything back the way you found it, and in the meantime, don’t touch it. Don’t even look at it.’). Non-superhero continuities are harder to keep in good nick. They stain more easily. They wrinkle. If you want to work with them, you have to abide by much more rigid rules.
I wrote a Doctor Who book for the BBC called The Story Of Martha. It was, as you may have already guessed, about Martha Jones. Most particularly, the book was commissioned to fit between season three, episode 12 (“The Sound of Drums”) and season three, episode 13 (“Last of the Time Lords”). Even though a year passes between those episodes, even though it was the ‘year that never was‘ and therefore a gigantic hunk of reboot, there were all sorts of things I couldn’t do. I worked very hard to stay inside the very clearly defined limits.
It was a very enjoyable job (apart from anything else, I had to keep re-watching episodes featuring the fragrant Freema Agyeman. Life is tough).
This is a very different kind of ‘put everything back where you found it‘ to the one I am supposed to use in comics. It’s the same ‘put everything back where you found it‘ I’ve been professionally required to employ with every Doctor Who, Torchwood, Terminator, Star Trek, Wallace and Gromit, Ghostbusters, and Bananas in Pyjamas (etc) projects I’ve worked on in the last twenty years. You don’t smash the toys, play with the bits, invisibly mend them and put them back; you take the toys, you find a new way to look at them without leaving any significant fingerprints, and you return them (happy consequence of this: you get invited back to do it again). You add to or enhance continuity without altering or disrupting it. It’s quite a neat trick to pull off.
There is a third way of working in someone else’s universe, and it’s the method I employ with 40K.
I’ll talk about that when I come back. Right now, I’m going to jump up and down on the bed and order room service.
Related posts:
- And our next guests… Thank you once more to Naomi and Claudia. It was a treat to welcome you both to Babel Clash. I’m pleased to welcome our next guests, Dan Abnett & Graham McNeill. Both are veteran writers of Warhammer novels and comics. Dan also writes for Marvel Comics, and his work includes...
- Somebody else’s blog, somebody else’s universe… Wow, this is a bit like checking into a fancy hotel. Will you look at this blog? It’s got decorative side motifs, for goodness sake! It’s not like being at home in your own blog. Everything’s so clean, and there are mints on the pillow… I’m Dan. Hello. Morgan and...
- Hi, I’m Dan, and I’ll be your God-Emperor of Mankind It was recently announced that the luminous Michael Moorcock would be writing a Doctor Who novel. In the press release, he said that this book was “not a tie-in”. Later, presumably after people had coughed quietly and politely behind him, he issued another statement correcting the (I’m sure quite genuine)...
- England, my England The universe of my novel Triumff existed in my head for about two decades before I got it into a printed form. It didn’t take that much longer to reach publication than my 40K books because the universe took so much more time to design, but the contrast is useful...
- My own private universe Today, I was going to talk a little bit about the other side of the equation: working in your own universe instead of someone else’s. In the spirit of Graham’s excellent advice yesterday, I’m doing that whilst listening to someone singing in French. I’ve really enjoyed reading what Graham has...
January 20th, 2010 on 8:04 am
Zing! Ooh first post better make it a good one.
Nicely written Dan and curse your talent for making myself feel almost wholly inadequate at the writing thing. I’m particularly keen to read how you come at the 40K novel aspect of your writing as I feel you may have a little more creative freedom in this respect, rather than the ‘here’s the toy now play with it carefully’ aspect that you describe here.
Still - more power to your elbow, sir, and keep them coming. I’m hoping Sir Rupert gets an outing, or perhaps even a comic book of his very own.
January 20th, 2010 on 8:07 am
Hey Dan! Long time listener, first time caller. Er. Writer. Er.. Commenter. Right-o.
I never really thought of it that way - writing in another person’s universe that is. To be honest, I’ve always thought of Gaunt’s Ghosts and Eisenhorn; and all of your other work for that matter, to be in fact your universe marketed (and approved of course) by the franchises. Not to swell your head; but both your and Graham McNeill’s novelizations (as well as many of the other authors in BL) in 40k have been my primary interpretation of 40k.
It makes sense though, coming from the author. Shamefully; I’ve not read much of your work outside of 40k, but am excited to get Triumff when it does come out in the states. Anyway, more of a praise than questions! But I do have one…
Do you ever have difficulty digging into new ideas for Guant’s Ghosts? Or has it sort of taken on a life of it’s own as a series?
January 20th, 2010 on 12:36 pm
While I appreciat the constancy of steady work (what with “this economy” and all), and were it offered i certainly wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to do contracted work in someone else’s universe/world/IP (especially given that I’m, uh, unpublished, un-agented and generally at the whimsical arrogant dreaming phase of writing), one of the main reasons I enjoy writing so much, and am working toward trying to become a for-real writer, is because I don’t like limits. I chafe at them, and the more restrictive they are, the more I tend to fight back against them. I don’t know if I could really work well if I had a looming shadowy smoking-man behind me with a red marker scratching off my plot points because it would wreck the continuity or marketability of the universe.
And, you know, I share that whole stigma of “oh, he’s not a real writer” if they write in forgotten realms or warhammer or any not-originally-novelised IP, but like you mentioned, I don’t have the same abhorrence of comics writers, or even TV writers. I think part of the problem is the original conception of whatever the IP might be: generally, I don’t think novelizations of movies or video games work well, because the conception of the world was for a completely different medium. Star Wars, for instance, works well for movies, because the plot is breezy and uncomplicated enough to fit into convenient 90 minute runtimes, and though I like the Thrawn series, any true moves forward in the series are inevitably shackled because they can’t change the delicate balance of kid-friendly space adventures mixed with for-real SF/F.
So in short, my opinion of the matter is confused. But I’ll stick around and see if you can change my mind.
January 20th, 2010 on 3:29 pm
Dan & Graham, Have read all of your W40k work (not into fantasy Warhammer stuff) and really enjoyed it. Like Derrick says your novels and shorts pretty much define W40k for me. Very excited about your Horus Heresy Wolves/Sons duology BUT like the never satisfied fanboy I am I just want more…
So when are you guys going to be able to reveal what you meant by the “dark ages of the Horus Heresy”?
Also Dan - when can we expect the next GG novel and what is the title?
Also (and I know you always get asked this so keeping with tradition) - when can we expect the Bequin trilogy and Interceptor City?
Graham - It would be great to see you move on from the Ultramarines and tackle another aspect of W40k. How about something less obvious than SMs of IG, perhaps Arbites or Navy or Rogue Traders or Astra Telepathica?
Speaking of Ultramarine (last question honest) - it’s great Dan has been involved in scripting the forthcoming movie. What ideas do you both have for possible future W40k movies?
Thanks
January 21st, 2010 on 4:56 am
Adam: I think you’ve hit on a good point there…Does the origin of the IP affect a person’s perception of the worth of a novel based upon it? Yeah, think it probably does. Because they’re novels based on games a lot of people think that they can’t be any good, which just isn’t the case. I’ve read a lot of tie-in fiction, most of which is pretty damn good, as the quality of writers gets better and better. Some is, admittedly, pretty poor, but I think you’re right in that it’s no reason to tar every book with the same brush.
It’s the same with movies. Films based on games are traditionally looked down upon (with good reason, it has to be said, since most are dross) but even if a good one were to come along, it would come with a whole lot of baggage and negative perceptions to overcome. Though let’s not forget that Pirates of the Caribbean was a ride at Disneyland before it became a rollicking fun ride of a movie. We’ll ignore the sequels for the sake of argument, eh? In other words, we need to forget the baggage of origins and appreciate a book or film or whatever on its own merits.
Jay: To have someone say our work defines what 40K is to them…I feel all tingly inside. I don’t plan to leave the Ultramarines in the lurch any time soon, but as it happens, I do plan to take a little bit of a break from them to venture to sectors new. But. I’ll definitely be back to them, after all the whole grimdark needs some leavening with true heroes now and then. And it’s just fun writing about seven foot tall, genetically-engineered killing machines…
As to what I’ll be tackling instead, well, I’ll let you know in due course, but it’s one I think will have a lot of folk frothing into their space mead. 101010011.
Graham
January 21st, 2010 on 5:11 am
TimK - Thank you. And see my next blog post.
Derrick - Another thank you. There are times, to be fair, when the Gaunt’s Ghosts series (now 12 volumes long) becomes unwieldy for me. It’s well over a million words, it’s a lot of characters, and I am constantly looking for new things to do in it (within the fairly defined limits of a series about infantrymen in space). For the readers’ sakes, I don’t want to end up doing the same thing over and over. I’m very grateful for the fact that my imagination has dreamed up some chunky ideas for the next batch of stories at least. But I do have to wait for them, and they seem to come from the characters, when they’re good and ready…
Adam - fair points, well put, though I believe that any writer, no matter WHAT they’re writing, should be operating under (perhaps self-imposed) limits or rules, or there is absolutely no rigour to what they’re doing. Doesn’t matter if you’re master of the universe, or somebody else is, the universe still has to work.
That stigma is hard to shift, and it’s hard to shift for any work that can be classified as ‘tie-in’, no matter how appropriate for transition the source material seems. There is a difference, of course, between a tie-in and a novelization: a novelization transfers a two hour movie into novel form and certainly could feel underweight. A tie-in set in the same movie’s universe might be much richer and paced to suit the format. It’s also worth remembering that 40K books come from a very rich source: the almost role-playing density of a gaming universe as opposed to the leanness of a movie. I hope Graham and I do change your mind. At the risk of being really cheeky, pick up (borrow!) a copy of one of our Horus Heresy or 40K novels: they may not be your cup of tea, but they prove to you that they’re more than ‘the book of the toy soldier’.
Jay - The dark ages of the Heresy? Why that’s next on our Big List Of Scary Things To Do.
The next Gaunt’s Ghosts novel will be called Salvation’s Reach. I have been slightly waylaid recently by illness (I was diagnosed with epilepsy, which has changed my life a little), but normal service will be resumed soon. This has also bumped along Interceptor City (the sequel to Double Eagle) and the first of the Bequin Trilogy (the third and final Inquisitor trilogy, subtitled Eisenhorn versus Ravenor), but they are still very much on my to do list.
January 21st, 2010 on 9:14 am
Dan and Graham, I have read most of your 40k books and I believe that they are some of the best in their category (I mean SF in general not only 40k). I also have read many “real”, as you put it, SF authors (Vance, LeGuin etc) as I like the genre in general. All I have to say is that good ideas and good writing (prose) can be evident no matter what you write for.
I was wondering though, if when writing for an IP, let’s talk about 40k in particular, does it get frustrating not letting you develop some cool ideas you might have on a subject? I’m not talking about getting the Emperor on his feet and dancing around the throne with the Custodes; I mean some in-universe/setting ideas, as the 2 missing/unknown Primarchs. If i remember correctly (forgive me if not) it was Dan that made a brief reference (2 lines) in his short story ‘The Lightning Tower”. Did you have some good ideas in the past that the company did not ask you only to change but to dismiss totally? Is it frustrating or do you face this as professionals who are just getting paid and perhaps use it in some other setting (with the proper changes of course) if fitting?
January 21st, 2010 on 12:23 pm
T.T. - I don’t think I’ve actually been barred from doing anything. Then again, I’ve been sensible about what I’ve suggested. The bit in “The Lightning Tower” you mention was a deliberate tease. A nod to the fluff without actually adding anything we didn’t already know. I don’t know if G has had any great plans shot down. Graham?
January 21st, 2010 on 2:28 pm
Nope, can’t say as I’ve had any proposals shot down, though whether that means all my ideas have been so brilliant that they simply HAD to be accepted, or else weren’t that controversial at all. The one I suspected might come under the Wrath of Alan, was including the Dragon in Mechanicum, but I made sure that it was handled in such a way as to appease the IP guru, while also being a nod to the fans and allow all manner of conspiracy theories to flourish. Actually, come to think of it, there were a few bits during the Slaaneshi-inspired opera scene in Fulgrim that needed a bit of trimming, since they were a bit too…lurid, shall we say. Perhaps a Director’s Cut online edition beckons.
January 23rd, 2010 on 6:04 am
Graham - an uncut edition of Fulgrim? Sounds great. Get the Playboy channel involved, set up a premium rate phone number - Sam Fox reading the audiobook.
Jacka-knacker-nory.
M
December 12th, 2010 on 10:00 am
realy cool.i admire your views.