Novelization

King Kong (1932) novelization of King Kong (1933)

The writer of a novelization is supposed to multiply the 20,000–25,000 words of a screenplay into at least 60,000 words.[4] Writers usually achieve that by adding description or introspection.[5] Ambitious writers are driven to work on transitions and characters just to accomplish "a more prose-worthy format". Sometimes the "novelizer" invents new scenes in order to give the plot "added dimension", provided they are allowed to do that.[7] Publishers aim to have novelizations in shops before a film is released, which means it is usually necessary to base the novelization on a screenplay instead of the completed film.[8] It might take an insider to tell whether a novelization diverges unintentionally from the final film because it is based on an earlier version which included deleted scenes.[1] Thus the novelization occasionally presents material which will later on appear in a director's cut.[9] In some cases, separate novelizations of the same film are written for publication in different countries, and these may be based on different drafts of the screenplay, as was very clearly the case with the American and British novelizations of Capricorn One.[8] Writers select different approaches to enrich a screenplay. Dewey Gram's Gladiator, for example, included historical background information.

If a film is based on a novel, the original novel is generally reissued with a cover based on the film's poster.[10] If a film company also wishes to have a separate novelization published, the company is supposed to approach the author who has "Separated Rights". A writer has these rights if he contributed the source material (or added a great deal of creative input to it) and if he was moreover properly credited.[11]

Novelizations also exist where the film itself is based on an original novel: novelist and screenwriter Christopher Wood wrote a novelization of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Although the 1962 Ian Fleming novel was still available in bookstores, its story had nothing to do with the 1977 film. To avoid confusion, Wood's novelization was titled James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me.[12] This novel is also an example of a screenwriter novelizing his own screenplay. Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker was published under the name of George Lucas but his script had been novelized by the prolific tie-in writer Alan Dean Foster.[13]

Acquiring editors looking for a novelizer have different issues. The author may not have all of the information needed; Foster wrote the Alien novelization without knowing what the Xenomorph looked like. The contract may be very restrictive; Max Allan Collins had to write the novelization for Road to Perdition only based on the film, without the detail he had created for the graphic novel of the same name that the film is based on.[2] Rewrites of scripts may force last-minute novelization rewrites. The script for the 1966 film Modesty Blaise was rewritten by five different authors.[14] The writer or script doctor responsible for the so-called "final" version is not necessarily the artist who has contributed the original idea or most of the scenes. The patchwork character of a film script might even exacerbate because the film director, a principal actor or a consulting script doctor does rewrites during the shooting. An acquiring editor who intends to hire one of the credited screenwriters has to reckon that the early writers are no longer familiar with the current draft or work already on another film script. Not every screenwriter is available, willing to work for less money than what can be earned with film scripts and able to deliver the required amount of prose on time. Even if so, there is still the matter of novelizations having a questionable reputation.[15] The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers concedes that by saying their craft is "largely unrecognized".[16] Writers Guild of America rules require that screenwriters have right of first refusal to write novelizations of their own films, but they rarely do so because of the lack of prestige and money.[4]

Some novels blur the line between a novelization and an original novel that is the basis of a film adaptation. Arthur C. Clarke provided the ideas for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Based on his own short stories and his cooperation with Kubrick during the preparation and making of this film adaptation he wrote the film novelization of the same name which is appreciated by fans because the film provides little exposition, and the novelization fills in some blanks. David Morrell wrote the novel First Blood about John Rambo, which led to the film adaptation of the same name. Although Rambo dies at the end of his original story, Morrell had a paragraph in his contract stipulating he remained "the only person who could write books about Rambo". This paid off for him when the film producers changed the ending and decided for a sequel. David Morrell accepted to carry out the novelization and negotiated unprecedented liberties which resulted in a likewise unprecedented success when his book entered The New York Times Best Seller list and stayed there for six weeks.[5]

Simon Templar or James Bond are examples of media franchises that have been popular for more than one generation. When the feature film The Saint was released in 1997 the creator of this character (Leslie Charteris) had already been dead for four years. Hence its novelization had to be written by another author. Ian Fleming on the other hand had official successors who wrote contemporary "Post-Fleming" James Bond novels. During his tenure John Gardner was consequently chosen to write the novelization of Licence to Kill[17] in 1989 and also the novelization of GoldenEye[18] in 1995. John Gardner found his successor in Raymond Benson[19] who wrote besides several original Bond novels three novelizations including The World Is Not Enough.

While comic books such as the series Classics Illustrated have often provided adaptations of novels, novelizations of comics are relatively rare.[20]

Video games are novelized in the same manner as films. While gamers might enjoy playing a certain action scene for hours, the buyers of a novelization might be bored soon if they merely read about such a scene. Consequently, the writer will have to cut down on the action.[7]

Doctor Who had stories novelised in particular from the era of its original series published by Target Books.

Episodes of Star Trek were adapted into short stories by the noted science fiction writer James Blish. Each volume of the stories included a number of the short story adaptations. Alan Dean Foster would later adapt the follow-up animated series into the Star Trek Log series.

Mel Gilden wrote novelizations of Beverly Hills, 90210, merging three episodes into one book. As he explained, this approach required him to look for a joint story arc.[15]

In the early 1970s Lee Falk was asked by the Avon publishing house to deliver Phantom novels based on the eponymous comic strip. Falk worked on the novelizations on his own and with collaboration. A dispute over how he would be credited led to the cessation of the series.[26]

Peter O'Donnell, who scripted the Modesty Blaise comic strip, later authored novels featuring the character not directly based on the stories presented in the strips.

Matt Forbeck became a writer of novels based on video games after he had been "writing tabletop roleplaying game books for over a decade".[27] He worked also as a designer of video games.

S. D. Perry wrote a series of novels based on the Resident Evil video games and added tie-ins to the novelizations, covering all the mainline titles in the series up until Resident Evil Zero.

Eric Nylund introduced a new concept for a novelization when he delivered a trilogy, consisting of a prequel titled Halo: The Fall of Reach, an actual novelization titled Halo: First Strike and a sequel titled Halo: Ghosts of Onyx.

Raymond Benson novelized the original Metal Gear Solid in 2008 and its sequel Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, while Project Itoh wrote a Japanese language novelization of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots also in 2008 (with an English adaptation later published in 2012). Itoh was set to write novelizations of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, but his death in 2009 resulted in these projects being handed to Beatless author Satoshi Hase and a new writer named Hitori Nojima (a pen name for Kenji Yano) respectively.[28] Nojima would go on to write Metal Gear Solid: Substance (a two-part alternate novelization of the original Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2), as well as the novelizations of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Death Stranding (a game which he helped write the script for).

• List of novels based on comics

• Peter and Wendy (1911), J. M. Barrie
• The Bat (1926), Stephen Vincent Benét

• List of novels based on video games

• Britton, Wesley Alan (2005). Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film. Praeger. ISBN 0-275-98556-3.
• Hamilton, Geoff & Jones, Brian (2009). Encyclopedia of American Popular Fiction. Facts on File. ISBN 978-0-8160-7157-9.
• Pringle, David (1998). St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers. St. James Press. ISBN 1-55862-206-3.
• Shatzky, Joel & Taub, Michael, eds. (1997). Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29462-3.
• Turner, Richard Charles (1996). Ken Follett: A Critical Companion. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29415-1.