Playing Twenty Questions With
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The Newsletter of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers Playing Twenty editor Charles Ardai led to a prequel called The Questions with Max First Quarry, and now this mid-stream story, set Max Allan Collins, president in the '80s. A movie based and co-founder of the IAMTW, on The Last Quarry, from recently volunteered to be my screenplay and interviewed for Tied-In. Here is starring Tom Sizemore, is the transcript. on the festival circuit right now, winning 1. MAX, YOU‘RE A BUSY SOUL. awards and doing well— CAN YOU TELL US WHAT WILL BE The Last Lullaby, it's HITTING THE BOOKSHELVES FOR called. Kind of YOU THIS YEAR? remarkable, considering On the tie-in front, I've done the my hitman Quarry was in movie novel, G.I. JOE: The Rise a series of four books in of Cobra and a prequel novel, the mid-‗70s, and now he‘s G.I. JOE: Above and Beyond. back. These will be from DAW this 2. WHAT‘S UP NEXT? WHAT summer. My second Mike PROJECTS ARE YOU Hammer collaboration with WORKING ON? Mickey Spillane—working from unfinished manuscripts Mickey I am almost finished with writing and sharing byline. entrusted to me, in the last Antiques Bizarre, the fourth Matt and I had worked together weeks of his life—will be out in ―Trash ‗n‘ Treasures‖ mystery on all the CSI novels (including the fall—The Big Bang, a for Kensington, written in Miami), Dark Angel, Bones, Harcourt hardcover. The collaboration with my wife, Criminal Minds, and assorted previous Hammer, The Goliath Barb – the joint byline is other CSI stuff, like jigsaw Bone, was well-received but it ―Barbara Allan.‖ These books puzzles and comics. He‘s a was designed to be the last have done rather well, wonderful writer and has moved novel in the series and took particularly the first, Antiques from just researching into co- place in modernday, post 9/11 Roadkill. They are funny, even plotting and now full New York. The Big Bang was zany cozies, and Barb does a collaborative mode. We had begun (and set aside by Mickey) great job on them. We plot them done so many serial in 1965, and that's the period together, Barb does the first killer/forensics books based on I've set it in—it's really vintage draft of maybe 40,000 words TV shows we decided to create Hammer, wild stuff, LSD and and I do the next draft of 60,000 our own series. hippie chicks and free love. or so. After that, I‘ll do my draft of another collaborative novel, Most of the rest of the year There will also be another Killer TV, one of at least two, will be spent on the first Hard Case crime original— also for Kensington. My Nathan Heller novel since 2001. Quarry in the Middle. The longtime associate on a lot of This one‘s called Bye Bye, Baby success of The Last Quarry for tie-stuff, Matt Clemens, is co- Vol. 3, issue 3, May-June 2009 1 and is about the murder of 5. YOU AND LEE GOLDBERG Tracy/Katherine Hepburn Marilyn Monroe. It‘s for TOR. FORMED THE IAMTW. WHAT wannabe pair, who were rivals PROMPTED THE TWO OF YOU TO in love and journalism. So I 3. DO YOU DRIVE A HARDTOP OR DO IT? alternated first-person chapters RAGTOP? We‘d both been thinking about between them, and made them Right now I drive a small mini- both unreliable narrators, van. I once had a Chevy HHR, doing it, and when we discovered we were on the same contradicting each other all the which is an old-fashioned buggy time. That came off very nicely, like the PT Cruiser. We loved it, wave length, threw in together, to divide up the work. Don‘t ask considering what I was working but it was cramped for the long- from. haul driving we find ourselves Lee how evenly work is divided, doing when we‘re out doing because he definitely gets the My nightmare story I‘ve promo. For many years I drove ―biggest‖ half, as the Kingfish told many times – doing the a Firebird, and in my mind, I used to say. novel of the screenplay of Road to Perdition, a screenplay based still do. 6. ICE CREAM . CHOCOLATE, on my own graphic novel. I did a VANILLA, OR STRAWBERRY? 90,000 word, very solid novel Vanilla, but only with hot fudge. 4. IN ADDITION TO YOUR TIE-IN that the editor called the best WORK, DO YOU HAVE ANY tie-in he‘d ever read; then ORIGINAL NOVELS YOU‘RE DreamWorks made me cut 7. WHAT TIE-IN PROJECT WAS WORKING ON THAT YOU‘D LIKE everything that wasn‘t in the THE MOST DIFFICULT FOR YOU, TO TELL US ABOUT? movie. The published version AND WHY? was maybe 40,000 words. See above. Several have been tough. Couldn‘t write dialogue for my Daylight was a own characters. I never felt horrible script, but I worse about the writing game. couldn‘t turn it down because I‘d already turned the editor 8. LET‘S LOOK AT THE OTHER down on another SIDE OF THE COIN. WHAT TIE-IN movie project, and PROJECT WAS THE EASIEST, AND knew I‘d never be WHY? asked again. But I The recent X-Files movie novel. figured out a way to I loved the show, had tried to do it interestingly – get one of the tie-ins and failed both for me and the (back in the day), and this was a reader – which was to gift. Frank Spotnitz, the co- make it a kind of writer and producer of the film, documentary on communicated with me paper, as if the throughout, and I was provided disaster depicted in all kinds of stuff. I had the the film had been complete script when nobody real. I did half a dozen but the director and maybe the or so first-person two lead actors had the thing. voices, alternating. They trusted me and supported That may be my best me, and I loved the property. tie-in. Some people didn‘t like the film, Similarly, I Love but I did, very much. I never Trouble was an awful had a better time in the tie-in screen-play. But the game than writing that book. set-up had two reporters, a fairly lame Spencer 2 9. WHAT DO YOU MOST ENJOY Madness, ABOUT TIE-IN WRITING? Rocky Horror Well, I love movies. I have a Picture Show. knack for (hate this word) novelizations because I‘ve 11. PUBLISHING directed indie films – four HAS TAKEN features, several shorts, two SEVERAL HITS documentaries – and I know IN THE PAST how to read a script, how to FEW YEARS . translate it into prose. So that‘s LAYOFFS AT enjoyable to me, making a novel THE BIG out of a screenplay, just as an HOUSES, A CUT exercise in craft. IN TITLES. HOW The other great thing has DO YOU THINK been the ability to work in all THE TIE-IN sorts of genres that would INDUSTRY HAS otherwise be denied me – I‘m a BEEN mystery specialist and in IMPACTED? particular am known for I can‘t tell yet. historical crime novels, so Sorry to duck getting to do a western it, but I just (Maverick), science-fiction can‘t tell. I do (Waterworld), horror (The think tie-ins Mummy), fantasy (The Scorpion will survive, King), war (Saving Private and the kind of Ryan), romance (I Love versatile, Trouble), techno-thriller (Air resilient Force One), and so on...that‘s a writers who real kick. belong to the IAMTW will be among those ready, maybe a little research. able to meet the market, After a late breakfast or early 10. WHAT‘S YOUR FAVORITE however it‘s shifted. Tie-ins lunch, I write all afternoon. MUSICAL? rarely sell huge numbers (there Then again late evening, if I am a huge buff on musicals, are exceptions) but they are necessary. Usually seven days a actually – my father was a dependable, and on some level week, but certainly six. music teacher and in the early are no-brainers for editors and 14. DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE ‗50s did the first high school publishers. CUISINE AND DISH? productions of both Oklahoma and Carousel. I can give you a Probably Italian – any great list of some of my favorites: 12. WHAT ADVICE DO YOU OFFER pasta dish. Sweeney Todd, Carousel, Damn AUTHORS WHO ARE TRYING TO 15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST TIE-IN Yankees, Into the Woods, How to BREAK INTO TIE-IN WRITING OR NOVEL AND HOW DID YOU LAND Succeed in Business Without ESTABLISHED AUTHORS TRYING THE PROJECT? Really Trying and Lil Abner. I TO GET MORE WORK? DICK TRACY was my first. I would not cross the street to see If you have any, please tell me. an Andrew Lloyd Webber was writing the syndicated musical. In fact, I would run in 13. CAN YOU DESCRIBE ONE OF comic strip at the time, and had the opposite direction. I also like YOUR TYPICAL WORK DAYS? received good press for revitalizing the strip when it the quirky ―cult‖ musicals, Little I would say the morning tends was on the verge of cancellation. Shoppe of Horrors, Reefer to be business, plowing through I was consulting on the movie, e-mails, getting snail mail helping with research and 3 suggesting villains, and We never worked together.