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Kirr Mistwelder wrote:

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Of course, Karen Traviss was brought in to take over the Gears of War novel after another writer had been selected to do it. I don't think she ultimately wrote the story he had planned to write, but we'll probably never exactly know.

Karen's GoW novel was completely original. It had nothing to do with Kent's. Karen started clean and just turned in her own outline with what she wanted to do without knowing anything about what Kent had planned or written. From what has been said in the past; the way SW authors usually do novels is to turn in an outline and get it approved once being asked to pitch for the universe.

My point was also to kind of point out that there's contractual and economic issues at play here too. They can't just reuse Elaine's outline, because it's Elaine's outline. They could give the slot to someone and say; "Write a story about Zekk and the twins", but there's no telling what we'd get. Also, there's the question of whether it'd end up being a rush job to make a deadline. I'd rather see Elaine be given the time to write her outline that was approved and which the cover and solicit was based on instead of just getting some filler material that tells the story.

I'm just saying it's important to remember that BLOOD OATH existed because Elaine wrote an outline that DR/LFL liked, it was more than just an assigned book, and there's a chance it wasn't assigned at all in the sense most people think of.

Franchise writers have a surprising amount of leeway with what to write about, it's just that they have to have outlines okayed before they write. Also, the way Sue worded it doesn't mean that there's even something going on in the author's life. Something beyond Elaine's control is delaying the MS. Whether that is something in her life or something at LFL even...we've not been told and probably will never know, which is fine, as it's their business.

Does that make sense? I think people have an image of franchise fiction that doesn't fit the reality. There's a lot of freedom involved in what writers can write about (except novelizations, obviously) and it's rare that a book is outright "assigned" in the way I think people assume they are. I believe Traviss has a FAQ that talks about this.

Also, they'd have to kill-fee Elaine's book and then pay a new author all over again to come up with a new outline, get it approved, get an MS, and then release something that isn't BLOOD OATH since contractually, I'm pretty sure that slot is Elaine's. Actually, since it hasn't been canceled I sort of wonder if the problem is more on LFL's side for whatever reason, but there's just no telling. All we know is that it's beyond the author's control, so it's not even that Elaine is late, but that something is going on that means she can't get the MS finished due to...something, which again, isn't our business.