Tales of Beedle the Bard: J.K. Rowling shows us the glory of ancillary writing

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August 6, 11:17 AM

by Guy Incognito, Writing Examiner

 

 

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

For those of you who couldn't care less, here's why you should care.

With Tales, J.K. Rowling is doing what those of us who write series fiction would kill to do. She's creating an ancillary work, something that exists in her world, something which readers would love to see, and she's going to make a killing off of it.

She's also including commentary by Dumbledore himself, which once again, readers desperately want. This is incredibly smart (and what else would we expect from Ms. Rowling?) as it at once allows her to to further develop her world without writing a new novel per se, and it makes her fans extremely happy.

The upside for the rest of us authors is, if Tales of Beedle the Bard is successful, which it will be, ideas that previously seemed insane to us are now viable publishing concepts. This allowss those of us who have success and take advantage of it to explore our environments in more depth without being laughed at by our publishers.

Also, while this is possibly the most high-profile version of this since the ill-conceived Star Wars prequels, it is by no means the first. Other examples include the Lord of the Rings and Elizabeth Haydon's Sympthony of the Ages series, which has an ancillary children's series, The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme.

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