You’ve also written several novelizations of films, including one of my personal film guilty pleasures Jason X. What is that experience like? Do you get advanced screenings of the movie? Do they just bury you in notes or is it a pretty free experience?

Jason X was a hoot! It wasn’t like any other novelization I’ve done because when I got the assignment, it had already come out and was available on DVD. I had a great time writing that one. The studio had a firm requirement for the number of words; in order to meet it, I had to make up a whole lot of back-story and context for the characters. While I was at it, I slipped in an explanation as to why Jason Voorhees was always killing people for having sex.

But, as I said, that was an exception. I get no advance screenings—I’m usually writing the book while the movie is in production. When I was writing the novelization for Cellular (Kim Basinger, Jason Statham, and a very young, pre-Captain America Chris Evans), I was a hundred pages into the book when they sent me an entirely new script and I had to start over from scratch.

Incidentally, this is why novelizations aren’t exactly like the finished movie. There may be changes to the script during filming, or even afterwards. The director might decide to re-edit the film—scenes might be changed or cut altogether, or new ones added and if the book has already gone to press, there’s nothing the writer can do about it. The lead time for producing a book is a lot longer than it is for a movie, and the novelization is supposed to come out the same day the movie is released, so last-minute changes won’t make it into print.

Every novelization is a different experience and, in general, quite enjoyable.