Another entity that novelists struggle with when writing for TV is economy. “With novels, I could write 15 pages on a piece of furniture if I wanted,” said “Crazy Rich Asians” author Kevin Kwan, who is working on an original series for Amazon. “But in TV, one page is one minute. You’ve got sixty pages to tell a story and make people want to download the next episode.” Novelist Ali Liebegott, who wrote for “Transparent” and now is a writer and co-executive producer of the “Roseanne” spinoff, “The Conners,” said, “There’s so much room in fiction just to be in a mood. But TV is all about the action. It’s economical, whereas I’m much more tangential by nature. I mean, all my favorite movies are about two alcoholics sitting across a table from one another.”

Do novelists worry that their participation in the time-consuming but highly lucrative world of television might cause them to squander their fiction careers, gradually transforming them from ink-stained wretches to Malibu caftan-wearers? “That is a favorite topic in my therapist’s office,” said Attica Locke, who has written for “Empire” and Ava DuVernay’s upcoming series “Central Park Five.” “But I can’t eat off books. I can’t send my kid to private school off books.”

Locke offers a sterling example of how writing for TV can actually aid a writer’s prose. “I wrote my last book, ‘Bluebird, Bluebird,’ in between seasons of ‘Empire,’ and then during the third season. When I finally showed it to my agent, he couldn’t believe how short it was! He said, ‘The best thing you got out of ‘Empire’ is brevity!’ All my other books were over 400 pages.”

“Bluebird, Bluebird” went on to make 18 “best of the year” lists, be a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize and win the 2018 Edgar Award for Best Novel. The book is — here’s the reveal, folks — being developed as a TV series.