Now, though, Franck and Abraham are there in the room, working among the Expanse writers, which has some key benefits. Theyre at work on the sagas seventh book, while the show is still grappling with the first two; if a writers plot undermines something they have planned for later, they can speak up. They also represent a lobbying bloc: In the shows first season, they helped to push for more accurate science, including communication delays across the solar system, inconsistent gravity, and slow travel timesand eventually, the other writers started to see how those constraints helped add suspense and make for better stories.
The source material is by no means sacrosanct, though, and Franck is the first person to insist that some things need to be changed for TV. Take, for example, the first Expanse book, Leviathan Wakeswhich includes entire chapters in which hard-boiled police officer Miller sits around drinking and feeling sorry for himself. Thats a terrible episode of television, he says. Nor is subtraction the only way to help the adaptation: Franck credits Shankar and the shows other producers for bringing elements of later books into shows first two seasons.
Now, Franck believes that more and more authors are asking to be included in the writing processbut thus far, its still the exception rather than the rule. And hes the first to admit that not every book author is going to be able to handle the collaborative atmosphere of a writers roomor be willing to listen to other peoples suggestions about their creations.
