Becoming the Wolf: Writing an Arcane IP Novel
what it was like writing ambessa: chosen of the wolf
One thing I get asked about a fair bit is the process of writing for IP, specifically writing my Arcane novel, Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf. People often speculate on the validity of my IP work, where it fits in canon, etc., so I thought I would demystify some of that.
This is my experience and while there are similarities among other authors writing IP (Delilah S. Dawson, Chuck Wendig), experiences vary based on the IP company, the medium, and even the publishing house (Ambessa came out with Orbit, which is also the publisher of my Magic of the Lost trilogy). I’ve also written for other IP that’s less well-known, things for stories that may never come out—I simply have no idea. It’s a lot like working on video games or tv shows these days: you put your work into the project, but someone else is in charge of the bigger picture, and they may even decide to scrap the whole thing. (Which sucks, so all of my artists and animators, you have my deepest empathy.)
There are plenty of people who will tell you how to get this sort of gig, so I won’t rehash all of that—see Delilah’s post, or even literary agent Eric Smith’s advice.
No, I lied—I’ll reiterate one thing: do good work and be enthusiastic about the things you love in public.
Okay, the actual process for me.
(Oh, and NB: To even be told about this opportunity, I had to sign an NDA (nondisclosure agreement) (basically you don’t talk about this or we sue you into death and dismemberment). Though the show is out and the book is out, there are still things I won’t go into detail about. So excuse the vagaries below. I’m sure you’ll still get the gist. Even for promotional interviews, they had to be vetted before publication.)
The Approach
As I mentioned, Orbit publishes the Riot franchise books and is also my publisher. They published Ruination before Ambessa. So when they came to Orbit asking if they had the right person for an Ambessa novel…well, I got an email.
At the time, I’ll admit I was very busy trying to finish my trilogy and also a pair of new novellas. I had told my agent that I wasn’t really interested in doing any IP work because there wasn’t a franchise that I cared about enough to do all the research involved.
I love my agent. She has this wonderful habit of hearing me, and then saying, “Yeah? Bet.” And giving me something I didn’t even know I wanted.
So I get this email, sign the requisite NDA, and learn that they want me to write about THE bamf of Arcane.
I looked at the proposed timeline, looked at my current work load, grimaced a bit, and said fuck it, we ball, because it was a once in a lifetime thing. If I was going to do IP, I couldn’t think of anything better.
(I also got asked about a certain intergalactic bellicosity IP novel around this time, but couldn’t smash my schedule that much.)
The Process
We started immediately. I already had, from Riot, a general beat sheet. My job was to expand that a fair bit into an actual novel outline, scene by scene, chapter by chapter. I did a research deep dive into the Riot style guide so that I could learn what design elements belonged to what region, accepted travel times, food types—all of it.
When the outline was approved, I had a couple months to write an entire draft. That was both rough and exhilarating. My work days were 3k-4k a day, but I was able to meet that in part because the outline was so thorough.
A couple months after that, I got some notes and…rewrote it! Which is really par for the course in any novel writing.
In all of this, I got to have a fair amount of leeway. I got to come up with the Medarda Code. I got to invent new animals! I got permission to make Ambessa queer on the page (though some of that got cut for narrative reasons) and elsewhere in the pipeline, someone canonized that she has a certain type. Which led to interactions like this:
The thing to know about this process is that I did get to help canonize much of Ambessa’s personality and life events. However, it was a group project very much, and others had a hand in her creation. I worked with what was already there—and for the record, most of season 2 was already in place by the time I showed up. So, while the tweet above is a joke, I firmly believe (and I doubt I’m the only creator who imagines this), that Sevika is more than enough to pique Ambessa’s…interest. (If you play with her in League of Legends, she will flirt with buff women and twinky men. So it’s not just my imagination.)
One of the coolest aspects was the collaborative process of working on the prologue/music video for Ambessa, Blood, Sweat and Tears. I was instructed early on that the prologue had to have a certain theme because another team was working on the music video, so I drafted up my interpretation and then received more notes as the ideas got refined. I even got a playlist of music that was going to inspire the Ambessa song and I wrote a fair amount of the novel to that. Then, when the animation “drafts” came out, I would refine my prologue a bit more—over and over until we got a good melange of the visual and the textual.
Honestly, that was probably one of the hardest scenes to write because it was so abstract. I had to figure out a way to make these dreamlike shifts concrete for the reader. It was a fun but challenging exercise.
I also got to speak directly with the different artists who make Ambessa and the rest of Runeterra come to life. There was the chat with an artist who handled movement animation for Ambessa’s game character. How she fought, what weapons she used—I had to incorporate all of that. There was also an artist who handled setting and helped me design key locations for the book—like the underground magical bunker in the desert.
There were so many moving pieces because of the different media involved—the TV show, the game, the music video, past lore and future—so a lot of time was spent making sure each piece aligned with the other, from plot and backstory to visual design elements. I say this to clear up certain misconceptions: Ambessa was not fanfiction that I decided to do on my own. I didn’t ask permission to do it. It was a highly coordinated work-for-hire job that Riot paid me to do.
However, it is more complicated than that. For now, all of the novel is canon. But just as in the writing of the novel we de-canonized certain things (mostly fan theories, but also more concrete things), Riot may one day decide that something in Chosen of the Wolf doesn’t work for them anymore. Poof, it’s gone. They get to decide that, though, not me.
The Aftermath
Throughout all of this, I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone about what I was doing. I was still just as hyped about the upcoming Arcane season, and it was awesome getting to watch everyone else finally see ✨certain moments.✨ Despite only talking to a few folks in the writing process, I felt like a member of this great huge team. I would watch season 2 or listen to the final version of the Blood, Sweat, and Tears music video and think—I touched this. I made a piece of Ambessa. A piece of Mel. Of Rell. I made a piece of this great big beloved world that so many people adore.
Deciding to take on IP work isn’t always an easy decision. It takes take away time from original projects, which can delay momentum and mess with audience expectations if you already have extant contracts (The Sovereign got kicked down a year later than expected, for example). It also doesn’t come with the same possibility of royalties (depending on your contract, many IP gigs are low to no royalties, without money from translation rights), though some IP will pay better than others. For some authors, though, IP is more secure than original work; IP work bridges the gap between projects, so they can take time on a weird project that is a bit less commercial, or it’s just good, regular work just like working in a games studio.
For me, it was both stressful and rewarding, and I’ll be forever grateful that I got to be a part of the Arcane team, even from this little corner. I have such mad respect for people whose work is always collaborative, like artists who work in animation studios, games writers, TV writers, all of that.
As for what IP, if any is coming next? Well, only time will tell. 😘🤐
Want to know more about the Ambessa process? Here are some interviews:
Alana Joli Abbott
Daniel Roman
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