Fictional Writers Writing Fictional Books

Gratuitous Eye Candy

I really (really really) like Nathan Fillion. Loved him in Firefly, that weird road race series Drive that only lasted six episodes, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, and now in the TV series "Castle."

I hope he's as funny and charming in real life as he appears to be in his acting roles.

That out of the way, let's talk about Richard Castle. He's not a real writer, but he is played as one on TV. The funny and strange part is there's a novel written by "Richard Castle" titled "Dead Heat" which is supposedly the book the TV Castle writes using his detective partner as a model for the tough Nikki Heat character in the novel. Which, of course, is a fictional novel. But it's not. It's a real, buyable novel on Amazon and fine bookstores everywhere.

I thought it'd be fun to read it but I'm hesitant to buy a fiction novel (in this case, that term is perfectly valid). I've requested it from my library. Hmm. They have several copies and all of them are out. I'm now third on the list of requests.

What do you think of a fictional person writing a fictional novel? Do you know if anything like this was done before? I'll go off to do some research.

BUT if you're the first person to give me an example of a fictional character writing a real fictional novel, I'll give you a real free ebook of your choice. Heck, give me two examples, and I'll mail you a real paper fictional book not written by a fictional author. If you know what I mean.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. There was supposedly a video made with Nathan and Stephen Cannell (I suspect the real life writer of the fictional Castle's books) titled "Write-Along with Nathan Fillion." Must investigate further.