I'm currently writing a novel that is almost completely original. None of the main characters feature in any on screen material, although there are links to and appearances of TV characters. I know Paramount Pictures are quite protective of the Star Trek universe and I am wondering if a novel with almost all original characters would not only be a good read but also be accepted for publishing.
Is it possible to write a Star Trek novel that has none of the main TV characters in it?
- Thread starter Strange Quark
- Start date
Thank you Dimesdan. I was hoping that there would be an example of a novel with no main characters.
You would need to check with the publisher of Trek novels, what their requirements are. I'm sure it used to be that they had to contain established characters and couldn't introduce a previously unknown sibling. It is also a very niche market to try to get into.
Sorry, but that's not how the process works. You don't write a tie-in novel first and then sell it to the publisher, as you would with original fiction. Tie-ins have to fit the continuity and ground rules set by the studio (which, for Trek, has been called CBS Studios since 2006, not Paramount anymore), so you need their approval from the start of the process. Pocket Books's editors commission authors to develop Trek novel proposals, which then have to be approved by CBS before the writing can begin.
If you want to write a book that's centered on original characters, then you're probably better off if you go all the way and put it in your own original universe, unrelated to Star Trek. The best way to get the attention of Pocket's editors is to have original publishing credits of your own, proving that you can do professional-level work, and to get an agent who can contact them on your behalf. And you might just find that creating your own universe from top to bottom is more rewarding and more liberating than borrowing someone else's setting and characters. It sounds like you're halfway there already. Original fiction also gives you a lot more potential markets to sell to. With Trek, it's Pocket or bust. With original SF, if one market rejects it, you can submit it to others. (But just be sure it really is an original universe in concept, not just Trek with new labels stuck on the species and tech. SF editors get thousands of submissions that are just thinly disguised Trek stories, and they reject them out of hand for unoriginality.)
The Seekers novel All That's Left is one of the only novels I can think of which doesn't feature anyone seen on the show, be they main or secondary or even just one-off characters. Of course, it does feature characters who have been in previous Seekers novels as well as Vanguard, and the cover features a Constitution class ship to help draw in the casual crowd.
In fact, only three times in the last six years has Pocket added a new novelist to the lineup of authors - David A. McIntee, Tony Daniel, and John Jackson Miller - all three of which had many other novels to their name before they wrote for Trek. Christopher's advice - write original work first - is the only applicable advice here, and even then you unfortunately still have very little chance.
Also, to be clear, if what you're asking is whether you can sell your STAR TREK novel to other publishers as long as it only features original characters, the answer is NO. You want to set it in the Star Trek universe, with Klingons and Romulans and Starfleet and the Federation and all that, it's a STAR TREK novel, and only Pocket Books is currently licensed to publish STAR TREK novels. Period. (Comics and graphic novels are another story. Then you're dealing with IDW.)
And, yes, as Christopher mentioned, if you want to turn your ST novel into an original novel, you need to do more than just change the names and file off the serial numbers.
"The Klargon battle cruiser activated its stealthing device before crossing the Forbidden Zone into territory controlled by the Federated Unity of Planets."
Don't laugh! I've seen submissions like that!
And, yes, as Christopher mentioned, if you want to turn your ST novel into an original novel, you need to do more than just change the names and file off the serial numbers.
"The Klargon battle cruiser activated its stealthing device before crossing the Forbidden Zone into territory controlled by the Federated Unity of Planets."
Don't laugh! I've seen submissions like that!
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I understand that Pocket is reviving SNW in some form, an opportunity for fanfic short stories to get promoted to non-fanfic status, and novice writers to get a pro sale.
For my own part, I've written a few short stories, all of them within the context of a Short Story Workshop class (which I repeated to the 4-semester limit) at the local junior college, set in a "First Contact Corps" milieu. I can't recall off the top of my head what it was I called the interstellar government of which the "First Contact Corps" was a unit, but I know it was a name I hadn't seen used, and that the government, as I imagined it, was somewhat of an amalgam of ST's UFP, ADF's Humanx Commonwealth, probably a bit of B5's Interstellar Alliance, and maybe a little bit of every other interstellar government I'd seen in SF literature. (One of the non-Humanoid alien species was named the "Lozadians," after a classmate.)
And I wrote a couple of ST short stories in the class as well: a Borg origin story, and a "Man Trap" sequel (doubly strange, since I loathe both Borg stories even more than I loathe the Salt Vampire), none of them good enough to even bother submitting to SNW, even if it were running at the time. As well as a short "high shock value" piece derived from a nightmare, that had no detailed milieu beyond a sentient insectoid with an enormous stinger, taking sadistic pleasure in the use of that stinger.
At that point, I was writing anything I could to satisfy the demand for "something other than another 'Organ Princess' story." (I also wrote a "flash fiction" piece, taking a "fly-on-the-wall" perspective in a classroom full of students getting their first exposure to Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.)
For my own part, I've written a few short stories, all of them within the context of a Short Story Workshop class (which I repeated to the 4-semester limit) at the local junior college, set in a "First Contact Corps" milieu. I can't recall off the top of my head what it was I called the interstellar government of which the "First Contact Corps" was a unit, but I know it was a name I hadn't seen used, and that the government, as I imagined it, was somewhat of an amalgam of ST's UFP, ADF's Humanx Commonwealth, probably a bit of B5's Interstellar Alliance, and maybe a little bit of every other interstellar government I'd seen in SF literature. (One of the non-Humanoid alien species was named the "Lozadians," after a classmate.)
And I wrote a couple of ST short stories in the class as well: a Borg origin story, and a "Man Trap" sequel (doubly strange, since I loathe both Borg stories even more than I loathe the Salt Vampire), none of them good enough to even bother submitting to SNW, even if it were running at the time. As well as a short "high shock value" piece derived from a nightmare, that had no detailed milieu beyond a sentient insectoid with an enormous stinger, taking sadistic pleasure in the use of that stinger.
At that point, I was writing anything I could to satisfy the demand for "something other than another 'Organ Princess' story." (I also wrote a "flash fiction" piece, taking a "fly-on-the-wall" perspective in a classroom full of students getting their first exposure to Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.)
"Organ Princess"?
Yes. I've had a novel in gestation for many years, working title The Cuckoo Nightingale (a play on the nickname of the Handel 13th organ concerto), about the adventures and coming-of-age of Jennifer Christine Schweitzer, a child-prodigy organist, growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s. And that project has produced a number of story ideas that didn't work as B-plots for the novel, but did work as short stories.
Better that than having your mind go to reproductive organs.
(Speaking of which, given that most digital organs (e.g., Allen, Rodgers, Ahlborn, Technics, Roland, &c), as well as the Hauptwerk software digital organ, are all based on digital sampling, reproducing samples recorded from real pipes, rather than attempting to simulate them, do they qualify as "reproductive organs"?)
(Speaking of which, given that most digital organs (e.g., Allen, Rodgers, Ahlborn, Technics, Roland, &c), as well as the Hauptwerk software digital organ, are all based on digital sampling, reproducing samples recorded from real pipes, rather than attempting to simulate them, do they qualify as "reproductive organs"?)
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