Author Habits That Annoy You

[Greg Cox]

Doing movie novelizations, I will often assign names to bit characters who are only "COP 2"or "OLDER NURSE" in the script, simply because you can get away with that in a screenplay, but it might look odd to keep refering to a character as only "the second cop" in a book if they're around for more than a few pages or actually have a line or two. I may also try to flesh them out a bit more since, again, it's a book, not a movie and I have the liberty to do so.

Doesn't change the plot at all. Just adds a bit of meat to the bones.

 

[David cgc]

I remember RDM talking about sneaking Dr. Cottle’s first name into the Battlestar Galactica finale because actors notice that sort of thing, when they’re a recurring character but still haven’t rated a full name.

 

[CaptainCalvinCat]

As I recall, Erika's name was specified in the script .

And I still don't believe that she's really dead since we never actually saw her die in the first movie . . .

Granted, our good Erika is a bad example. And I'm also sure, that she's still around in the movie-universe... or she turned into a human called "Beth Turner" and now is in a relationship with the vampire detective Mick St. John. And they're enjoying the moonlight...

Doing movie novelizations, I will often assign names to bit characters who are only "COP 2"or "OLDER NURSE" in the script, simply because you can get away with that in a screenplay, but it might look odd to keep refering to a character as only "the second cop" in a book if they're around for more than a few pages or actually have a line or two. I may also try to flesh them out a bit more since, again, it's a book, not a movie and I have the liberty to do so.

Doesn't change the plot at all. Just adds a bit of meat to the bones.

Yup - in a novel (or Fanfic, in my case) you yourself decide how much time you want to devote to characters.In the movie or tv-series, you need to tell the story in 45 minutes, but a book can also be 300 or 400 pages long. And some people do. I remember reading "Star Trek: Crucible: McCoy - Provenance of shadows" and thought: "Boy, you could knock out a thief with that book. 808 pages... that is, what we call 'Ein dicker Wälzer' in germany."

I remember RDM talking about sneaking Dr. Cottle’s first name into the Battlestar Galactica finale because actors notice that sort of thing, when they’re a recurring character but still haven’t rated a full name.

I always liked the name Natasi for Six. It was dropped in the novelization for the pilot - I liked it so much, that I included that name as one of the alias's of Six in my story.

 

[Greg Cox]

My editor at the time, John Ordover, still teases me about turning in a four-hundred page novelization of UNDERWORLD.

What can I say, I got carried away.

 

[Yistaan]

On the topic of

Doing movie novelizations, I will often assign names to bit characters who are only "COP 2"or "OLDER NURSE" in the script, simply because you can get away with that in a screenplay, but it might look odd to keep refering to a character as only "the second cop" in a book if they're around for more than a few pages or actually have a line or two. I may also try to flesh them out a bit more since, again, it's a book, not a movie and I have the liberty to do so.

Doesn't change the plot at all. Just adds a bit of meat to the bones.

The 1976 Star Wars novelization famously named Palpatine as the Emperor who destroyed the Old Republic (a name that didn't show up on film until 1999). There was still some wonkiness, such as the reference to "later corrupt Emperors" (meaning Palpatine wouldn't have been the Emperor as of the 1977 movie). It was only the ROTJ novelization that solidified there only being one Emperor, Palpatine, since the fall of the Old Republic.

That being said, pretty sure the name came from Lucas and not Foster.

 

[Christopher]

On the topic of

The 1976 Star Wars novelization famously named Palpatine as the Emperor who destroyed the Old Republic (a name that didn't show up on film until 1999). There was still some wonkiness, such as the reference to "later corrupt Emperors" (meaning Palpatine wouldn't have been the Emperor as of the 1977 movie). It was only the ROTJ novelization that solidified there only being one Emperor, Palpatine, since the fall of the Old Republic.

That being said, pretty sure the name came from Lucas and not Foster.

I think the term "Dark Lord of the Sith" also debuted in the novelization, though it came from the script or something.

 

[Greg Cox]

On the topic of

The 1976 Star Wars novelization famously named Palpatine as the Emperor who destroyed the Old Republic (a name that didn't show up on film until 1999). There was still some wonkiness, such as the reference to "later corrupt Emperors" (meaning Palpatine wouldn't have been the Emperor as of the 1977 movie). It was only the ROTJ novelization that solidified there only being one Emperor, Palpatine, since the fall of the Old Republic.

That being said, pretty sure the name came from Lucas and not Foster.

I dimly recall that the original novelization portrayed the Emperor as a doddering figurehead who mostly just puttered around in his gardens, leaving the actual running of the Empire to ambitious figures like Tarkin and Vader.

Obviously, that notion went out the window by the time EMPIRE came along.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

As I recall, Erika's name was specified in the script .

And I still don't believe that she's really dead since we never actually saw her die in the first movie . . .

Sophia Myles assumed Erika had died, and was somewhat surprised, maybe even relieved, to learn from fans on Twitter that 1) Erika might have escaped the carnage, and 2) she wasn't viewed as a villain. I think Erika is more of an opportunist than villain, myself.

Underworld is a narratively curious series of films. I binged them for the first time in years in 2020, and there are a lot of blurred lines between hero and villain in that series. Lucius may be the purest expression of a hero in that series, and he dies halfway through the first film.

 

[FredH]

I think the term "Dark Lord of the Sith" also debuted in the novelization, though it came from the script or something.

And if I recall correctly, the novelization implies that there are a bunch of other Dark Lords, with a line along the lines of “Fear followed all the Dark Lords. This particular one was blah blah blah…”. This can now be taken to refer to all Dark Lords ever, but young me interpreted it as there being any number of other Imperial Dark Lords marauding around the Empire, presumably with their own dark armor and personal forces. (Pretty much what the Inquisitorius turned out to be, I guess.)

 

[Greg Cox]

Sophia Myles assumed Erika had died, and was somewhat surprised, maybe even relieved, to learn from fans on Twitter that 1) Erika might have escaped the carnage, and 2) she wasn't viewed as a villain. I think Erika is more of an opportunist than villain, myself.

Underworld is a narratively curious series of films. I binged them for the first time in years in 2020, and there are a lot of blurred lines between hero and villain in that series. Lucius may be the purest expression of a hero in that series, and he dies halfway through the first film.

My impression is that the filmmakers underestimated how popular Lucian would be and later regretted killing him off in the first film. Hence, them bringing him back and making him the hero of the prequel movie, a few years down the road.

I'd hoped to bring Erika back in some future tie-in book, but it was not to be.

 

[JD]

I remember that too. Red and green ink to separate between the world outside and inside the book.

I wonder if that was just a German thing, or if they just only did it for the earlier editions. I read the US version a couple years ago, and all of the text was standard black, with the stuff happening in the Fantastica written in normal text, and the stuff in the real world italicized.

I remember RDM talking about sneaking Dr. Cottle’s first name into the Battlestar Galactica finale because actors notice that sort of thing, when they’re a recurring character but still haven’t rated a full name.

I was shocked to discover a year or two ago, that Penny went through the entire 12 seasons and 279 episodes of The Big Bang Theor and never got a last name, even after we met her parents and she married Leonard.

 

[DonIago]

My impression is that the filmmakers underestimated how popular Lucian would be and later regretted killing him off in the first film. Hence, them bringing him back and making him the hero of the prequel movie, a few years down the road.

I'd hoped to bring Erika back in some future tie-in book, but it was not to be.

I've only seen the first two films. A prequel didn't really interest me, nor did sequels that (literally) fridged Michael, but FWIW, based on what we see in the first two films, I didn't draw any conclusions about Erika myself.

 

[bdub76]

This isn't specific to Star Trek authors. But plot reuse is a big pet peeve of mine. I'm thinking of Dan Brown here. You read one of his books you've read them all. And I'm not talking about the heroes journey, or try fail, or any of the other plotting mechanics. I'm talking about a whodunit that is the same person in every book. I don't want to spoil the author for anyone, but if you've read more than one of his books, you know what I mean.

Another one. Blake Crouch endings. He fails to deliver on his promises more often than not. But his books read really fast, so my book club likes them. I hope for a good ending every time I pick one up. And sometimes his plotting is pretty awful. This guy does a good job of tearing apart one of his popular books:

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[Greg Cox]

I've only seen the first two films. A prequel didn't really interest me, nor did sequels that (literally) fridged Michael, but FWIW, based on what we see in the first two films, I didn't draw any conclusions about Erika myself.

I liked the prequel, but, of course, I'm biased since I novelized that one, too.

One funny memory: I ended up writing the tragic death of Sonia three times: once in the first novelization (as a flashback), again in an original prequel I wrote between the first two films, and again in the novelization of the third movie . . . which overwrote my earlier prequel!

So, unlike Erika, Sonia is well and truly dead!

 

[DonIago]

I dunno Greg...if she can survive two deaths, what makes you believe she can't survive a third?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Plus, sometimes giving a character a name is less distracting than keeping them nameless. I recently edited a novel where "a pretty blonde barmaid" kept popping up periodically, whenever our heroes swung by the local watering-hole. Understand that she was basically just a background character who played no real role in the plot, but after "the pretty blonde barmaid" popped up for the fifteenth time, I finally told the author:

"Just give her a name already."

"Diane Chambers" has a nice ring to it.

 

[CaptainCalvinCat]

I liked the prequel, but, of course, I'm biased since I novelized that one, too.

One funny memory: I ended up writing the tragic death of Sonia three times: once in the first novelization (as a flashback), again in an original prequel I wrote between the first two films, and again in the novelization of the third movie . . . which overwrote my earlier prequel!

So, unlike Erika, Sonia is well and truly dead!

I did read all of the books, that were available in Germany. And I definitely liked them, I only thought "Oh, at least the translator had fun using the description of Sonjas blood being 'so kühl wie ein klarer Bergbach'."

But my question would be: How much of the script of "Rise of the Lycans" was written, when you wrote "blood enemy"? How much of the actual plot could you use? Or did the "Rise of the Lycans"-authors read your book and said: "Hey, that's awesome, we take that?"

I dunno Greg...if she can survive two deaths, what makes you believe she can't survive a third?

She'd be a real Murdoc then. "MacGyvaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"

 

[Airin]

I wonder if that was just a German thing, or if they just only did it for the earlier editions.

This was a Spanish edition, so it may be an issue of European vs. US editions

 

[Yistaan]

I heard the famous Chinese writer Jin Yong pushed out one edition of his books after another with changes that drove his fans nuts (some of which fans agreed were worse than earlier editions). Anyway @Greg Cox I'll be waiting for the second edition of the Eugenics Wars novels updated to take place in the 2030s (as implied by Strange New Worlds).

 

[DonIago]

^Will the images of Khan on the covers be replaced by images more reminiscent of Benedict Cumberbatch?