Concerning the novel guidelines

[Christopher]

Since Jaime is so nice as to let your DTI pitch through, have you tried an EM sequel pitch? Or will that have to wait until DTI is done?

One of the various pitches I sent to Jaime when she asked for them was a post-ExM proposal. They didn't go for it, at least not this time.

Also had Seven of Nine make a negative comment about the early so-called Starfleet expert's predictions about no female Borg in "Before Dishonor".

Eh? There are female Borg in Q Who and BOBW...

Which is exactly why the Roddenberry/Arnold "no female Borg" dictate in response to Vendetta was so odd.

Although they may have been coming at it from the concept side rather than the execution side. It's hard to remember now, but originally, assimilation was not a basic part of the Borg concept. In "Q Who," the drones were grown in incubators. Regardless of casting, they were probably intended to be asexual. The assimilation of Picard in BOBW was presented as a rare occurrence, since the Borg had been established as having no interest in individuals, only technology. It wasn't until FC and VGR that the Borg were retconned into space zombies specifically targeting and infecting people.

So I can see how Roddenberry and/or Arnold might've thought at the time that Vendetta's treatment of assimilation as something that had been done to humans (such as Reannon Bonaventure) years before BOBW was an extrapolation beyond what canon had established and thus found it questionable. (I remember having a similar reaction when I first read the book, though it was well enough handled that I was willing to accept it.)

 

[Dark Gilligan]

I think I've got a good story under my belt. I was just wondering how I could ensure that, for all my effort, it would not be thrown out because of one little thing!

Rush, is this the same story idea you were pitching a year ago or have you written something new?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It wasn't until FC and VGR that the Borg were retconned into space zombies specifically targeting and infecting people.

So I can see how Roddenberry and/or Arnold might've thought at the time that Vendetta's treatment of assimilation as something that had been done to humans (such as Reannon Bonaventure) years before BOBW was an extrapolation beyond what canon had established and thus found it questionable. (I remember having a similar reaction when I first read the book, though it was well enough handled that I was willing to accept it.)

So if you had decided to write about it would it have been called Sex Machina?

 

[Christopher]

I think I've got a good story under my belt. I was just wondering how I could ensure that, for all my effort, it would not be thrown out because of one little thing!

You can never ensure that a story won't be rejected. Even accomplished veterans get stories rejected. Rejection is a fact of the business. And rejection is often due to "one little thing," though as Greg says, it's generally not due to some tiny variation from the letter of the rules (though egregious violations of the rules should be avoided). A lot of the time, an editor will like your story but just not quite enough for it to make the cut. Remember, you're not doing this in a vacuum, but are competing with a lot of other people for a finite number of slots. An editor may read a lot of stories he or she likes, but will only have space for a few of them, so the difference between success and rejection can be a hair-thin margin.

So don't worry about trying to anticipate and eliminate the reasons an editor might reject your story. There's no way to do that, and it's a misdirected effort. All you can do is put your best effort into your story, submit it, and move on to the next story. And the next, and the next. Obsessing on the meticulous details of the rules won't matter if you fail to put enough effort into the basic quality of the work itself. And the best way to improve the quality of your work is to write a lot of things, even though most of them probably won't sell. You can't become a writer if you're afraid of rejection. Accept that rejection will happen for any number of reasons. Just focus on the writing, on developing and honing your skills. When rejection happens, learn from it and apply those lessons to your subsequent works.

 

[JarodRussell]

Are there actually any TNG/DS9/VOY novels still being published that take place before the Relaunch and between the events of the TV episodes?

If not, you could be sure that you won't see that proposal fitting the submission guidelines to be published ever.

 

[Christopher]

Are there actually any TNG/DS9/VOY novels still being published that take place before the Relaunch and between the events of the TV episodes?

Occasionally. The most recent is The Never Ending Sacrifice, which mostly took place during DS9, though of course that wasn't a conventional DS9 story. There's certainly nothing forbidding it.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Are there actually any TNG/DS9/VOY novels still being published that take place before the Relaunch and between the events of the TV episodes?

If not, you could be sure that you won't see that proposal fitting the submission guidelines to be published ever.

Your submission is just an audition. If they like what you write they'll invite you to pitch something else...which might be written.

 

[Thrawn]

That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

It does bring to mind a further question, though. Does anyone know of someone who did get approved through that submission process? Or is it just a real needle-in-a-haystack?

This is actually a really good question. I know Marco grabbed a lot of totally brand new people - Heather Jarman, Geoff Thorne, etc - but I actually don't know if any of them got in this way.

Is there anyone that has successfully done this since the shows went off air?

 

[Lonemagpie]

That's expecting facts to matter to Richard Arnold.

Don't get me started.... (and I wasn't even pitching books in those days!)

 

[Rush Limborg]

I think I've got a good story under my belt. I was just wondering how I could ensure that, for all my effort, it would not be thrown out because of one little thing!

Rush, is this the same story idea you were pitching a year ago or have you written something new?

I assure you, it is totally different. That was a Janice Rand novel, which breaks a ton of the guidelines. It's not a "first proposal", by any count.

BTW...my mind's not permanently stuck on one storyline, if that's what you're wondering. I point you to my tales in the BBS fanfic forum....

 

[Rush Limborg]

I have a question for Christopher, as I'm currently reading Ex Machina. This seems like it fits within the guidelines Pocket gives for a novel proposal.

I seem to recall the guidelines saying no-no to "relying for impact on the return of guest characters", or some such thing. So...I wouldn't exactly call it a complete fit, per se, considering how much it relys on Natira.

 

[xortex]

Guys, I got a couple of question. How long typically does each chapter have to be?
and can there not be any mention of time travel in the story even if it doesn't have any bearing on the story or the characters. I.e., if nothing takes place in another time and no main characters time travel.

I like to keep my chapters to around 10-15 pages, but that's just me. I'm not aware of any rules to that effect.

As for how much time travel is permissible, that's up to the editors at Pocket Books. I can't speak for them.

I doubt that the mere mention of time travel would get you rejected, though. That would be silly. It's not that the subject is taboo, just that somebody didn't want to encourage a flood of time travel stories from new writers. Maybe because they were getting too many of them.

Or so I assume.

Can I get a word count on each of those chapters, mr. Cox please, and thank you very much.

 

[Dayton Ward]

If you're using a standard 12-pt font and double-spacing your manuscript (which you should be doing), then the average word count per page is anywhere between 250-300 words, give or take. Using Greg's example, that's anywhere from 2500-4500 words.

But, since there's no hard and fast rule on length of chapters, it really doesn't matter

 

[David cgc]

The assimilation of Picard in BOBW was presented as a rare occurrence, since the Borg had been established as having no interest in individuals, only technology. It wasn't until FC and VGR that the Borg were retconned into space zombies specifically targeting and infecting people.

Locutus did have a couple lines in Part Two that made it sound like assimilation was SOP for the Borg.

RIKER
We would like time to prepare our people for assimilation.

LOCUTUS
Preparation is irrelevant. Your people will be assimilated as easily as Picard has been.

LOCUTUS
Worf.

Worf silently studies him, mixed feelings.

LOCUTUS
Klingon species. A warrior race.
(beat)
You too will be assimilated.

 

[Christopher]

^Hmm, granted. So the idea was planted there, though it was a definite retcon from "Q Who." But it wasn't really followed up on in subsequent TNG. "I, Borg" and "Descent" were written from the standpoint that Borg drones were complete blank slates with no prior identity, that severing them from the Collective would just leave them lost and suggestible. I guess that's why I didn't remember the references to assimilation in BOBW -- because they weren't really followed up on until FC.

 

[Rush Limborg]

^I'd always interpereted the oddity of "Q-Who" as:

The Borg go for the technology first, to study the race, and try and see if the builders of this tech would be beneficial to the Collective--and therefore, worthy of assimilation.

The babies we saw were infants who were being assimilated, and just needed "special care" in the compartments, until the process was complete. Riker just made a conclusion based on what little evidence they had.

 

[Christopher]

^But as I said, the drones seen in "I, Borg" and "Descent" were clearly not assimilated, since they had no prior identity or personality of their own. They couldn't all have been assimilated as infants, not the entire population of a cube. Hence my postulate in Greater Than the Sum that there were two types of Borg drones, incubated ones and assimilated ones.

 

[Stevil2001]

Maybe that Borg cube had visited the Planet of the Infants?

 

[BrotherBenny]

I always figured that the Borg ran out of the raw genetic material for drones and knew about genetic drift and the pitfalls of cloning, so they began to assimilate and thereby gained new genetic material. The events of the Enterprise episode doesn't really change anything.

 

[Rush Limborg]

^(Nods) That makes sense--and it jives with the Borg Queen's lines in FC about assimilation as a means to achieving perfection, on the Borg's part.

And the incubation-idea is supported by the VOY ep, "Drone" where "One" is incubated and born....

Hey...suddenly, I get the feeling that a new thread is consuming the old one....