Concerning the novel guidelines
- Thread starter Rush Limborg
- Start date
No. Another author was originally supposed to write the "Sloth" story, but there was a change in plans. In the end, like I said, I recycled an old VOYAGER pitch that had been gathering dust in my files for years.
The original outline didn't involve the Pakleds, btw. I reworked the story to feature the Pakleds and play up the "Sloth" angle . . . . .
The novelizations of the Star Trek movies are not shorter than a regular Trek novel. So you could look into them and compare them to the movies to get a feeling for the length and complexity.
As can be seen from the novelizations of hourlong episodes like "Flashback" and "Relics," which had whole new B- and sometimes C-plots added to fill them out to novel length. Whereas the novelization of "Trials and Tribble-ations," which includes an adaptation of much of "The Trouble with Tribbles" and a long David Gerrold essay, is still a very thin book.
I don't know. All I know is that Margaret needed a "Sloth" story so I wrote her one.
Getting back to the original topic, it can be tricky to figure out just how much plot you need in an outline. One more thing to remember: typically, a dialogue scene is harder to expand than, say, an elaborate action sequence. So an outline that's heavy on discussion or technobabble might not have enough plot to fill a novel.
On the other hand, you can sometimes get an entire chapter out of a single sentence in the outline. ("Spock and Kirk are chased by cannibalistic bat mutants.")
So you want to make sure that your outline has plenty of stuff to expand upon.
Technically, that would only be a problem if Spock and Kirk were themselves bat mutants...
Technically, that would only be a problem if Spock and Kirk were themselves bat mutants...
Good point! Make that "blood-sucking bat mutants" . . . .
"Blood-sucking -Nazi- bat mutants with machetes....from Hell."
^ Well, now you're just being silly.
Are the machetes from Hell better than the other kinds? I'd think that machete-makers in Hell would be damned to perpetually make machetes that didn't work. (Unless they worked too well and turned on their makers...)
I'd buy that for a dollar
Though selling it to a proper Hollywood exec will net you more than a virtual dollar....
As for agents, I don't have one, but I'm the exception that proves the rule* - and have umpteen books, comics, audio dramas etc to introduce myself with...
*- and of course the UK way of doing things used to be different, but isn't so much now...
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