Former Trek authors you'd like to see write a new adventure

[Trek Survivor]

Definitely John Vornholt, one of my favourites from the earlier 'numbered' years - Masks, Contamination, War Drums etc, all good efforts.

Michael Jan Friedman too - his DC run of TNG comics is amazing, and his novels were all pretty good as well.

 

[KRAD]

The fact that KRAD has been shut out of writing new Star Trek novels is borderline criminal. (Well, not literally, but you know what I mean.)

Very kind of you to say, thank you.

News to me.

Well, put it this way -- the fact that I haven't written a Trek novel in a decade-and-a-half isn't by my choice......

 

[Procutus]

Certainly more books a year. I would bring back Christopher to pen new TOS/Movie era stories.

This!

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

@KRAD, you certainly have my support (although my support and around $3.15 to $3.65 will buy you a literal cup of black coffee at Starbuck's).

I can't recall reading any opus of yours and finding it wanting in any way. Somebody must not like you very much, and I cannot imagine why.

 

[Zarm]

@KRAD, you certainly have my support

And my axe!

(By which I mean, I too would very much be behind your return to the Trek universe!)

 

[Obsidian_Phil]

I’m another who’d love a new Trek book by Keith R.A. DeCandido - all of his books were excellent

 

[JD]

Four?!? The one I went in last week had one Star Trek novel.

I haven't checked in person, but based on the website, none of the two or three Barnes & Nobles closes to me carry any Trek books.

That was my own impression, refamiliarizing myself with what Memory Alpha had to say about the genesis of the episode. Even with the screen credit and the early draft, there wasn't much left but inspiration. The way I read it, she and Reaves might have even been within their rights to demand that they be credited as something to the general effect of "Alan and Alma Smithee." And as good as the episode was, it doesn't hold a candle to The Wounded Sky.

With TV writing very little of the credited writers work actually makes it to the screen, I believe they usually go through several drafts by the whole writing staff, and then the showrunner(s) usually do(es) a pass. So if you were to do that, literally every TV episode would be credited to "Alan Smithee".

 

[Corran Horn]

KRAD could do some great things with SNW. In fact once the series ends I'd love to see those books continue (and more still across the series).

 

[Christopher]

With TV writing very little of the credited writers work actually makes it to the screen, I believe they usually go through several drafts by the whole writing staff, and then the showrunner(s) usually do(es) a pass. So if you were to do that, literally every TV episode would be credited to "Alan Smithee".

That's a huge overstatement. Yes, every script is revised by the staff, and the showrunner does the final polish to ensure a consistent voice and continuity, but naturally some scripts require more revision than others, and usually the contracted screenwriters are involved in the revision process. The reason Duane and Reaves weren't involved in the rewrites on "Where No One..." is because the writing staff underwent massive upheavals and the producer who hired them was no longer on staff, so they were let go and the rest of the revisions were done in-house.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

There's a whole continuum between David Gerrold famously (thanks to his own making-of book on the episode) banging out his own rewrites during the filming of "The Trouble with Tribbles" (with color-coded change pages running into colors like "ultra-submarine brown" and "unhappy purple"), to Harlan Ellison threatening to demand that his screen credit be changed to "Cordwainer Bird" (and Roddenberry making counter-threats) because he couldn't (or wouldn't) cough up a "City on the Edge of Forever" that was both (a) filmable on a series TV budget and (b) consistent with Star Trek.

 

[Christopher]

There's a whole continuum between David Gerrold famously (thanks to his own making-of book on the episode) banging out his own rewrites during the filming of "The Trouble with Tribbles" (with color-coded change pages running into colors like "ultra-submarine brown" and "unhappy purple"), to Harlan Ellison threatening to demand that his screen credit be changed to "Cordwainer Bird" (and Roddenberry making counter-threats) because he couldn't (or wouldn't) cough up a "City on the Edge of Forever" that was both (a) filmable on a series TV budget and (b) consistent with Star Trek.

And that was back when TV writing was largely freelancer-driven. These days, most episodes are written by members of a show's staff, so if one of them gets a script assignment, it's unlikely to be taken away from them in rewrites (though not impossible).

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What shows do accept freelance episodes these days?

 

[Christopher]

What shows do accept freelance episodes these days?

I'm not that familiar with the industry, but I'd think they all do in theory, since new staffers have to come from somewhere. It's just that a freelancer who succeeds at selling a script to a show is likely to get a job offer to join the staff, which is how, for instance, Ronald D. Moore got started.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

With many drama shows having story arcs, anything you submit would have to allow room for whatever ongoing elements the season/show may have that the freelancer is not aware of (e.g. love scenes with a new character the writer doesn't know about yet, argumentative tension between two characters stemming from an as-yet unaired episode in that season)

 

[Christopher]

With many drama shows having story arcs, anything you submit would have to allow room for whatever ongoing elements the season/show may have that the freelancer is not aware of (e.g. love scenes with a new character the writer doesn't know about yet, argumentative tension between two characters stemming from an as-yet unaired episode in that season)

Well, yes, but nobody submits a complete script written in advance. They pitch a story premise verbally, and if the producers like the premise, they'll hire the writer to develop an outline with input from them, and then will either give the script assignment to the freelancer or to a staff member. If the freelancer gets the script assignment, they'd be filled in on whatever they needed to know about the ongoing story arcs they'd need to work into the script.

A very rough analogy would be the process by which I was commissioned to write TNG: Greater than the Sum. Margaret Clark picked me to write the transitional novel between the preceding post-Nemesis TNG novels and the upcoming Destiny trilogy, and I was sent the preceding novels or their manuscripts as well as the outline to Destiny, so that I'd know what I needed to follow up on and what I needed to set up. Margaret gave me a few specifics about what story beats she wanted me to depict -- wrap up the loose ends from Before Dishonor, have Picard and Crusher decide to start a family, etc. -- and left it to me to figure out how to do them. Presumably it would work similarly for a freelancer hired to contribute an installment of a TV story arc.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And as to "untried" freelancers submitting spec scripts (and TNG had quite possibly the most liberal policy on that of any series in history), it is almost unheard-of for a spec script to actually get produced in any form (like "The Trouble with Tribbles"); they usually just lead to pitch-sessions.

 

[Christopher]

And as to "untried" freelancers submitting spec scripts (and TNG had quite possibly the most liberal policy on that of any series in history), it is almost unheard-of for a spec script to actually get produced in any form (like "The Trouble with Tribbles"); they usually just lead to pitch-sessions.

Well, yes, but that was only for unagented freelancers, newcomers trying to break in. That's the exception, not the rule. Normally, freelance writers would submit their spec scripts through agents, or if they'd pitched before, they'd just have their agents contact the production to arrange a pitch -- or else the producers would reach out to the agent of a writer they wanted to work with. The reason it's rare for shows to accept unagented, unsolicited pitches is the fear of frivolous plagiarism lawsuits, since it's all but inevitable that some of a freelancer's pitches would coincidentally resemble things they eventually did. (This happens by accident all the time, which is why most plagiarism lawsuits are the result of ignorance or dishonesty, but they still cost a studio a lot of money to fight off.) That's why Michael Piller's open submission policy for Trek required all candidates to sign a waiver promising not to sue, before they could do anything else. Going through agents ensures legal cover for all involved, so that's the normal practice.

But the pitching process is otherwise the same for all freelance writers, novice or experienced. You come in, make a number of brief verbal pitches, probably get all of them rejected, and then come in later and try again, and maybe one in a hundred your pitches will get accepted and you then work with the producers to develop it into an outline. When I went out to pitch for DS9 back in the '90s, Daniel Keys Moran, coauthor of the story for the episode "Hard Time," was sitting right next to me on the couch, waiting to go through the exact same pitching process I was, even though he was a veteran who'd sold to the show before and I was an unagented novice. (He was actually unhappy with how "Hard Time" had turned out, which surprised me, since I thought it was brilliant.)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Yes, the submission-without-agent part was what made TNG's spec script policy so exceptionally liberal.

As I recall from Gerrold's book, (1) he needed an agent (any agent, regardless of whether he or she was any good, so long as he or she was WGA-recognized) to submit anything, (2) he was expected to join WGA as soon as he'd made a successful sale, and (3) once he was a member, he was forbidden by the WGA to work on-spec.

Of course, that was how it was over half a century ago, and it's probably been close to half a century since I last read either of Gerrold's books from that era, so I could certainly be mis-remembering a good deal of that. (Although I certainly recognized his "Tomorrow Was Yesterday"/"Yesterday's Children" story as soon as I was a few chapters into The Galactic Whirlpool!)

If somebody were to circulate a petition to CBS/Paramount, S&S/Pocket, and Diane Duane, begging for a new ST opus by DD, I would be the first to sign it. And yes, I'd sign a similar petition for a new ST opus by GC (which would be one less petition, since he expressed willingness in the idea, in this very thread). But I have my doubts that such petitions would have any effect on the "suits"; they're almost as bad as the late Steve Jobs was, about being convinced they know what the public wants better than the public does.

 

[Avro Arrow]

What shows do accept freelance episodes these days?

... would have been a great question for the TV & Media forum.

Now look what you've done.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I was expecting merely a short list of titles, to be honest.