"I don't like Star Trek, but I like Money"

[Captain Dax]

I just re-read Voyages of Imagination again, because I love the interviews with the authors and the background. Oh Boy were there a ton of authors who either had never watched Star Trek or had and didn't like it but were good writers so Pocket hired them.

Then about the turn of the century we started getting authors who were Star Trek fans and the entire thing turned around. Wish they had tried this in the 90s, we would not have so many mediocre numbered novels.

 

[Markonian]

I thought Dictator Arnold was responsible for keeping the novel line...qualitatively limited during the 90s?

 

[Christopher]

It's a myth that you need to be previously familiar with a series in order to write for it. There's a thing writers do called research. Harve Bennett & Nicholas Meyer weren't Trek fans when they were hired to make a Trek movie, but they watched the entire series to learn about it prior to making The Wrath of Khan, and most people think that turned out pretty well (though I disagree). When I was hired to write a Spider-Man novel, I knew the character mostly from TV and movies and some of the recent comics, but I read every Spidey comic I could get my hands on, and my book was praised for its intimate knowledge of comics continuity.

Fandom is a hobby. It's something people do for recreation. Writing professionally is work. It's a different thing altogether. It's not about love for the subject, it's about professional competence and diligence. You can come into a subject with no prior knowledge and become an expert if you do the work to learn it.

Not to mention that plenty of the Trek novelists for Bantam and Pocket in the '70s and '80s were fans. Many of them had made a name for themselves in fan fiction before getting hired to write Trek, and while some of their books were very good, others were terrible. Bantam's Trek authors were about an even split between SF pros and Trek fans, and both categories had entries that were weak in different ways or strong in different ways.

 

[Greg Cox]

True story.

An editor once asked me. "Are you a LEVERAGE fan, Greg?"

"No," I answered honestly, having never seen the show before, "but I can be."

And, yes, just as Christopher said, I spent a couple weeks binge-watching the show, lurking on the fan pages, studying the show and how it worked and what the fans liked about it, until I felt ready to write the book, which I like to think turned out pretty well. (It won an Award for Best Tie-In Novel that year.)

It helps to be a lifelong fan, but it's not mandatory as long as you do your homework.

(For the record, I ended up loving LEVERAGE and am crossing my fingers for yet another new season.)

 

[Charles Phipps]

David Niall Wilson (VOY: Chrysalis, Stargate: Atlantis, Vampire: The Masquerade) and I had a fun conversation about his history as a writer for hire on various media properties. He's my publisher and quite open about a lot of these things. A couple of his fandoms he wrote for he was REALLY PASSIONATE about and it actually hurt in the long run because that was something that you can get utterly savaged on editorial wise.

He was basically trying to warn me about writing for the World of Darkness when I got the chance.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Haven't I seen a fair amount of this thread before?

Especially CLB reminding us that being a fan is neither a prerequisite for writing good TrekLit, nor a substitute for doing proper research.

Well, maybe the part where CLB said he didn't care much for TWOK is new. (Curious: what didn't you like?)

 

[Guy Gardener]

David Niall Wilson (VOY: Chrysalis, Stargate: Atlantis, Vampire: The Masquerade) and I had a fun conversation about his history as a writer for hire on various media properties. He's my publisher and quite open about a lot of these things. A couple of his fandoms he wrote for he was REALLY PASSIONATE about and it actually hurt in the long run because that was something that you can get utterly savaged on editorial wise.

He was basically trying to warn me about writing for the World of Darkness when I got the chance.

I know there's that wanky novel where the Enterprise Crew sit down and Play Dungeons and Dragons, and that's it, but I'd quite like to read Star Gate Atlantis: Vampire: The Masquerade.

 

[Christopher]

A couple of his fandoms he wrote for he was REALLY PASSIONATE about and it actually hurt in the long run because that was something that you can get utterly savaged on editorial wise.

I think a writer being a fan of a property can actually hurt their work, if they indulge their fannishness too much -- as we've seen with things like Steven Moffat's Doctor Who and Terry Matalas's Picard. It becomes more about geeking out over how cool the characters are and wallowing in nostalgia rather than just telling solid stories. Moffat turned Doctor Who from a show about the Doctor exploring the universe to a show about the universe reacting to how amazing the Doctor is.

One of the rules of writing is "Kill your darlings." Turn off your sentiment and your affection for things, be ruthless about editing out anything that doesn't serve the good of the story. You can't kill your darlings if you're approaching the work as a fan. Even if you are a fan of what you're writing, you need to be able to turn that off and be a professional first and foremost.

Well, maybe the part where CLB said he didn't care much for TWOK is new. (Curious: what didn't you like?)

Way, way too much to be worth dragging the thread off topic. I've said my piece about that elsewhere on this BBS over the years.

 

[Avro Arrow]

And, yes, just as Christopher said, I spent a couple weeks binge-watching the show, lurking on the fan pages, studying the show and how it worked and what the fans liked about it, until I felt ready to write the book, which I like to think turned out pretty well. (It won an Award for Best Tie-In Novel that year.)

Just curious, do you know how research like this have been done in the pre-internet, pre-streaming/home media era? Did the licensor just provide a bunch of scripts, or something like that?

And congrats on your award!

 

[Christopher]

Just curious, do you know how research like this have been done in the pre-internet, pre-streaming/home media era? Did the licensor just provide a bunch of scripts, or something like that?

And congrats on your award!

Sometimes Pocket would mail me broadcast-quality videotapes of relevant episodes, though I had to send them back when I was done with them.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Broadcast qualty? You had a 3/4 SP or Betacam SP machine?

 

[Christopher]

Broadcast qualty? You had a 3/4 SP or Betacam SP machine?

Okay, maybe not full broadcast quality, but as close as you could get with VHS, and a damn sight better looking than I'd ever seen it before, because I had to watch it on an affiliate with a weak signal.

 

[Greg Cox]

Just curious, do you know how research like this have been done in the pre-internet, pre-streaming/home media era? Did the licensor just provide a bunch of scripts, or something like that?

And congrats on your award!

I'm not quite old enough to remember pre-home media, but I do remember traipsing all over town looking for VHS copies of key Trek episodes, digging through old issues of STARLOG magazine and the like, etc. And, for newer shows, getting copies of relevant scripts and show bibles mailed to me.

For example: on ALIAS, the TV people were pretty good when it came to sending me future scripts and alerting me to any game-changing big twists in advance. And I have vague memories of the ROSWELL people sending me some scripts as well. And as for CSI . . . thankfully, that show was constantly being rerun on cable, so I had no trouble binge-watching it once I started writing the books, even though I'd probably only seen a handful of eps before that. And, in a lucky break, a local used bookstore had most of the previous CSI tie-in novels, which I cleaned them out of before reading them all.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

When I was in high school, 3/4 was institutional (and mostly top-loaders), Betacam hadn't been invented (no surprise, given that Betamax had only just been), the SP versions were years away, and 2-inch quad hadn't been completely retired.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I think a writer being a fan of a property can actually hurt their work, if they indulge their fannishness too much -- as we've seen with things like Steven Moffat's Doctor Who and Terry Matalas's Picard. It becomes more about geeking out over how cool the characters are and wallowing in nostalgia rather than just telling solid stories.

Picard season 3 reminded me a great deal of modern comic book storytelling, where a creator wants to tell a story -- or, sometimes, retell a story -- with the characters and situations as they were when he was a kid, oftentimes tossing inconvenient things away (sometimes in extremely hamfisted ways--cf., One More Day) to get there instead of building on the past. It seemed to me that Matalas's vision was to do his own version of "Best of Both Worlds," and I know that much of fandom creamed itself at the recreation of the bridge of the D, but the promo shot of the bridge, with everyone in their places, looking older (as we all are), struck me as a complete failure of imagination and a waste of potential. Like, his idea of a "grand finale" was just to go back to where it all began and play with the toys he remembered as a kid. (See also: Geoff Johns' love for Barry Allen and Hal Jordan, shoving aside their far more interesting successors to get there.)

Of course, my platonic ideal of Picard was three seasons of Jean-Luc Picard as a vintner, competing against a rival (ideally, Ian McKellen) in interstellar wine competitions, dealing with the business of a winery, and fending off grumpy customers. Very 1980s BBC. So I might not be the best judge.

 

[The Wormhole]

Of course, my platonic ideal of Picard was three seasons of Jean-Luc Picard as a vintner, competing against a rival (ideally, Ian McKellen) in interstellar wine competitions, dealing with the business of a winery, and fending off grumpy customers. Very 1980s BBC. So I might not be the best judge.

Hell, I remember when Michael Chabon (probably jokingly) talked about wanting to have Picard on adventures with Laris and Zhaban as they solved local small town mysteries. That's a show I'd love to see.

 

[DonIago]

I haven't seen S3 of Picard yet, though I'm sure I'll get there...part of me is looking forward to the nostalgia factor, but part of me is deeply disappointed that in the end the show couldn't or wouldn't commit to its original premise, and instead settled for essentially the path of least resistance.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Hell, I remember when Michael Chabon (probably jokingly) talked about wanting to have Picard on adventures with Laris and Zhaban as they solved local small town mysteries. That's a show I'd love to see.

Only Murders in the Vineyard!

 

[Greg Cox]

Like, his idea of a "grand finale" was just to go back to where it all began and play with the toys he remembered as a kid. (See also: Geoff Johns' love for Barry Allen and Hal Jordan, shoving aside their far more interesting successors to get there.).

I'll cop to being guilty of this to some degree. When I wrote my Avengers trilogy back in the day, my editor (hi, Keith!) urged me to use some of the newer Avengers who were currently appearing in the comic, even sending me a care package of comics featuring them to entice me. But I resisted. As far as I knew, this was going to be my one-and-only chance to write the Avengers, so, goshdarnit, I was going to use my favorite characters from when I was growing up: the Vision, Scarlet Witch, etc. I had no sentimental/nostalgic connection to those new characters, so I didn't use them.

I also played favorites on my DC Comics novelizations. There's a reason why the Spectre got plenty of screen time in my adaptations, while Lobo's scenes tended to end up on the cutting room floor.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Of course, my platonic ideal of Picard was three seasons of Jean-Luc Picard as a vintner, competing against a rival (ideally, Ian McKellen) in interstellar wine competitions, dealing with the business of a winery, and fending off grumpy customers. Very 1980s BBC. So I might not be the best judge.

Mine was Picard and his Romulan housekeepers solving crimes on Earth while he comes to terms with his past, as the first couple of episodes seemed to set up.