Need help putting my TNG Novel together

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by TroiFan4ever, Sep 19, 2011.

  1. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Again, Jaime Costas left Pocket Books nearly a year ago. She's not on maternity leave or "overwhelmed." She's moved on and has nothing to do with STAR TREK anymore.

    She was on a maternity leave at one point, but she ultimately decided not to come back to Pocket. She's been out of the picture for some time now.
     
  2. xortex

    xortex Commodore Commodore

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    Who would be better to decide what is great or not than you guys? The overwhelmers themselves. Set up shop. Lone magpie too for some English perspective on this thing.
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That doesn't even really make sense. The basic ideas aren't the hard part. Any idea that one author has, other authors probably have too. What makes the story is the execution, the way the idea is developed and realized, and that's what different writers bring to the table -- their own approach, their own voice and style shaped by their years of practice and training.

    And speaking from my own experience as a novice writer, let me tell you that the ideas that novice or amateur authors may think are excellent will more likely than not be rather elementary and obvious. When I was starting out, I thought I was coming up with really great ideas for stories, but when I looked back on them years later with more experience, I realized they were half-formed, superficial, lacking in character resonance, too self-indulgent to appeal to a wider audience, things like that. Even now, with nearly two decades' more experience, I'm still not great at telling if my ideas are good enough.

    So the notion held by many amateur authors that they're in possession of these great, innovative ideas that professional authors would benefit from hearing -- most of the time, that's just naive. That's one reason why going through years of rejections is so important to developing your skill as a writer -- because it teaches you to tell the difference between a weak idea and a strong idea. It's also valuable to try writers' workshops or share your work with trusted beta readers; feedback is important to learning what ideas and approaches will appeal to others instead of just yourself. But that's not a process that we novelists can spare the time to hold your hand for. We have to focus on separating out our own good ideas from our bad ones.

    Now, someone made an analogy to the Trek TV shows and how some of the writers came in with little prior experience. But that's different because modern TV writing is an ensemble process. If a freelancer or intern comes up with a good idea for a story, the outline will then be broken by the entire writing staff and the script might not even be assigned to the same person who came up with the idea. And even the originator of the idea does get the first-draft script assignment, it will still be revised by the rest of the staff and the showrunner will do the final draft. So there's a mechanism in place for an inexperienced writer with a good idea to get help in turning it into a better script. (Keep in mind, though, that only about one in a thousand people who submitted spec scripts to TNG, DS9, and VGR got invited to pitch, and maybe only one in ten thousand pitches got bought. A story like Ron Moore's is extraordinarily rare.)

    But prose writing doesn't work that way. It's not a staff system, not a collaboration. You can't submit an idea and have a whole team of more experienced writers flesh it out for you. You have to do it all yourself. You're under the guidance of an editor whose job is to help you bring out the best in your story, to point out its weaknesses and suggest improvements, but the responsibility for doing the work is entirely yours (unless you're specifically working as part of a team, like Ward & Dilmore or the Reeves-Stevenses, but that's the kind of partnership you have to establish beforehand).
     
  4. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    What are you smoking?

    Pocket/Gallery Books holds the exclusive license to publish ST fiction and their editorial team has several experienced members who are responsible for licensed tie-ins. They are not necessarily overwhelmed. And all proposals and completed manuscripts must meet with CBS approval. There are only so many slots each year for ST novels - and plenty of experienced authors pitching: some hits, some misses.

    "Set up shop"? To do what? Attempt to take the exclusive license off Pocket/Gallery?
     
  5. xortex

    xortex Commodore Commodore

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    Well I'm suggesting a small coterie staff mechanism of 'showrunners' maybe a small table at S & S say three or four of you guys. How do the comic books do it? Isn't there a staff? and someone makes the decisions? Yea I definately see now that you're right.. woops.

    I think Ed Schlesinger would rather be pregnant. He must be thrilled by the extra workload. Isn't this what he got into the business for? The lovefest? Does he own a whip? GRR.. The out of pocket expense wouldn't costos alot. Would it? Dead slushpile Schlesinger. That's it. I'll be back in three weeks.
     
  6. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    It's not the publishers job to nursemaid or train up new writers, attractive though the idea may be.

    The TV model where there is a small chance of a truly great idea being picked up and developed REGARDLESS of where it came from does have some merit. There could be some ideas out there that would be worth considering.

    However, I can't really see why a skilled and working pro author would want to slave away crafting a fully formed novel from someone elses story when they could be producing their own work.
     
  7. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    Last time I checked out the Pocket/Gallery pages, it stated that Ed Schlesinger and several other Pocket/Gallery editors had experience with licensed tie-ins. Jen Heddle was still around, and she's certainly worked on ST in the past. It has not been stated that Ed is the only current Pocket/Gallery editor handling pitches for ST novels since Jaime Costos departed. At one point, sure, there was Marco and Margaret both working on ST, with Ed editing Peter David, and KRAD doing freelance on SCE. But they were producing a lot of ST titles at the time. Pocket hadn't done much non-novel stuff in ages, which is what probably freed Margaret up to do novels alongside Marco. She used to be the non fiction expert.

    I don't get why you think is Ed's is an "extra workload". If he's the only editor working on ST, he's not necessarily only ever working on ST. Marco used to edit the superhero novels at the same time as he edited ST.

    Since all manuscripts on the ST slushpile have to be sent in by recognised literary agents, let's hope the slushpile is of higher average quality than other publishers with a more open policy.
     
  8. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    Ask a ghost writer. For many pro authors, ghost writing can keep the wolf from the door while they await word on their own project proposals.
     
  9. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    FYI: Jen Heddle has recently moved on to greener pastures.
     
  10. BrotherBenny

    BrotherBenny Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Good luck to her. I saw her Twitter about her new digs.

    Is Ed the only one left on tie-ins?
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2011
  11. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Not necessarily. I recently did a Young Adult tie-in, based on Riese: Kingdom Falling, for another editor at S&S.

    And for those who don't know, Jen Heddle is now editing STAR WARS books for Lucasfilm. (I wasn't sure if that was public knowledge yet, but I guess the word is out.)
     
  12. Jedi_Master

    Jedi_Master Admiral Admiral

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    Excellent advice. As with anything in life, the more effort and work you put in to something, the more you generally get out of it. No one expects to be a success overnight. In today's world you have to WORK at being a success, and it is nice to see several writers comments confirm that the world of novels is no different.
     
  13. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    So did Ed. He edited my FF and Ghost Rider novels, as well as various other non-Trek projects. Just like Margaret edited the 4400 books.

    I'm not sure anyone's ever handled STAR TREK exclusively.
     
  14. MichaelS

    MichaelS Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    The word is indeed out. There's a short note in the new Locus, which I got today. (Publishing news, pg. 9)
     
  15. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    http://imprints.simonandschuster.biz/gallery

    The previous time I read this page there was a comment that any of the editors could take any pitches. About three listed licensed media tie-ins as an "area of interest". Today Jen Heddle is still listed, and she and Ed are the only two mentioning media tie-ins as an "interest". Sounds like the editors can jump around projects as the situation requires.
     
  16. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Like Therin said, editors can jump around, depending.

    Again, I can't speak for Pocket specifically, but editorial departments are not that strictly defined. Editors tend to have their specialties, but that doesn't mean they can't branch out now and then if a special project strikes their fancy. Or gets dumped in their laps.

    ("Congratulations, Greg. You're editing Gargantua.")

    I mostly handle Richard Matheson at Tor, but there's no rule that says I couldn't acquire a non-fiction book on Ukrainian dog-training . . . as long as I could convince Tom Doherty that it would sell.

    Some editors do lots of tie-ins. Some dabble once and awhile. Some prefer to work on other things. It's not an exact science.
     
  17. Mr Silver

    Mr Silver Commodore Newbie

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    I'm interested in knowing how the intellectual property legalities work. Does an author retain copyright of original characters, etc?

    I don't expect you to answer this question, but I'll try asking anyway. What percentage of royalties does the author usually recieve and how are the royalties divided up between the author, publisher, etc?
     
  18. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Or a first original novel by that guy who wrote The Buried Age and Ex Machina... ;)


    Nope. If you write for Star Trek, everything you come up with is the property of CBS. If you look at that Gallery Books editor listing that Therin linked to above, it says that among the authors Ed Schlesinger handles is "CBS Consumer Products." That's because from a legal standpoint, CBS is the author of all Star Trek works, in the sense that they own all the rights to ST that an author would hold to one's original work.

    The system in British TV is more like what you're suggesting. For instance, freelance writers who write for Doctor Who retain the rights to the characters and species they create. Terry Nation owned (and his estate still owns) the Daleks, which is why there were a couple of years-long gaps with no Dalek stories and why the '90s tie-in novels couldn't tell Dalek stories -- because there were periods when Nation refused the BBC or Virgin Books permission to use them.
     
  19. Jedi_Master

    Jedi_Master Admiral Admiral

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    Thanks for the insight. Is it the dream of authors to become editors - similar to how every actor says 'well I what I really want to do is direct"?
     
  20. Mr Silver

    Mr Silver Commodore Newbie

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    So if another author decided to kill off some characters, including one that you had created (T'ryssa Chen for example, although you've stated that a friend was just as responsible for her creation as you were), then they could just do that if CBS were ok with it and you wouldn't have any say?