Need help putting my TNG Novel together

[Therin of Andor]

<blink> Wha? Philip Jose Farmer has a novel that started out as Trek? Novel or episode? I can't belive this is the first I've heard of this.

http://www.well.com/~sjroby/lostbooks.html#96ph

So, basically, if you're a tie-in writer with ambitions of publishing your own work some day, don't use any of your ideas for that in your tie-in work, right?

If you're a tie-in writer, you've almost always already had non-tie-in stuff published.

And if you've already used an "idea" in a tie-in novel, surely it's not the only "idea" you'll ever have? Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's how you write about them that the skill comes in. There are plenty of David Gerrold "ST ideas" that can be found in his many SF novels.

 

[Christopher]

There's got to be something that protects your own creations

There is. You could simply cross out that clause in your contract. And then CBS would simply choose not to proceed with your book.

The thing to understand is, they aren't your own creations. As soon as you sign that contract, you're agreeing to work as an independent contractor on behalf of the franchise owner. It's understood going in that what you create is being created for them, and is not yours. If you want your creations to be your own, then don't sign that contract explicitly agreeing to work for someone else. Write original fiction instead. It's as simple as that.

After the breakup of Viacom, CBS owns all the ST TV series. Paramount owns all the ST movies. Paramount lets CBS Licensing supervise the licensed tie-ins based on the movies.

My understanding is that CBS licenses the movie rights to Paramount, but still technically owns the whole schmeer. It's a little confusing, though -- the copyright notice on the ST 2009 DVD only lists Paramount, but the copyright notice on the novelization thereof lists both Paramount and CBS Studios.

So, basically, if you're a tie-in writer with ambitions of publishing your own work some day, don't use any of your ideas for that in your tie-in work, right? It's one thing to take a rejected tie-in proposal and rework it into something original, but you can't take ideas you used in your tie-in novel and reuse them in your own original novel. Er, right?

Well, obviously you have to come up with ideas of your own if you're going to write a novel. Maybe you could build it entirely around pre-existing characters, planets, species, technology, etc., but there'd be little point in telling a story if you couldn't bring anything new to the table. More than likely you're going to create new characters and places and ships and species and the like for your Trek story. And once you create them, they belong to CBS. You can't use those characters or planets or species or whatever in your original work. For instance, I couldn't use T'Ryssa Chen or Torvig or the Manraloth in an original novel set in my own universe.

But hey, you can always come up with more characters and ideas. Sure, by using characters and concepts I created for my unsold original fiction as elements of Trek novels, I'm surrendering my right to use them in my own future work -- but I can just come up with new characters and concepts. And that can be a good thing. I used to have an idea for how I wanted ancient galactic history to play out in my original universe, and when The Buried Age came along, I decided to use it there (because, after all, I was getting paid for that and needed to draw on what I had available). So that meant I had to come up with a new ancient galactic history for my original universe, and the new history I came up with was even cooler and more intriguing.

This is important to understand if you want to be a writer: It's not a bad thing to let go of old ideas. On the contrary, it's good to clear them out and make room for new ideas that could be even better.

And as Therin's David Gerrold example above suggests, it's not like using an idea in a Trek novel means you have to avoid anything remotely like it forevermore. What CBS owns is the specific characters, ships, places, terminology, and situations. You can create new things that are like those, that build on similar ideas or personality traits, as long as you make them distinctive enough (and as discussed before, that means more than just changing the names). For instance, I could still write an original novel about spacegoing life forms, so long as they weren't just a copy of the spacegoing life forms I explored in Orion's Hounds, and so long as the story I told about them was different.

 

[Skywalker]

Got it. I just meant if, say, you came up with something you used in a tie-in novel a couple years back, and then you're sitting there working on something original, and suddenly you realize "Oh, that thing I used in that one book would have worked even better here!" Legally, you could still do something similar, as long as you put enough of a twist on it to avoid copyright issues, because CBS (or whoever) owns what you put into that old tie-in novel. Right?

Speaking of The Buried Age, Christopher, I'm actually reading that right now (well, not right now, but you know what I mean ) and I'm enjoying it very much. Sometimes it makes my brain hurt when I ponder the sheer vastness of time that separates Ariel's civilization from Picard's, but it's still a very entertaining read.

 

[Christopher]

Got it. I just meant if, say, you came up with something you used in a tie-in novel a couple years back, and then you're sitting there working on something original, and suddenly you realize "Oh, that thing I used in that one book would have worked even better here!" Legally, you could still do something similar, as long as you put enough of a twist on it to avoid copyright issues, because CBS (or whoever) owns what you put into that old tie-in novel. Right?

Well, I sort of had that experience, but not quite in the way you mean, when I realized that Places of Exile would've been a great title for the spec novel I've been working on for a while, or at least a lot better than the working title I was using. Although I recently came up with a much better title for it. That's the thing -- even if you can't use a good idea that would've worked, that can be an incentive to keep thinking and come up with another, even stronger idea.

But I don't think it's something that would really happen that often. After all, the characters and species and science I'd come up with for Trek would mainly be ideas that grew out of the parameters and background of the Trek universe, or ideas that I came up with for my original fiction but that turned out not to quite fit there and proved a better match for the Trek universe. So if I'm creating something for one of my original universes, it's likely to be something rather different, something that grows out of the distinct ground rules and background of that universe.

Speaking of The Buried Age, Christopher, I'm actually reading that right now (well, not right now, but you know what I mean ) and I'm enjoying it very much. Sometimes it makes my brain hurt when I ponder the sheer vastness of time that separates Ariel's civilization from Picard's, but it's still a very entertaining read.

That's good to hear, even the brain-hurting part. That means I succeeded in conveying the sense of scale I was going for. I was trying to counter the tendency of Star Trek to underplay the sheer ancientness of the galaxy. What passes for ancient in most Trek is usually just a few million or a few hundred thousand years old, which is just a tiny fraction of the galaxy's age.

 

[xortex]

Just out of curiosity, could you open up a McDougle's hamberger joint down the block from a McDonalds? Any copyright infringement there?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Just out of curiosity, could you open up a McDougle's hamberger joint down the block from a McDonalds? Any copyright infringement there?

When you tried to register the name, you'd be given a ruling re whether it was too close to an existing business name. McDonald's would probably challenge the name. Similarly, some Chambers of Commerce (if that's what your country calls them) might discourage a second hamburger joint opening up that close to an existing one. Similarly, if you used golden arches in your signage, there'd be several opportunities for McDonald's to challenge it. You'd want to be sure of your clearances before you spent money on signage you then had to alter.

Here in Australia, Beagle Boys Pizza (using the Disney canine convicts in their logo) were forced to become Eagle Boys. A bakery stores, Cinnabun, was forced to rename itself as Innabun, when the mall it was located in purchased the American Cinnabun name. Australian Burger King restaurants are called Hungry Jacks, although someone then got permission, after a ten year or so lock-out, to open Burger Kings in the same suburbs as Hungry Jacks outlets.

 

[Greg Cox]

It's not really about "ideas" as much as specific characters and places. If you create an alien princess named Vulcania for a Trek novel, that doesn't mean you can never write an sf novel about an alien princess again. It just means you can't use Vulcania in your own books and you can't have your new alien princess fighting Klingons and Romulans.

If you write an original sf novel about some other alien princess in a galaxy of your own creation, chances are nobody is going to care if she bears a vague resemblance to the girl in that DS9 paperback you wrote five years ago.

Here's the thing: the work-for-hire contracts ar not primarily about grabbing up rights; they're about avoiding costly litigation. CBS doesn't want you suing them if some future TREK movie just happens to have a alien princess in it.

(Which makes sense, actually. Can you imagine the sheer impracticality of trying to make sure that any new Trek movie or tv episode bears no resemblance to any of the 700-plus Trek novels out there? It would be a legal nightmare. Better to make it clear that anything written for Star Trek belongs to Star Trek.)

 

[Sci]

Get over it. You're not entitled to have a Star Trek novel published; no one is. Being able to write for Star Trek is a privilege you earn by playing by Pocket's and CBS's rules. If you don't like it, tough. You aren't entitled to it, it's not yours, and you'll just have to publish it as fan fic on the Internet instead.

Maybe not the best way to handle it. Do I detect a hint of bitterness from you? (the stuff about playing by the rules and it being a privilege)

Well, considering that I've never tried to submit a Star Trek novel, nor any piece of professional fiction, I'd say probably not. I get irritated by people who think that something as minor and benign as, "Guy won't read my Star Trek book" constitutes corruption and oppression.

I'd imagine it's a different thing to get a Star Trek novel published than it is to write something original and locate a publisher willing to even read your manuscript.

Yes it is, for a number of reasons: You don't own what you write

Hm. Let's say I write a Star Trek novel that uses the Federation, Starfleet, etc... but features an entire new cast of characters, a new ship, etc... I don't own that?

Nope. CBS owns Star Trek and all Star Trek-y things and characters, lock, stock, and barrel.

The system is different in Britain -- authors of Doctor Who novels retain ownership of original elements and characters and of the book's overall copyright. But for Star Trek, it's all the property of CBS Studios.

There's got to be something that protects your own creations, even if you play in someone else's sandbox.

Nope.

So it would be impossible to remove all Trek references while keeping the new characters and elements, and submit it as original work? When it gets rejected as Trek novel, I mean.

If it was rejected by Pocket or CBS and never published, that means it's not under copyright to them -- so, no, it wouldn't be illegal to use the original elements in a non-Star Trek context. It is the act of publishing a Star Trek novel that causes all of the original elements within it to become CBS property.

But, as Christopher and Greg pointed out, no one wants to publish a Star Trek knock-off.

No, you wouldn't, but additionally, why would you want to? If you're going to create an entirely new cast anyway, why not create a whole new universe too? Why settle for borrowing someone else's?

Well, as you guys said, Star Trek has a distinct tone and feel you can clearly recognize. I can very well understand that people want to create their own characters, world and stories but still set it in the Star Trek universe.

Absolutely! But that means accepting that everything you write and create for that project will be CBS's intellectual property, to do with as they so please, not yours.

Well, as you guys said, Star Trek has a distinct tone and feel. I can very well understand that people want to create their own characters, world and stories but still set it in the Star Trek universe.

Which can be fun, I admit. I'm enough of a fanboy that I still get a thrill out of writing Trek or Buffy or The Green Hornet or whatever. But, legally at least, you can't have it both ways. You can't play in somebody else's sandbox and have creative control over whatever you come up with. That's not how it works.

Which is kind of bad. If the - unlikely - event happens that they turn a Trek novel into a Trek movie, show or episode, you get nothing, right? Does Peter David have any rights to his creations in the New Frontier novels?

Being entitled to a royalty for use of an original element is a separate legal issue from retaining ownership of that element or having creative control over the use of that element.

Having "any rights" would mean retaining ownership of an element; Peter David retains no rights to, say, Soleta or M'k'n'z'y of Calhoun. As I understand it, no, no author is legally entitled to any say in it if CBS were to adapt a novel for TV or film -- although the one time a novel was adapted for TV (TNG's "Where No One Has Gone Before"), it was adapted by the author herself (Diane Duane). Elements from novels have made it into the canon without authorial acknowledgment, however.

I imagine that whether or not an author is entitled to royalties if an original element is used would depend upon the contract signed between the author and CBS.

No, but seriously, who owns the Star Trek franchise again?

CBS.

Is it just the monolithic corperation of CBS or Paramount?

After the breakup of Viacom, CBS owns all the ST TV series. Paramount owns all the ST movies. Paramount lets CBS Licensing supervise the licensed tie-ins based on the movies.

Well, specifically, CBS owns Star Trek as a franchise and Paramount Pictures owns the ST films, which they get to make under license from CBS. The same way Universal Studios owns the copyright on Serenity, which they made under license from 20th Century Fox, which retains ownership of Firefly.

In other words -- Paramount Pictures is to Pocket Books; a separate company that gets to make a new work of art adapted from the original copyrighted material that CBS owns. The difference is that CBS's deal lets Paramount retain ownership of the films and their original elements (but not of Star Trek itself), whereas its deal with Pocket does not let Pocket (or the novelists) retain any ownership whatsoever.

 

[Greg Cox]

As I understand it, no, no author is legally entitled to any say in it if CBS were to adapt a novel for TV or film --

And given that this almost never happens, it's not something I lose sleep over.

That's actually probably #2 on the list of Great Misconceptions about Tie-Ins.

"You've written a STAR TREK novel? Cool! Do you think they'll make it into an episode?"

"Er, no."

 

[Elias Vaughn]

"Almost"?

 

[Therin of Andor]

"Almost"?

"The Wounded Sky" (TOS novel) = "Where No One Has Gone Before" (TNG episode).

 

[Sci]

"Almost"?

"The Wounded Sky" (TOS novel) = "Where No One Has Gone Before" (TNG episode).

And just the general fact that it could in theory happen, even though it never has apart from The Wounded Sky/"Where No One Has Gone Before."

 

[Therin of Andor]

And just the general fact that it could in theory happen, even though it never has apart from The Wounded Sky/"Where No One Has Gone Before."

Some would say that Enterprise's "Carbon Creek" is very close, in many ways, to Margaret Wander Bonanno's "Strangers from the Sky". An accidental First Contact situation with a small survey team of Vulcans that was "forgotten" by history, and the Vulcans have to blend into human society. But it's not a direct adaptation. It's a good example of why tie-in contracts are like they are, because it would be crazy trying to prove and disprove which novelists are owned extra royalties when/if a script slightly resembles a previous tie-in, whether deliberately or accidentally.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Another example is Star Trek (2009) and Della Van Heise's Killing Time. I recall a thread or two cropping up about it a few years ago.

 

[Christopher]

I get irritated by people who think that something as minor and benign as, "Guy won't read my Star Trek book" constitutes corruption and oppression.

Yeah. It's like walking into a hospital off the street with no medical training, asking them to let you perform surgery, and calling them corrupt when they say no. Writing may not be as life-and-death as surgery, but it's still something you need professional training to do as a paying job.

The problem is that there are a lot of people who write Trek fanfiction as a hobby, and they assume that writing professional Trek fiction is no different. But it's very different, in the same way that a paying profession is always different from a similar hobby.

If it was rejected by Pocket or CBS and never published, that means it's not under copyright to them -- so, no, it wouldn't be illegal to use the original elements in a non-Star Trek context. It is the act of publishing a Star Trek novel that causes all of the original elements within it to become CBS property.

I really don't think that's correct. My contracts say that the publisher and/or CBS owns the rights to the manuscript and associated drafts, outlines, etc., not just the published work. I think that as soon as you sign a contract for a Trek novel, you're ceding ownership of the work. It's not like original writing where you write it first, then sell it and get a contract to publish it. Here, you sign the contract before you write the book, and usually before you write the outline. So it's at that point, not the point of publication, that the work becomes theirs. Because it was never yours to begin with. You agreed in advance to create something that would belong to them.

Being entitled to a royalty for use of an original element is a separate legal issue from retaining ownership of that element or having creative control over the use of that element.

Right. A lot of people get those two things confused. For instance, D. C. Fontana probably got a royalty check for ST'09's use of Sarek and Amanda, but she wouldn't have had the right to tell them they couldn't use those characters, because they don't belong to her. Work-for-hire means you're entitled to compensation for the use of what you create, but that doesn't mean you own or control what you create. You cede ownership in exchange for monetary compensation.

I imagine that whether or not an author is entitled to royalties if an original element is used would depend upon the contract signed between the author and CBS.

I think only TV/movie writers get royalties for the use of their characters or dialogue in new productions. I don't think tie-in writers would. My contracts only specify royalties for various editions of the book, not for other uses of the characters or concepts therein.

Though maybe it depends on the element. The only elements from prose that have really shown up onscreen have been things like the first names of pre-existing characters, a couple of Klingon terms from The Final Reflection, Andorian weapons, customs, and environment from an RPG manual, stuff like that. I don't think there's ever been a case of a character or species created for a novel appearing in an onscreen production -- except for Janeway's father, whom Jeri Taylor created in Mosaic and then put into "Coda." But in that case, the person who wrote the book also produced the show.

Well, specifically, CBS owns Star Trek as a franchise and Paramount Pictures owns the ST films, which they get to make under license from CBS. The same way Universal Studios owns the copyright on Serenity, which they made under license from 20th Century Fox, which retains ownership of Firefly.

In other words -- Paramount Pictures is to Pocket Books; a separate company that gets to make a new work of art adapted from the original copyrighted material that CBS owns. The difference is that CBS's deal lets Paramount retain ownership of the films and their original elements (but not of Star Trek itself), whereas its deal with Pocket does not let Pocket (or the novelists) retain any ownership whatsoever.

Oh, I get it. That makes sense.

And just the general fact that it could in theory happen, even though it never has apart from The Wounded Sky/"Where No One Has Gone Before."

And it's important to note that that was not a case of the producers coming to Diane Duane and asking to adapt her book. It was a case of Michael Reaves developing an independent pitch, realizing it was similar to The Wounded Sky, and asking Duane to collaborate with him on it, and then the two of them pitching and selling it to Paramount the same way any freelance TV writers would pitch and sell their ideas (and then seeing it rewritten virtually beyond recognition, which is often the fate of ideas sold to TV series).

So yeah, you could certainly take the premise of a novel you'd written and pitch it to CBS or Paramount or whoever, and if you were lucky maybe you could sell it to them as an episode (just as Dennis Bailey & David Bischoff sold TNG an episode based on their original novel Tin Woodman). But anyone who thinks that the studio actively seeks out novels to adapt into episodes, or that we write the novels with the intent or expectation that they'll become episodes, is fundamentally misunderstanding the process.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I don't think there's ever been a case of a character or species created for a novel appearing in an onscreen production

IIRC, Bad Robot said in interviews that they took the names George and Winona Kirk from the novel Best Destiny (although that's not their first appearence). While a case can be made that George Kirk was really invented as far back as "Operation: Annihilate", I don't believe Kirk's mother was named on-screen until the STXI credits.

 

[Christopher]

^But that's just the character names, not the concept of the characters. It's not an original concept to establish that James T. Kirk had a mother and a father. Of course he did. He wasn't grown in a vat. So Vonda McIntyre didn't create George and Winona Kirk when she included them in Enterprise: The First Adventure (which was their first appearance). She just assigned names and specific traits to the characters that already implicitly existed. And while the movie used the same names, it didn't portray the characters the same way as McIntyre or Carey did.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Understood.

But, dude, this is Star Trek. JTK very well could have been grown in a vat.

 

[Sci]

I get irritated by people who think that something as minor and benign as, "Guy won't read my Star Trek book" constitutes corruption and oppression.

Yeah. It's like walking into a hospital off the street with no medical training, asking them to let you perform surgery, and calling them corrupt when they say no. Writing may not be as life-and-death as surgery, but it's still something you need professional training to do as a paying job.

The problem is that there are a lot of people who write Trek fanfiction as a hobby, and they assume that writing professional Trek fiction is no different. But it's very different, in the same way that a paying profession is always different from a similar hobby.

Exactly. Which is to say nothing of the fact that -- c'mon. It's about writing a Star Trek book, not determining the fate of millions or anything. No one goes home hungry at night because they missed out on a Star Trek book, y'know? No one actually suffers from losing out on a gig like that.

If it was rejected by Pocket or CBS and never published, that means it's not under copyright to them -- so, no, it wouldn't be illegal to use the original elements in a non-Star Trek context. It is the act of publishing a Star Trek novel that causes all of the original elements within it to become CBS property.

I really don't think that's correct. My contracts say that the publisher and/or CBS owns the rights to the manuscript and associated drafts, outlines, etc., not just the published work. I think that as soon as you sign a contract for a Trek novel, you're ceding ownership of the work. It's not like original writing where you write it first, then sell it and get a contract to publish it. Here, you sign the contract before you write the book, and usually before you write the outline. So it's at that point, not the point of publication, that the work becomes theirs. Because it was never yours to begin with. You agreed in advance to create something that would belong to them.

Really? That's interesting -- and a bit weird. I wonder if that provision would stand if anyone were to push against it in litigation, but that's a fairly improbable scenario.

I imagine that whether or not an author is entitled to royalties if an original element is used would depend upon the contract signed between the author and CBS.

I think only TV/movie writers get royalties for the use of their characters or dialogue in new productions. I don't think tie-in writers would. My contracts only specify royalties for various editions of the book, not for other uses of the characters or concepts therein.

Though maybe it depends on the element. The only elements from prose that have really shown up onscreen have been things like the first names of pre-existing characters, a couple of Klingon terms from The Final Reflection, Andorian weapons, customs, and environment from an RPG manual, stuff like that. I don't think there's ever been a case of a character or species created for a novel appearing in an onscreen production -- except for Janeway's father, whom Jeri Taylor created in Mosaic and then put into "Coda." But in that case, the person who wrote the book also produced the show.

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a question, in essence, of how much clout the author has and therefore whether or not he/she is able to get a clause giving them royalties inserted into their contract. For the vast majority of tie-in writers, they wouldn't have that much clout, because their names just wouldn't be big enough sellers for CBS to be willing to grant them a provision like that to entice them to write. But if, say, Stephen King or J.K. Rowling were to express interest in writing a Star Trek book (yes, yes, wildly improbable scenario, but it works to demonstrate my point), I imagine their agents might be able to get CBS to concede to a provision entitling them to royalties.

And just the general fact that it could in theory happen, even though it never has apart from The Wounded Sky/"Where No One Has Gone Before."

And it's important to note that that was not a case of the producers coming to Diane Duane and asking to adapt her book. It was a case of Michael Reaves developing an independent pitch, realizing it was similar to The Wounded Sky, and asking Duane to collaborate with him on it, and then the two of them pitching and selling it to Paramount the same way any freelance TV writers would pitch and sell their ideas (and then seeing it rewritten virtually beyond recognition, which is often the fate of ideas sold to TV series).

So yeah, you could certainly take the premise of a novel you'd written and pitch it to CBS or Paramount or whoever, and if you were lucky maybe you could sell it to them as an episode (just as Dennis Bailey & David Bischoff sold TNG an episode based on their original novel Tin Woodman). But anyone who thinks that the studio actively seeks out novels to adapt into episodes, or that we write the novels with the intent or expectation that they'll become episodes, is fundamentally misunderstanding the process.

Or, at least, that's traditionally been the case.

On the other hand, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have been public about their enjoyment of Star Trek novels. If they were to make a new ST series in the future, it's not wholly improbable to imagine they might be interested in having some of the Trek novelists with screenwriting experience -- I'm thinking of you and David Mack -- adapt their novels for TV.

Similarly, Russell T. Davies had some Doctor Who novels and audio stories adapted for the revived television series, including having author Paul Cornel adapt his novel Human Nature into Series Three's "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" two-parter, Rob Shearman adapting his Jubilee into Series One's "Dalek,"

Which, I'm not saying that Kurtzman and Orci have made any indication they'd do that or that they necessarily would. I just think it's not wholly improbable, given their stated fondness and familiarity with Trek Lit.

 

[Christopher]

Exactly. Which is to say nothing of the fact that -- c'mon. It's about writing a Star Trek book, not determining the fate of millions or anything. No one goes home hungry at night because they missed out on a Star Trek book, y'know? No one actually suffers from losing out on a gig like that.

Well, I would, because it's been my primary source of income for the past several years. But then, I'm stupid that way. If I had any sense, I'd have a real job by now. And people who aren't already regular contributors to the Pocket stable presumably have other sources of income of their own, and what they'd get from selling a first Trek novel wouldn't be huge compared to what they'd earn for a comparable few months' work at their regular jobs.

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a question, in essence, of how much clout the author has and therefore whether or not he/she is able to get a clause giving them royalties inserted into their contract. For the vast majority of tie-in writers, they wouldn't have that much clout, because their names just wouldn't be big enough sellers for CBS to be willing to grant them a provision like that to entice them to write. But if, say, Stephen King or J.K. Rowling were to express interest in writing a Star Trek book (yes, yes, wildly improbable scenario, but it works to demonstrate my point), I imagine their agents might be able to get CBS to concede to a provision entitling them to royalties.

Someone on that level (or, more realistically, someone like William Shatner) could presumably do that. But tie-in contracts are pretty standardized for the most part. I'm not sure how much leeway an agent would really have to work with in trying to negotiate a better deal. A higher advance, maybe, but I think there are a lot of factors that limit what's practical to include in a tie-in contract. After all, Pocket is presumably operating under certain guidelines as part of its licensing deal, so Pocket might be limited in what it could contractually offer.

Anyway, if book authors were entitled to royalties for the use of their characters and species, it probably would just result in the film and TV producers choosing not to use those characters and species -- the same way Enterprise created T'Pol rather than using T'Pau as a regular character so that they wouldn't have to pay Theodore Sturgeon's estate a royalty every week. After all, it's easy enough to create a character with a different name in order to fulfill a similar role. Since 99 percent of the TV/movie viewers will never have read the novels, it won't matter to them whether the character is from the novels or newly created, so why should the studio expend the money on using a novel character?

On the other hand, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have been public about their enjoyment of Star Trek novels. If they were to make a new ST series in the future, it's not wholly improbable to imagine they might be interested in having some of the Trek novelists with screenwriting experience -- I'm thinking of you and David Mack -- adapt their novels for TV.

Interested, maybe, but that just means the authors might get invited to pitch stories. They'd still have to go through the pitch process the same as everyone else.

See, here's the thing: if a TV or movie production company asks you to write something for them, they have to pay you for it. So if they came to you and said, "Hey, we'd like you to adapt this specific novel of yours for our show," that would be a promise up front to pay for that adaptation. And then what happens if the author they approach is unable to figure out a way to adapt the novel into a filmable episode? The producers have then paid for something they can't use. That's why the initiative generally has to come from the freelance writers (or more usually their agents). The writer's agent asks for and gets a pitch meeting, then the writer comes in and pitches ideas (verbally, since they have to pay you for anything they ask you to write down), and if the producers hear an idea that they think can work, then they'll ask for a treatment, which means they'll pay for that treatment. And if the treatment works and they think the writer is capable of taking it to script, they'll ask the writer to script it, and that means they'll pay for that script.

So I'd have to say that the scenario of Kurtzman & Orci deciding to ask a novelist to adapt their novel into an episode is pretty unlikely. They might invite the novelist to pitch ideas to them, and the author might choose to include a novel adaptation as one of the pitches, but there's no guarantee that the producers would accept that pitch.

And I only have screenwriting experience to the extent that I've written a few spec scripts and done a few pitches (that I was terrible at). Unlike Dave Mack or James Swallow or Diane Duane, I have no paid screenwriting experience.

Similarly, Russell T. Davies had some Doctor Who novels and audio stories adapted for the revived television series, including having author Paul Cornel adapt his novel Human Nature into Series Three's "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" two-parter, Rob Shearman adapting his Jubilee into Series One's "Dalek,"

Well, as we've established, the rules in British TV are different than in American TV. And did RTD ask those writers to adapt their stories, or did the writers come in and pitch adaptations of their stories which RTD then accepted? There's a big difference.