Random Question For Authors and Writers

[Greg Cox]

True story: When I was working on Godzilla, I knew that I had written a scene at a nuclear power plant before, but I swear to God I couldn't remember when or in what book!

Believe it or not, they do start to blur in your memory after awhile.

 

[William Leisner]

Besides writing my own books, I often write the cover copy for other people's books. You know, the stuff on the back covers of paperbacks or the inside flaps of hardovers:

"The bestselling author of Mud-Pits of Lost Atlantis returns with another breathtaking adventure into the unknown, pitting Special Agent Mark Cosmos against a deadly new dimension of intergalactic peril . . . . "

There's a new Mark Cosmos novel coming out? Hot damn!!

 

[voyager1]

Not to hijack this thread.
How often does an idea get shot down for a Trek story? Have any of you authors came up with similar ideas that led to issues arising?

Oh and note to the mods: I started a similar thread to this a few days ago. If y'all want to merge them and make them stick to the top, might be a good idea. Be one place for folks to ask the authors questions and such in one place.
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=249790

 

[Defcon]

^ What Greg said.

You're also sending copies of your books to Greg's mom? How sweet.

 

[David Mack]

^ What can I say? I'm a giver.

 

[David Mack]

How often does an idea get shot down for a Trek story? Have any of you authors came up with similar ideas that led to issues arising?

More often than you might think. Sometimes an editor will ask an author to submit "some TNG post-finale pitches." Maybe the writer sends in just one; sometimes I draft a few one-page pitches, to see what captures the editor's imagination.

Sometimes none of them do.

As far as duplicating ideas, that happens, too. I seem to recall one of my first proposals for "an epic Data story" to anchor the Cold Equations trilogy turned out to be almost identical to what Jeff Lang had written almost a decade earlier, in Immortal Coil. On the editor's recommendation, I tracked down a copy of that book, read it, and realized my faux pas. Then I used that story as a sprinboard for a new tale: "What would happen next...?"

 

[Greg Cox]

Not to hijack this thread.
How often does an idea get shot down for a Trek story? Have any of you authors came up with similar ideas that led to issues arising?

Oh and note to the mods: I started a similar thread to this a few days ago. If y'all want to merge them and make them stick to the top, might be a good idea. Be one place for folks to ask the authors questions and such in one place.
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=249790

It's not uncommon for ideas to get shot down, for any number of reasons. Comes with the job. And sometimes ideas get tinkered with significantly along the way. "We've got a lot of Klingon stuff coming up. Can you make the bad guys Romulans or Orions instead?" That kind of thing.

But that doesn't mean you can't recycle them sometimes. I turned a rejected Voyager pitch into a Farscape story, a rejected Firefly pitch into a Terminator novel, and even a rejected Voyager pitch into a TNG novella. The moral being, never toss anything away. And don't be afraid to cannibalize yourself!

And, yes, it's not uncommon to pitch several ideas with the hopes of selling one. I remember the ROSWELL people asked me for four short, one-paragraph premises to choose from.