Folks, I wholeheartedly apologize, both to the published authors who frequented this thread and the others who chimed in as well, whether to gently chastise me or steer me towards the path of enlightenment. Apologies also go out to the small town population of passers-by, by the rather substantial viewer count, who probably thought, "Jeez, what a tool!" to ask such questions. Some of the responses made me feel pretty dumb (thanks, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, to Steve Roby), but then again I did ask some dumb questions and throw some dumb stuff out there without thinking, didn't I?
I did not intend to offend anyone or try to get anyone to give away any story ideas, try to push story ideas on anyone or toss them out there for someone to use (the whole "disavow" thing)(more on that in a few minutes), or peek behind curtains to see what some of the published Trek authors were going to come up with next and try and scoop them. I don't know jack about writing myself. As I preview this before submitting it, I hope I don't come across as a bigger tool...but here goes.
I truly did not know that it was considered a faux pas to talk about possible story ideas in Trek Lit, and that those efforts belonged in the Fan Fiction section...I was aware of that forum's existence, but had not frequented it, preferring the Trek Lit forum to hear from the published authors with my limited computer time. I have since popped over there for a quick look-see, and have actually found some decent and amazing things. I will try in the future to keep the above questions, and the like, out of Trek Lit. And I thank you for setting me straight, and actually admire some of your restraint.
I only wanted to hear about the evolution of the story, the idea from what you came up with in the first place and how it evolved as it was passed back and forth from you to Marco, et al, as it winged its way (or walked, or crawled through the primordial slime) through the editorial process to ultimately become as it was on print. I was thinking there were certainly items you wanted to include, plot twists, other characters/ships/etc, things that ultimately became edited out or otherwise altered or adjusted. As the story is out in print, I did not see the harm in asking how you got from that idea to how it came out in print, and the turns and twists along that path...that is, unless you intended to follow the story up in another future Myriad Universes edition, which now that I come to think of it I did ask James Swallow in another thread after the "stay tuned!" ending of "Seeds of Dissent", though I can't recall the answer at present.
William Leisner, I don't remember a discussion of other story ideas of yours in another post, but it is entirely possible that I missed that one. I haven't checked out Trek Lit to any great extent until the recent discussions of the "Destiny" trilogy, so I am playing catch-up on old threads as well. But it sounds from your post that you don't really wish to discuss ideas that didn't make it, for reasons that are now obvious to me, and that is perfectly fine. I appreciate what you have contributed to the thread about the evolution of "A Less Perfect Union".
Thanks also to Scott Pearson, for elaborating a bit on your contribution to MU3. I look forward to reading it, though am dismayed that I will have to wait another year. Not big on delayed gratification.
When I think about the Trek editorial process, I remember the old submission guidelines I saw in the early 90s, which certainly seemed quite restrictive, IIRC. While the Myriad Universe books are quite different from mainstream Trek fiction and you have much more leeway, I had wondered about what restrictions currently exist. It is my understanding that the people who are in charge of Trek fiction now are most definitely not the same folks who ran the show back in the early 90s. The most marked difference I have observed thus far is the increase in collusion among authors in helping to insure that each other's works are internally consistent. As a recent example, I point to Christopher and David Mack, in discussing the operation of the transphasic torpedo in "Greater Than The Sum" and the "Destiny" trilogy with each other before print, so both are consistent with each other. Such consistency makes for better story-telling.
As I went through the posts tonight in composing this response, apparently I aggravated a lot of people, and I am truly sorry.
I did not think ahead to future MU volumes or similiar books, and figure out that perhaps, just maybe, you guys would definitely prefer to keep that intellectual property to yourselves, and that even though a particular story may have not made the cut, you'd like to keep it under wraps for a future book, as well as continue to polish and revise it. And for that glaring unthinking error, I apologize. Come to think of it, I made that mistake twice, once in my first post, and once again in my response to DefCon's response in post #3. I look forward to seeing what comes up in MU3. And won't ask about that again, at least until after it is published.
Now, on to the idea of Trek authors being sued "stealing" other peoples ideas.
Nerys Ghemor and Christopher (thanks for the explanations, by the way) made it quite clear the perils of hearing unsolicited ideas as well as the sweet agony of discovering one's own good idea already taken, as the predator divests one from the herd, but the most vehement response to this concept actually came from my brother, a director for Warner Brothers. He had to keep at arms-length for several months a guy who thought he had written some great fan fiction for the genre my brother directs, almost to the point of putting out a restraining order on him. This guy was so convinced he wrote the perfect screenplay that he sent multiple unsolicited copies to various people at WB, well after the point he became persona non grata at the studio gates, that an intern asked my brother what the harm was in taking a look-see at his work to see if it was really all it was cracked up to be. My brother gently explained to the intern that if they even accepted the mailing this guy could potentially prove in a court of law that anything that appeared in said filmed genre could be claimed as stolen intellectual property, and not only would the studio have to spend precious capital defending itself in what would be at best a spurious or nuisance lawsuit (which he said happens all the time), but that any ("redshirts") WB staff involved in such an appearance of impropriety over this topic may be summarily dismissed from the studio as the studio seeks to divorce itself from the situation, claiming ignorance and rogue behavoir on the part of the fired. Something to the effect of "You'll never work in this town again!" was thrown out there as well. Now, looking at Hollywood, it seems obvious that people are getting intellectual property ripped off all of the time and muddying the waters of rightful ownership. Just look at the lawsuits surrounding the Watchmen movie rights.
But the moral of the story is, I believe, never ever leave a paper (or an electronic data) trail that some schlub can point to in a court of law and say, "Here, on my manuscript, page 579, these events appear just as I have scripted in so-and-so's movie, at one hour, eleven minutes, twenty-seven seconds! I demand twenty percent of the box office proceeds!" And while everyone knows it's a nuisance, everyone also knows it's less resource-consuming just to settle with the guy. So why take the chance?
And that, I think, explains quite succintly why we shouldn't throw out story ideas, or Treks not taken, in Trek Lit; rather, leave it in Fan Fiction, where it belongs. Pretty sad that my little brudder, many years younger but infinitely wiser, and who doesn't know jack about Trek but knows a helluva lot more than I ever will about writing, had to explain that to me (i.e. rip me a new one).
Do I get the picture now, folks?
THIS IS INSANE THE GOOD WHAT IF IDEA BUT WE WILL NEVER SEE THEM BECASE OF SOME DUMB RULE! IF WE CAN"t SEE GOOD WHAT IF STORES WHERE CAN WE GO TO SEE THEM ? MY STORY WOULD BE WHAT IF KIRK HAD DIE IN TOS AND SPOCK HAD BECASE CAPTION IF ANY 1 NOT LIKE THIS THEY CAN SUE ME SO MUCH BAD HAPPING IN NY LIFE I NOT CARE ANY MORE BYE
