Pocket Books' Star Trek Pro Novel Guidelines (1995)

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Related terms: Pocket Books Publisher
Star Trek Tie-in Novels
See also: Pocket Books' Star Trek Pro Novel Guidelines (1985)
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Pocket Books' Star Trek Pro Novel Guidelines was posted to alt.startrek.creative in 1995 and also in other places.

This style sheet was intended to be a public document for manuscripts submitted to Pocket Books for Star Trek Tie-in Novels.

Also see Pocket Books' Star Trek Pro Novel Guidelines (1985).

Some Context

Many fans wanted to read "better" pro novels. Many fans felt that they could write "better" pro novels, and they had a keen interest in being published professionally.

In Boldly Writing (1996), Joan Verba wrote:

The professional novels got a lot of press.

[snipped]

In April [1983 issue of Interstat), Lisa Wahl and Julia Ecklar complained... about the poor quality of the pro novels: 'Is everyone as tired as we are at discovering that Trek novels by award-winning science fiction writers are not as good as many fans' works?" In June, Lisa Wahl suggested that Star Trek fans boycott the Timescape Star Trek novels in October and November of that year, in order to protest their poor quality. That got a lot of fans writing in. Several fans said they were afraid that such a boycott would hurt sales of Yesterday's Son, which they had read in manuscript form. Howard Weinstein was one of them, though he added, 'Lisa and Julia get no argument from me when they complain that not all the pro Star Trek novels are as good as they might be.' Howard also wrote, 'Since the publication of Covenant, I've gotten several hundred letters from readers...I've found overwhelming approval.' This matched reports of every single pro author who wrote to a letterzine: all reported getting hundreds of positive responses.

The Guidelines

John Ordove [sic] herer [sic], Star Trek Novels Editor for Pocket Books. I am posting our Star Trek Novel Guidelines here per request. Once again, i do not read the posts here, so any questions should be directed to me at [email protected]. Please feel free to distribute these guidelines on the nets.

6/28/95 STAR TREK : THE ORIGINAL SERIES STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE STAR TREK: VOYAGER

Submission Guidelines:

Due to the overwhelming number of submissions that we receive, Pocket Books can only accept requested, agented manuscripts. Unsolicited manuscripts will be returned immediately by our support staff. A comprehensive list of agents can be found in a book called THE LITERARY MARKETPLACE, available in the reference section of any library. Ethical considerations prevent us from recommending individual agents, so please do not ask.

FORMAT: All manuscripts MUST be submitted typed, double-spaced, on one side of non-corrasable [sic] typing paper.

The page number and your name MUST be at the top of each page. Your full name and address should appear on the first and last page of the manuscript (yes, include your phone number).

PROCEDURE: Submit the first three chapters with a detailed synopsis (eight to twelve pages) of the entire plot.

Due to the large volume of submissions we receive, our reply can take anywhere from one to four months...so please be patient. If we're interested in publishing your novel, we'll contact your agent with an offer. We may ask for revisions, and may also ask to see the completed novel before reaching a decision.

CONTENTS: In a one-sentence description, we're looking for exciting science fiction stories featuring the STAR TREK characters. This means that something should be at stake, something other than the internal emotional problems of the crew. The optimum choice would be a problem that must be resolved quickly, solved in a race against time, that would have horrible consequence if the crew fails.

The majority of the books we publish are the regular STAR TREK, STAR TREK: TNG, and STAR TREK: DS9 paperbacks. These are adventure novels of roughly 70,000 words (about 275-325 pages). We also have a line of hardcovers, but these are a tougher sell. We usually work very closely with experienced STAR TREK authors to create the hardcover stories which are larger in scope than the regular novels.

We cannot use short stories, poetry, biographies, romances, encyclopedias, dictionaries, concordances, compendiums, blueprints, satiric novels, photo novels or trivia books. We publish these kinds of books very carefully and most often hire people affiliated with the STAR TREK shows and/or movies to write them.

APPROVALS: All material is subject to the approval of Paramount Pictures, which owns all copyright to STAR TREK in its various incarnations and is very concerned about maintaining the integrity of the characters and the Star Trek universe.

To that end, we make a serious effort to see that the books line up with the episodes and films, though we recognize that absolute consistency is a practical impossibility. We now have some "official" reference guides that may be helpful. These titles should be available in all bookstores and many libraries. They include: THE STAR TREK COMPENDIUM, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION TECHNICAL MANUAL, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION COMPANION, THE STAR TREK CHRONOLOGY, and THE STAR TREK ENCYCLOPEDIA. The best reference, of course, are the STAR TREK episodes and films.

Do's and Don'ts:

There are a number of plots that we would specifically like to avoid:

1.) Any story primarily about a guest star or non-STAR TREK regular. This means no stories about other crews, ships, or guest characters that become the focus of the story. The novels should always "star" Kirk, Picard, Sisko et al. Paramount Pictures feels very strongly that STAR TREK stories should be primarily about the STAR TREK characters, who must be the major problem solvers in any STAR TREK novel.
2.) Death of an established crewmember or character, or any other permanent change in the established STAR TREK characters, settings, or universe, such as introducing offspring or close relations of the characters other than those already in existence. Also no childhood or current sweethearts, although you can create temporary love interests. As with all series, the status quo must be restored at the end.
3.) Any plot that hinges on or describes in detail sexual relations of any kind, especially between human and aliens. We are not interested in books that suggest anything other than friendship among any of the Enterprise crewmembers.
4.) No mixing of casts is allowed, which means no plots that mix the characters from one series with another. While we do intend to occassionally [sic] cross over between series this will always be handled very carefully in-house.
5) Traveling in time to change history or learn something, rescue someone, etc. Also, we are currently overstocked on alternate universe storylines.
6.) For DEEP SPACE NINE and VOYAGER, the books should stay current with the programs. NEXT GENERATION should, for the moment, be set between the end of the series and STAR TREK: GENERATIONS, the first movie with the NEXT GENERATION cast.
7.) No stories that turn out to have been a dream, a hoax, or a virtual reality sequence. We are also avoiding novels that start out with an action-packed opening that turns out to be taking place on the holodeck.
8.) No "test" stories, i.e. stories where the Enterprise is tested by god-like beings studying humanity or judging our worth.
9) Avoid trying to definitively map out a character's history beyond what has already been done in the movies or television episodes. When we do biographical books, we work very closely with Paramount and the writer.
As a general rule, the best chance for a STAR TREK submission by a first-time STAR TREK writer is to submit a "traditional" STAR TREK mission story that follows the Problem on Planet/Problem on Ship (or Station) formula. If you've been reading the novels, you know that we do take some chances and publish books that push the boundaries somewhat, but be advised that we approach these stories very carefully, working closely with experienced STAR TREK writers and Paramount Pictures.
10) Do not introduce any levels of technology beyond what has been established in the television shows.

A Word About Style:

The major thing the books have to offer that the television shows do not is an internal point of view, revealing the inner thoughts, feelings and reactions of the characters. Therefore STAR TREK books must adhere to strict point of view with scene breaks to denote any POV shifts. We are not interested in external or "camera eye" prose. We are also not interested in first person books.

The best style guides for your STAR TREK proposals are, of course, the recently published STAR TREK novels.

That's it. Thank you for your interest in STAR TREK, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE and STAR TREK: VOYAGER.

Good luck with your writing.

The Editors [1] [2]

Fan Comments

As you can see, a lot of these rules are pretty arbitrary at times and fairly stifling to creativity (not to mention that #3 is blatantly aimed at discouraging shippers). And frankly, it really shows as most of the more recent books are often fairly dull in comparison to some of the stuff published in the 70′s (”Child of Two Worlds” is probably the first exception in a long while where I actually enjoyed a Trek book published after 2000).

Maybe I’m just being optimistically naïve, but perhaps the female Trek writers felt that these rules were just too constricting and would rather publish their writing in zines or online where they were free to use their imaginations without restraint. I think it is a stylistic tendency that a lot of female Trek writers (at least the ones I tend to read) tend to focus their stories on new possibilities, “what if?” scenarios, and/or complex emotional journeys, and this list tends to discourage nearly all such writings. A lot of male writers (at least nowadays) may be content with writing yet another story about Capt. So-and-So fighting a space battle/avoiding galactic war/saving a planet and so have less problems working around the guidelines.[3]

The irony in that is that most of the new pro Star Trek novels I’ve read have very definitely broken a number of those rules, including childhood sweethearts, the death of Amanda, the mentioned death of Kirk’s parents while he was fairly young (although they were very much alive in another pro novel from the same publishing year), and romantic relationships aplenty. Oh, plus a lot about Edith Keeler. [4]

Some Star Trek: TOS Pro Books with Fan Connections

Further Reading and Context

References

  1. ^ POCKET GUIDELINES (February 21, 1996)
  2. ^ also Star Trek Novel Submission Guidelines
  3. ^ pepperpup86, Archived version (2016)
  4. ^ aconitum-trek, Archived version (2016)
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