Dreadnaught
Are you looking for the Star Trek: TOS fanzine Dreadnought Explorations?
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Dreadnaught |
| Publisher: | Criterion Press and Straight Up Press |
| Editor: | |
| Author(s): | Wayne Schmidt |
| Cover Artist(s): | Wayne Schmidt |
| Illustrator(s): | Wayne Schmidt |
| Date(s): | 2001 |
| Medium: | |
| Size: | |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Dreadnaught is a gen 120-page Deep Space Nine novel by Wayne Schmidt.
Summary from a distributor, Agent With Style: "A man named Wilson McDermot, the 'richest entity in three quadrants,' brings a gigantic ship to dock at DS9 to be refitted, starting off a chain of events in which Captain Sisko shows the darker side of commanding a space station, Rom proves that in business, it's not the size of one's lobes that matters, Nog shows everyone that he has the courage of a warrior, a dark-haired Vulcan named D'Taing will steal your heart, and the surprise ending will hold you enthralled until the very last page."
The author posted abut his experiences learning how to write and getting the story published on his blog:
Before I put my Deep Space Nine novel Dreadnought on the net, I studied 17 texts on effective writing, read several top science fiction novels for examples, and rewrote the draft incorporating everything I had learned. Then I had three people read it and make suggestions. I rewrote it a second time using all of their comments. I put it away for several months, studied some more, then rewrote it a third time. I knew I had a winner. I posted it on my site and within a few days heard from the fanzine Orion Press that they were interested in publishing it. I immediately took it off the site and sent them the manuscript. "Okay," I thought. "This is it! Pulitzer here I come!"Then I got the manuscript back from their editor, Laura Taylor.
To say that she trashed it would be an understatement. She sent six pages, single-spaced, of mistakes I'd made... then came more specific comments in the manuscript itself. I counted over 1000 small mistakes I'd made in addition to the six pages of global mistakes she'd addressed up front. Then she said something that floored me... she liked it! Somehow, in spite of all the things I'd done wrong, she saw a story that had enough promise to be worth publishing. So, I dug in, made all the changes she asked, read through it one last time making additional improvements, and sent it back to her. "Okay, this was it! I'd made some mistakes but they were all taken care of now. She'd love this version!"
Unfortunately, Orion Press decided to kill all DS9 work one month before Dreadnought was due to be released. Laura Taylor had worked long and hard on Dreadnought but there wasn't time to get it ready. However, she did recommend it to Kathy Agel at Criterion Press, another fanzine. Confident that Laura Taylor had helped me polish Dreadnought to perfection, I sent Kathy the manuscript. It came back in due course with a very pleasant letter that said she liked the story, wanted to publish it, and needed just a few things changed. I counted them... 753 changes! Ouch!
To say that this has been a humbling experience would be understatement in the extreme. From all this I learned a number of important lessons that fan fiction writers might find useful, so I'm posting them here.[1]