Concept Sci-fi

Gary Reynolds talks to Nick Sagan (July 2008)...

By way of an introduction, can you tell us a little about yourself?

Sure.  I’m a writer, mostly of science fiction.  I’m best known for the Idlewild series of novels and for various episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager.  On the nonfiction side, I recently collaborated with two science writers (Andy Walker and Mark Frary) to put out a technology guide: You Call This The Future?  Last year, I had a blast teaching screenwriting at Cornell University.  I’m the son of astronomer Carl Sagan and writer/interstellar artist Linda Salzman.  Fun fact: I’m a former child ambassador to the stars.  At age six, I provided the English language greeting for the Voyager Golden Record, which is now the most distant human-made object in the universe, and growing more distant with every passing second.

How did you get into writing and how much of an influence did your father, astronomer Carl Sagan, have when you were developing your writing skills?

Strangely enough, online role-playing games and Patrick McGoohan gave me the push into writing.  I spent those awkward early teen years as a SysOp of an electronic bulletin board system, regularly hosting sessions of D&D, Traveler and other fantasy/science fiction RPGs.  Playing and running dozens of games at once didn’t do much for my high school career, but it gave me a crash course in storytelling—without realizing it, I was learning how to structure a plot, how to reveal character, when to use description, etc.  Then one day when I was browsing titles at the local video store, my mother suggested I check out Patrick McGoohan’s groundbreaking television series, The Prisoner.  I watched an episode and got hooked.  The writing was so good, so satisfying, and I saw that not only had McGoohan created a tremendously entertaining series, he’d threaded it with social satire, it worked on an ethical level, a religious level, and the deeper you looked the more you could find.  I’d not realized that this sort of thing could be done before, and it made me want to try my hand at it as well.  So I dropped out of high school (which, naturally, worried my parents), enrolled at Santa Monica College, got good grades for the first time since elementary school, transferred to UCLA film school and graduated summa cum laude.  Now around this time, Richard Walter, the head of the screenwriting program, asked if I’d mind if he showed an agent a script I’d written in his class.  I didn’t mind at all.  The agent called the day after he read it, asking if he could represent me.  Jackpot.  A production company optioned that script and then offered me a feature assignment—I was off and running.

That’s not to say my father didn’t have an influence on my writing.  Both of my parents had a profound influence.  Mom read to me as a child and embarked on a screenwriting career when I was a teen—she’s a great writer and I learned a lot watching her.  Dad encouraged me to read voraciously.  He introduced me to great novel after great novel, both in science fiction (including the best of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and Kurt Vonnegut) and general fiction (Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson and many more.)  What’s more, his conviction in the scientific method served as and continues to serve as a tremendous inspiration—there is an honesty and a humility embedded within science, where hypotheses are tested and challenged, and what doesn’t work is thrown out or revised no matter how painful it may be to the scientist’s ego.  There is an echo of this in the writing process, where “writing is rewriting” and the pages that don’t ring true must be polished until they do.  And most important of all, he was always wonderfully supportive.  He believed in me, even when I gave him cause to worry.  With each new project I take on, I try to do the kind of work that would make him proud.

You've released Idlewild, Edenborn and Everfree as novels, but have been missing from the 'novel' world since then.  Do you have plans for any further novels?

Splitting my time between novels and Hollywood gigs means I’m not able to pop out new books as quickly as I’d like—it’s the drawback to trying to ride two horses with one behind.  But yes, I’m working on a new novel right now—I’ve got the file open and am making notes even as I type this.  It’s still a ways from completion, but I’m enjoying writing it and seem to be picking up momentum as I go.  The protagonist is awfully fun to write.  He’s speaking to me.  It’s set in the future, though not the future of the Idlewild series. This one is intended as a solo book, but if it goes well, I can see expanding it into a trilogy.  I’d say more about it, but I have the problem many writers have where talking about a work in progress slows down my output, so I’d best stop there.  I also have the kernels for a few other novels popping in my head, including one for a fourth book in the Idlewild series, but that may be a while, as there are other stories I want to tell first.

Can you describe your writing process?  How do you go about planning a novel, writing, revising and editing?

I subscribe to the “littlest bear” theory of outlining.  You want the porridge to be just right.  For me, that means a loose outline.  No outline at all and there’s a real danger of going off track and writing yourself into a dead end, or getting lost in the maze of possibilities.  On the other hand, use an outline that’s structured too tightly and the writing may well feel cold and mechanical, and you reduce the chance of “happy accidents,” those magical moments in the creative process where the unconscious mind seizes on something unexpected and great.  What I tend to do is look for ten moments, ten beats in the story which leap out at me as being especially fun, frightening, funny, inspiring or heartbreaking.  If I can find those moments, then it’s easy to structure the rest of it and I can effectively play connect the dots.  Of course, that’s step two in the process.  Step one is coming up with the damn idea in the first place.  As for the revision/editing process, with novels I tend to “bash” instead of “swoop”—which means I spend a good amount of time doing battle with my first draft, getting it where I want it, so later revisions tend to be comparatively minor.  Other writers blaze through a first draft, then a second, a third and so on, “swooping” in many times and changing it considerably in the process.  That’s a valid and effective strategy for some, but I’ve had more luck thus far just “bashing” it out.  One last thought about the process: It’s a good idea to have patient friends, people who won’t come to resent you for asking, “Can I borrow your ear for a minute?” and “Is this chapter working?” which, quite frankly, you need to do whenever you fear you’ve lost your objectivity.

What's the least favourite piece you've worked on and why?

Good question.  No one’s ever asked me that before.  Well, I’ve had ups and downs, and some projects were certainly more stressful than others, but I’ve never really had a miserable experience writing something.  I’m very lucky in that respect. 

There are finished projects that didn’t turn out exactly as I’d hoped, of course, and a good example would be a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode I worked on called “Bloodlines.”  “Bloodlines” was a revenge story which saw an old enemy blaming Captain Picard for the death of his son and looking to settle the score by taking out Jason Vigo, the son Picard never knew he had.  Unfortunately, Vigo turns out to be no biological relative at all, which blunts the drama considerably.  Producers insisted upon that change because the upcoming Star Trek: Generations movie (which was being developed at that time) featured a moment where Picard laments being the last of the Picards.  Vigo actually being his son would have contradicted this.  I proposed that we leave the characters related but kill Vigo off at the end of the episode, but that was deemed too dark.  So my sense is that the revision process caused “Bloodlines” to unravel a bit, and I don’t think the finished episode lived up to its potential.  That said, there are still moments in the episode that I enjoy, and I certainly can’t fault the producers for wanting to ensure continuity between the Star Trek series and the Star Trek films.

What are you currently working on?

Many projects, including a novel and a screenplay which I unfortunately can’t talk too much about, and a series of science fiction graphic novels, Shrapnel, for which I have a link.

You've worked on Star Trek TNG/Voyager and Space Precinct, the computer games Zork Nemesis and OurColony and a number of animations and screen plays.  That's quite a diverse range.  Why have you chosen to work in so many different types of media?

It’s important to me that I test myself.  Every so often I get the urge to stretch creatively and try something I’ve never tried before.  I’ve been very fortunate to have so many diverse opportunities over the years, and hopefully that good fortune will continue and allow me to keep growing as a writer.

Do you prefer screen writing or novels and why?

I love them both, and when I’m working on one, I’m homesick for the other.  Screenplays are largely about timing and structure and what’s shown (or not shown) on the screen, and this requires a particular set of creative muscles.  By contrast, novels are wide open, presenting you with an exciting (and sometimes terrifying) freedom.  Go wherever you want to go.  I also have a special place in my heart for television writing, the team sports aspect of it, the camaraderie that comes from a group of writers bouncing ideas off each other, and the challenge of having to turn out episodes under a very short timetable.  It’s not easy, and I have enormous respect for those series that are able to churn out long strings of quality shows.  When you have a creative project percolating in your head, it’s a good idea to think carefully about whether it’s best served as a book, a screenplay, a videogame, etc.

I believe that you were involved in the screen writers' strike.  How do you think the strike has affected the industry and the opinions of the viewing public?

Well, I had a screenwriting assignment lined up which I was very much looking forward to jumping into, but the strike killed it.  Disappointing though that was to me personally, I support the WGA, and believe they were right to press the issue.  I sense the viewing public is fairly divided on the strike, and I can appreciate the frustration many felt waiting for their favorite shows to return, but technology is moving forward and writers need to watch out that they don’t wind up exploited.  Ron Moore’s struggle with Universal over Battlestar Galactica webisodes is a perfect case in point—writers should be paid for their work and properly credited no matter what the medium.

Beyond your current projects, what can we expect to see from Nick Sagan in the future?

It’s funny, I’m far more comfortable predicting a general future via science fiction than I am predicting my own personal future.  I don’t know what tomorrow will bring for me.  Good things, I hope.  Sometimes fans reach out to me and tell me how something I’ve written has moved them, and my hope is I’ll continue to be worthy of that praise.

Photo of Nick © Angelica Mitchell