My second sale to Star Trek: Voyager was a story concept that became 'Memorial', an episode in the show's sixth season.

Memorial and Beyond

I had sold a premise to Star Trek: Voyager that had been produced as the episode 'One', but I wasn't content. After months of fearing that I would never make a sale, I was now worrying that I would never make another sale, and forever be damned with faint praise as a one-hit wonder (no pun intended).

'One' came and went, and Paramount wrung the juice from my original pitch, even using some smaller elements of it (the starless void where the original story was set) in the following season's story 'Night'. And so I pitched and pitched and pitched, burning up ideas as Voyager edged ever closer to the Alpha Quadrant.

6 meetings and 46 story concepts later, I threw a tiny, final idea into the room as I was packing up to leave producer Bryan Fuller's toy-laden office - the title was 'A Memory of Wartime', a story about Tom Paris suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The sci-fi twist was, Tom's flashbacks were from a war he had never fought in. Bryan scribbled some notes and promised me he'd pitch the 'post-trauma' idea to the rest of the staff at their next meeting.

He was as good as his word; a month later, Brannon Braga telephoned to formally purchase the premise. I, of course, was somewhat more taken aback making a sale the second time around, especially getting a call from the executive producer late on a beery Friday night. We discussed the directions the plotline could take, and from this Brannon crafted an outline story, which in turn was scripted by the talented Robin Burger as 'Memorial'. Ironically, I'd pitched a completely unrelated story with that same title only three months earlier.

Once again, the contract fee - a little higher this time - saw all rights for the story premise purchased from me, and I went without a screen credit for a second time. On the surface, it sounds unfair to me, but the process is what works best for the show; as a non-US, non-Los Angeles resident, having me write the show (and be at all the meetings that would involve) would have made buying it more trouble than it was worth. I accepted my fee gracefully, along with Brannon's hopes that we could work together again in the future.

That was October 1999, and four months later, 'Memorial' aired in the middle of the sixth season. As Voyager entered its final year, I returned to pitch once more, this time working with Raf Green, one of the newer writers on the series. Despite some interesting story discussions with Raf, my last lap at Voyager came up empty - but I was sanguine. In season seven, as the show was being brought to a close, open slots for stories were few and far between. My last ever pitch to show was a story called 'Hothouse', where Seven of Nine and Voyager's resident children, Naomi and Icheb, were recruited by an nefarious schoolmaster…

As I write this, a new Star Trek series is in production, and the staff on Enterprise have invited me to throw a few new ideas their way; in the meantime, I can reflect on the extraordinary combination of luck, skill and determination that has brought me to where I am today.

To read the original pitch for 'A Memory of Wartime', Click Here.

© J.Swallow, 2001. All images and copyright subjects © Paramount Pictures.

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