David Gerrold
David Gerrold
David Gerrold is an American science fiction screenwriter and novelist known for his script for the popular original Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", for creating the Sleestak race on the TV series Land of the Lost, and for his novelette "The Martian Child", which won both Hugo and Nebula awards, and was adapted into a 2007 film starring John Cusack...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth24 January 1944
CountryUnited States of America
war kids writing
When I was a kid, my favorite movies were the George Pal version of 'War Of The Worlds,' 'Them,' and 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers.' Those movies were scary! They haunted my nightmares for years, so when I started writing, I wanted to write a story that was just as big and just as scary.
stars writing thinking
My approach to 'Star Trek' was, 'I know science fiction, and I know screen writing.' That was very arrogant of me, but you really need to be a little bit arrogant to think that what you have to say is good enough to justify the expense of hundreds of thousands - now millions of dollars - to make an episode of the TV show.
stars writing space
Notice how every science fiction movie or television show starts with a shot of the location where the story is about to occur. Movies that take place in outer space always start with a shot of stars and a starship. Movies that take place on another world always start with a shot of that planet. This is to let you know where you are. Novels and stories start the same way. You have to give the reader a sense of where he is and what's happening as quickly as possible. You don't want to start the story by confusing the reader.
writing air smell
Imagine yourself in the scene. See what there is to be seen. Listen to the sounds. Touch the world. Smell the air. Taste it. Use all of your senses. Then evoke those experiences for the reader. If you give the audience the flavor, they'll flesh out the moment in their own imaginations.
over-you ability adolescence
Adolescence is that time in your life when you discover your ability to be depressed.
death rushing black
Death comes black and hard, rushing down on me from the future, with no possible chance of escape.
revenge pain justice
Most people say they want justice, but they don't really want justice. They want revenge. They want to see the pain spread around equally.
money purses world
The jingling of a fat purse always commands the world.
civilization jail people
You can tell a lot about a civilization by the quality of the people found in its jails.
war people havens
Only people who haven't lived through a war advocate it so eagerly.
sacrifice past self
Christianity has held back any further advances in human consciousness for the past thousand years. And for the past century it's been in direct conflict with its illegitimate offspring, Communism (again with a capital C). Both ask the individual to sacrifice his self-interest to the higher goals of the organization. (Which is okay by me as long as it's voluntary; but as soon as either becomes too big—and takes on that damned capital C—they stop asking for cooperation and start demanding it.) Any higher states of human enlightenment have been sacrificed between these two monoliths.
feds
Incompetency fed on itself.
thinking people work-out
We have this sacred cow in our society that what the majority of people want is right—but is it? Our populace can't really be informed, not the majority of them—most people vote the way they have been manipulated and by the way they have responded to that manipulation—they are working out their own patterns of wishful thinking on the social environment in which they live.
avalanches
You will find it easiest to ride the avalanche in the direction it already travels.