> I had assumed you were writing a mainstream novel as well.Are you
> doing fan fiction?

Yes, for clarification, fanfic novel. I differentiate because there are novel-length fanfic stories and short fanfic stories.

> I know from looking into the X-Files books I found that the
> copyright holder was Fox and not the individual author. I was asking > permission to use the characters, but the copyright would have still > been in Warner Bros name not mine similar to the X-file books. I
> would have had to pay a licensing fee to use the charcters. I was
> asking for derivative rights just to use the characters in an
> entirely new novel set later on in the future etc. They still
> wouldn't let me use anything.

Tie-in novels must (I think always) be contracted by the copyright holder. You have to break into that market, you can't just do your own. The studios want to maintain continuity in case they have any further projects planned, so you couldn't just write a Star Trek tie-in novel where (for example) Spock died when he was 50. Star Trek novels, Buffy novels, Supernatural novels, X-Files novels, they all have to fit within the continuity of the universe and the timeline parameters that the studio sets for all media tie-ins.

There is information on how to break into that marketplace, however, so feel free to explore that. It's hard, but possible. I know of some who have gone from tie-in novelists to working in the writer's room on shows, so the potential is there.

--KimberlyFDR