Results tagged “editing”

I heard with sadness today that Charles N. Brown, longtime publisher of Locus, passed away in his sleep yesterday. Charlie—as we were allowed to call him for many years, before he started insisting on Charles—was a fixture of every SF/fantasy editor’s life. Reviews in Locus were coveted; news coverage even more so; so we all wined and dined Charlie, shared gossip with him, accepted invitations to his lively house parties in Oakland, did our best to introduce him to aspiring fantasy authors even though his oft-expressed preference was for science fiction. It was a thrill to have him call up and ask for an early copy of a manuscript, and we would always hand one over.

Charlie was free with his knowledge of the SF/fantasy publishing field and shared it even with the younger, less influential editors (my status for years!). He was opinionated, stubborn, about as easy to shift in his ways as a rock—but charming, smart, and so deeply caring about the field. We will miss him tremendously. For more information, see this link.

I promised myself when I began talking about my foray into writing a book and seeing it published that I would be forthright about the good things that happened in the process as well as the negative.

Here is a moment that is quite cool—and annoying to all ends.

When I finished writing and editing The Dark Thorn, I gave a copy to author Terry Brooks. Terry offered to read the book when it was completed, willing to go over it with his critical teaching and mentoring eye, wishing to help me on my journey. Since he teaches classes every so often at writing conferences and retreats, I willingly gave the book over to him in hopes of strengthening what I hoped was already a good book. Who better to critique my writing and set me upon a better path?

He was unbelievably kind to use his valuable time to read it.

In a way, I suppose, this is his way of giving back. Terry had a mentor as well when he entered the publishing field—Lester del Rey. Terry has ever been adamant he learned the majority of his writing craft from Lester, the latter molding the former into a professional writer. In his writing guide and memoir Sometimes the Magic Works, Terry speaks of that education and how it came about:

“I can’t being to imagine how much time and effort he must have put into going through all 375-plus pages of The Song of Lorelei, writing out his thoughts as he did so on those scraps of yellow tablet paper each step of the way. What he had given me was the kind of education young writers can only dream about—the kind you hope and pray you might find in college writing programs, writing conferences, or even from editors, but seldom do.” — Terry Brooks, Sometimes the Magic Works

After the great success of The Sword of Shannara, Terry immediately dove into writing The Song of Lorelei, the sequel to The Sword of Shannara, one centering on the son of Menion Leah. Terry did not show Lester what he was working on, hoping to surprise his editor with a great second book. But when Terry got more than halfway finished he could not continue. He did not know how to wrap up the tale, the various plot threads not weaving into the tapestry he had hoped. He reluctantly handed it over to Lester, hoping his editor had the magic to figure out the problem.

Lester returned the unfinished manuscript to Terry buried with notes—and said he wouldn’t publish the book.

Some of my authors have begun tweeting about their writing progress. Perhaps they are unaware that I can use this new tool to spy on them as their deadlines approach. Those who are going to be on time have nothing to fear. It’s those who are twitching and moaning about being late, o so late, I can’t help it, it’s my neuralgia / unfaithful boyfriend / deadline for another publisher / inability to stop rewriting / addiction to WOW that’s getting in my way of finishing. And wasn’t “Lost” great last night?

To these authors I say: You’ll have something to tweet about if I catch you.

But I got a big laugh out of John Birmingham’s recent messages. Read all together like this, they give the impression he’s been drinking heavily, but the last tweet contradicts that. He’s in the throes of finishing the sequel to Without Warning, the apocalyptic SF thriller that postulates what would happen to the rest of the world if the U.S. were essentially wiped off the map. [Answer: Nothing Good.]

Anyway, here’s how the sequel is coming along:

Every few years a book is released that not only makes a splash but hits with such force it drives all water from the pool!

A few years back The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss was such a book.

I’ve known Pat almost from the beginning, in a way even before the book was published. When an agent takes on a new client, that agent will usually put the book through a series of edits to strengthen it for submission to editors. Gotta put your best foot forward, after all! As Pat finished those edits on The Name of the Wind for agent Matt Bialer, I was going through my own edits with Matt for Song of the Fell Hammer. Matt told me then The Name of the Wind was a special book and fantasy readers were going to love it.

He was right. They did.

Matt also shared that Pat had a voracious appetite for ensuring every single word on the page was in the perfect spot. I saw this first hand when, two years ago, Pat showed me his red-slashed marks on pages from his first book’s sequel, Wise Man’s Fear. What a mess! It was like Pat had slaughtered a dragon with the largest broadsword imagined and used the pages of the book to clean up. He told me the he puts a book through literally dozens of full edits before he is happy with it.

This habit has of course pushed back the release for Wise Man’s Fear. Pat had all three books of this trilogy finished before he even approached Matt, but they were the roughest of first drafts at best. They hadn’t experienced Pat’s unique editing process yet. It took more than a year to edit The Name of the Wind.

And look at how great that book turned out to be!

Since the release of his debut book, Pat has been hard at work with Wise Man’s Fear—writing, rewriting, editing, editing, editing. He knows what he has before him. If he does this right his character Kvothe could be one of the greatest in the history of fantasy literature and Pat wants to give Kvothe every opportunity. For two years Pat has edited Wise Man’s Fear, looking over every single word, paragraph and chapter, ensuring the book lives up to his expectations after the marvelous release of The Name of the Wind.

Well, he has finally finished Wise Man’s Fear!

As posted on his website HERE, Pat speaks to finishing the book and has taken a photo of the manuscript next to a hardcover copy of the previous book.

As you can see it is a massive manuscript.

It looks to be 1500 pages of single-sided double-spaced goodness! That is a huge book, larger than The Name of the Wind. It’s great to know the last two years of waiting has not been in vain.

So, what is next? Betsy Wollheim, Pat’s editor at DAW, will undoubtedly be reading it as soon as possible. She will ask for a series of edits as well. When Pat returns from his trip he will sit back down and make some changes.

Then the book will be ready to go.

How long will it be before it is published? Difficult to know. Depends on when Pat finishes those edits. But if I were a betting man I’d say it will be published sometime this Fall 2009.

So keep your fingers crossed!

This is great news!

Editing a book can be such a gratifying and horrifying experience.

I finished the first draft of The Dark Thorn two weeks ago, a book I have high hopes for as it is easily the best thing I’ve written to date. It took just shy of a year to write. By the end of that year I felt really good about the book and how it came together—the character arcs are solid, it is loaded with fantasy elements woven into our world’s history and the overall story has a subtextual resonance for those who enjoy such things. Reading over the last few chapters to make sure I didn’t miss the conclusion to an open plot thread, I knew I would have an easy time giving the book a quick line edit and getting it out to the agent who is interested in it.

After taking two days off to celebrate, I started editing from the first chapter on.

And was aghast.

I have a fairly critical eye and even more so when it comes to my own work. I don’t become attached to something I’ve written or feel the need to protect it at earnest like many young writers do. Able to separate the work from my ego, I saw a book I could not possibly have written.

I still have a hard time taking responsibility for the first few chapters. What the agent initially saw in them I’ll probably never know.

Here is what I do know.

I normally post on Fridays, but not this week, because the Random House offices will be closed. That’s because we’re playing company-wide office merry-go-round: Hundreds of staffers are packing books, manuscripts, files, supplies, everything they own into orange rolling crates and shifting to new office spaces. As I was removing from the corkboard behind my computer all the memorabilia from years of sitting at this desk—and many a long-forgotten desk of yore—I suddenly realized that I could inflict the experience on the readers of Suvudu. Well, heck, it could qualify as an episode in publishing history.

What I’m taking off the board and carefully moving to my new office, six floors up from here with a lovely southern exposure:

• Hand-drawn cartoon by Dan Simmons chronicling a book tour for—as I recall—The Fall of Hyperion, from my days at Bantam long ago

(Click the image to get a closer look.)
• Thank-you card from William Gibson for the present of a spider-monkey skull (upon the signing of a new contract, also at Bantam)
• Photos of two cute Japanese teenagers in cosplay outfits, souvenir of a business trip to Tokyo
• Postcard of Darth Vader sipping a martini, with the words JOIN US! …Lord Vader & Lucas Licensing invite you for cocktails, details to follow
• Photo of Terry Brooks and his wife, Judine


• Voodoo doll liberally festooned with pins, present from a former assistant


• Scroll of honor from the Los Angeles County Probation Department—which runs the Operation Read Literacy Program—in thanks for a donation of hundreds of copies of Fahrenheit 451


• Shoulder patch of the Windy City Rollers (women’s roller derby team), sent by Chicago author Jennifer Stevenson, who’s a skater-in-training


• Button reading “The Editor is always right. You will listen to the Editor. The Editor is God!”


• Another button, this one reading “Cute but Dangerous”—present from an author.


• Yet another button: “Returns Suck.” (Referencing book returns from stores.)

And more. But that’s enough. Even though I’ve filled eight boxes so far, I have lots of packing left to do. And writers wonder why we don’t respond more quickly on their submissions.

I spent far, far too many hours this week writing catalog copy for my fall ‘09 Del Rey titles. Yes, I know that the catalog is our reps’ most important selling tool. Yes, I realize that booksellers refer to it for vital publication info. Yes, I should be happy that so many good books will reach the reading public next fall. I merely comment on how much time out of my day (days plural, in this case) writing good catalog copy seems to take.

Maybe it would be easier if I pretended to be selling women’s clothing. “New hardcover with alluring blue jacket spectacularly emblazoned with gold foil, just the right length, accessorizes with every outfit to take you from morning into night.”

Or kitchen appliances. I’ve read enough copy about appliances to think I could make that work: “This original trade paperback adapts to every kitchen situation. Can be read while waiting for water to boil, snapping green beans, stirring sauces, even peeling potatoes. Mixes one saucy heroine and one hunk of beefcake into a spicy casserole of love.”

Oog, that’s terrible. I like to think I did a better job on the copy for my upcoming books, which include A Princess of Landover, the first new novel in Terry Brooks’s Magic Kingdom of Landover series in almost 15 years; In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield, whose debut novel Benighted cast a whole new light on the werewolf mythos; the first issues of a four-color graphic novel adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s gripping novel The Talisman, and many more.

For another fun take on writing catalog copy, try “Selections from H.P. Lovecraft’s Brief Tenure as a Whitman’s Sampler Copywriter,” courtesy of McSweeney’s. “Few men dare ask the question ‘What is toffee, exactly?’ All those who have investigated this subtance are now either dead or insane….”

I spent the week going over the second drafts of upcoming novels by two authors whose books are on the 2009 Del Rey schedule. Note I said second drafts. These came in in response to long letters requesting changes to the novels’ first drafts. And in response to each of these second drafts, I wrote up still further notes requesting a third and final draft.

These are not baby authors I’m talking about. Each has numerous books to his/her credit. Even so, these authors understand that each new book is a fresh chance to win new readers—or alienate old ones. A smart author will accept valid criticism no matter what the cost in rewrite time.

My thanks to this week’s writers—and you know who you are—for going to the trouble of responding both carefully and cheerfully to my editorial notes. One of my personal maxims is that the manuscript doesn’t exist which does not need editing. Yet we’ve all read published books that could have been so much better with certain changes made. Reviewers and online commentators often say, “Where was the editor?” And it’s true, sometimes the editor hasn’t done a serious job on the book, or hasn’t pushed the author hard enough to make necessary changes.

Other times, though, it’s an author’s stubbornness that results in a less-than-satisfactory finished product. [more after the jump]

Perhaps I should qualify that statement before a vast moan arises from the ranks of aspiring Del Rey authors. To be precise, it’s not that we’re publishing too many books; if pressed to delete some from the 2009 list I’d have a very hard time complying. But I’ve just spent all week writing what seemed like eight hundred and ninety-seven TIs for the fall ‘09 titles and am utterly exhausted.

What’s a TI? It stands for Title Information sheet, and it is the most important document an editor will ever create for his or her book—yea, even more important than the contract request or the editorial revision letter.

Its primary users are the sales force. The TIs provide our reps core information on each title in one succinct document, which they will refer to again and again as they make sales calls on booksellers and other accounts. Under the heading Keynote, for example, we give them a one-line description of the book. Under Positioning Statement we tell them how the book fits into the Del Rey list and try to give a sense of its relative importance within the season. And under Key Selling Points we give them reasons that they can pass along to their customers as to why this book will sell.

Aspiring authors can catch an editor’s eye by thinking in these terms.

[more after the jump]

I posted a few weeks ago about things not to do in a cover letter. Now I’d like to showcase a few cover letters I’ve seen over the years that fulfilled their mission.

To recap: A bad cover letter can affect an editor negatively—negatively enough, at times, to send the submission straight into the circular file. A good cover letter won’t sell a manuscript, but if it catches my eye in a positive way it can cause me to pick up the attached manuscript sooner than I otherwise would.

One purpose of a cover letter should be to provide a few selling points for the manuscript. Part of an editor’s decision to buy a manuscript is based upon its “saleability” in the eyes of sales reps and booksellers. Is the author an expert in his/her field? Does he/she have a big publicity platform that will help a publisher reach the target audience?

Here is an example of a cover letter that supplied a major selling point in an engaging way. If the author happens to read this and would like to identify herself, that would be great—my compliments on the submission letter, which came into an editor friend of mine more than fifteen years ago.

[more after the jump]

I keep a collection of manuscript excerpts and cover letters that have come in over the years. They’re useful as demonstrations of what to do—or not to do—in the process of submitting a book for publication. I quote from them at writers’ conferences and SF/fantasy conventions in hopes that others will learn.

This week I received a submission from a writer who informed me that several other publishers had already turned the project down. Lack of vision and publishing guts had led to those decisions, the cover letter said, leaving the project ripe for the picking by another publisher intelligent enough to recognize its value.

The inference was that if I rejected the material, we’d be added to the list of visionless, timid publishers who’d had their chance and failed to act. This did not go over well with me; I don’t react well to the badmouthing of other editors even if they remain nameless. [more]

Actually, this isn’t a lesson I learned recently. I was merely reminded of it while mud-wrestling this week with a list of possibilities for a major book on the 2009 Del Rey list which must—perforce—remain nameless, since it certainly has no title at this moment and seems determined to avoid one until it is dragged kicking and screaming to the typesetters in a few weeks’ time.

Some manuscripts arrive on an editor’s desk with the perfect title already in place. Others seem to defy the best efforts of everyone who tries to help—editor, editor’s assistant, editor’s boss, copyeditor, marketing director, publicist, cover copywriter, and the nice lady who makes sure we always have enough paper towels in the restroom. I swear, at times I have asked all of these fellow professionals and more. I’ve even been known to consult the website http://nine.frenchboys.net/novel.php, which uses a random word generator to offer up to 50 fantasy titles at a time, from Ruby of Legend to The Mists of Denubin. (Thanks, guys!)