Ok, so we all agree
that your book will soon get published.
You know it’s good.
Everyone in your writing group knows it’s good. We can safely predict that it will be
acquired by a major publishing house within the next year. Then what? Well, obviously you’ll consume several bottles of
champagne. You’ll dance around
your house. You’ll dance around
your neighborhood, your entire city.
You’ll dance to the moon and back.
Then what?
Well, at that
point, you’ll climb on a raft with your editor and sail down a long winding
river called Revisions. What is
that journey like? It’s never the
same for any two writers but you can be certain it will be an adventure just as
exciting as the one your protagonist is going on in your book.
I’d like to share
some experiences that I had with my editor after I sold ‘You Can’t Have My
Planet But Take My Brother, Please’.
I had two editors, one in New York, the head honcho, and another they
kept sequestered in Maine, far from the hustle and bustle of the big city. I worked mostly with the one in
Maine. The head honcho in NY was
always kept in the loop and gave invaluable input throughout the process. But it was the lady in Maine I sailed
down the river with.
In my book it turns
out that we humans are merely renting Earth. We’re about to get evicted because we’re such lousy
tenants. A boy named Giles must
embark on a quest with three of his friends to prove that we humans are capable
of stewarding the planet.
I came to writing a
MG novel from having worked on an adult novel. In some respects, this was not to my advantage. In my editor’s opinion, some of the
subplots felt too literary. They
weren’t kid friendly enough. I had
the voice down. That wasn’t the
problem. But the plot needed work.
I spent four months
revising the story. I sent it to
her. She sent back three pages of
notes. In her opinion, I had
made great progress. Now it was
time to do some fine-tuning.
She wanted me to
make the aliens more original.
We’ve seen aliens before in hundreds of movies and dozens of books. I needed a fresh take on the
intergalactic. I spent the next
two months working on it. I added robots
that can turn paper back into trees.
I added a spaceship that runs on rhyming and lots of other stuff. I sent the new draft to my editor. She came back to me with more notes,
now focusing on sentence structure, word choice, tiny things that make a big
difference. She always gave me the
option of ignoring one of her suggestions if it didn’t make sense to me.
Around this time, she
casually mentioned in one of our many phone conversations that she was the
editor of the Hunger Games. That
blew my mind. I’m glad I didn’t
know this from the start because I never would’ve had the audacity to tell her
I wasn’t changing something she had a problem with.
After many months, our journey down the river of Revisions finally came to an
end. We landed on the shore of
publication and were both delighted, not only with the journey, but also the
finished product. I couldn’t have
done it without her!
What a fantastic experience that must be and it sounds like you had a good relationship with your editors. Hope I get there some day!
ReplyDeleteyou will!
DeleteWhoa. That is pretty awesome, but I can understand why it was better not hearing it until later.
ReplyDeleteI am so amazed that editors devote so much time to work that makes other people look good. Invaluable people!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat point. It really is a selfless endeavor!
DeleteA really good editor will ride you hard and put you back wet!
ReplyDeleteI didn't get that at first. I thought if the editor kept sending back my manuscript for more work, I wasn't doing a good job. But in fact, the more time the editor invests in your book, the more he/she believes in it.
Dianne, when I first spoke to my new editor, I begged her to make me work really hard. I want this book to be the best it can be, and I KNOW I can't get it to that level on my own.
DeleteYes, I wouldn't have wanted to know that about the Hunger Games either. Way too intimidating. Editors are amazing-I learned if something wasn't clear to my editor, there was no way it would be clear to a ten-year-old reader. But it is good that you can also find another way to address issues that may not exactly match what the editor suggests. Good editors will let you advocated for keeping things certain ways, or working around them in a new way.
ReplyDeleteI love my editor! I still think it's so amazing that someone else is investing so much into something I've created. Mind-boggling. And I've yet to discover that at least trying out a recommended change - even if it ultimately went in a different direction - didn't result in a better story.
ReplyDelete