 |
I was recently reminded of an old phenomenon I remember well from the days before I was published (and before I realized that my blood pressure was best served by staying off listservs and forums populated by aspiring writers): that of trying to play the stats, rather than concentrating on your book.Usually, they are asking about the probability of their book being published, or their X-written manuscript being the one that makes it, or how much they can be expected to make, or what’s the likelihood of a movie being made from their debut novel, or any one of a dozen quantifiable answers to what are inherently unquantifiable questions.
But the question asked on Daphne Unfeasible’s blog the other day was a new take on the stats topic:
“I know editors at publishing companies ask for re-writes, both great and small, depending on the manuscript. But would you say there is a typical percentage range of changes that authors should expect to make on their novels before publication? For example, are most authors you work with usually asked to change 5% of their original work or closer to 30%? Or nowadays is it simply typos and grammatical errors that are changed? Or does it depend on how busy an editor is and how much time he/she’s willing to spend on rereads?”
Yes. No. 25%.
Bless Daphne — she has more patience than I did fresh off maternity leave. If you want a really nice answer, go click on that link, above. I’m going to be mean blunt:
This is a pointless question. I’m really sad that the writer had the chance to ask an agent something and this is what she chose to ask. It does nothing but serve to bolster her writerly neuroses. Some editors have time for a lot of rewrites. Some don’t. Some manuscripts need a lot of rewrites. Some don’t. Some manuscripts are worthy of working through a lot of rewrites. Some aren’t. There are so many variables going on here that asking for numbers is utterly ridiculous.
What purpose does it serve, really? Are you going to NOT submit your book for publication if you hear the average amount an editor “asks you to change” of your original work is 10%? Are you going to pull a fit if your book is above the average number that you are told by an agent on a blog one day? Are you going to rush around preening like a peacock if you don’t get that amount of changes?
(No seriously. I had a writer friend that did this — that actually sent smart-ass letters to her critique partners saying her editor thought her MS was perfect so there. Um, no. Your editor was busy.)
And while I’m on the topic, I think it’s best if the writer stopped thinking of her relationship with an editor as so adversarial. I often talk to aspiring writers who have somehow got it into their heads that they sell their perfect little books to editors who then force them to make horrible, injurious changes.
No.
The editor who buys your book LOVES your book. They have fought for it, in house, which is why they have managed to pry dollars out of the grasping hands of their publishers and marketing departments in order to publish it. They will live and breathe this book as they edit it, as they help come up with cover concepts and back flap copy. They believe this book should be in the hands of the readers of the world. And they want to make it as good as possible. The changes they will ask for are meant to accomplish that.
Is the writer going to agree with every change? No, of course not. I have yet to get the editorial letter where I’ve agreed with every single thing my editor asks for. Sometimes she asks me to change something I don’t want to change at all. Sometimes she has pinpointed a problem but her proposed solution doesn’t appeal to me, and I have to find something else that will make us both happy. Sometime she’s totally spot on.
And my books? Sometimes they require a LOT of editing. Sometimes very little. When I first sold Rampant, it was told from the points of view of Astrid, Cory, AND Philippa. My editor suggested I rewrite the book to be solely from Astrid’s perspective. As you can imagine, that’s a LOT of rewrites. Compare it with Secret Society Girl, which was also the start of a series, also my first book at a particular publishing house, and also my first time working with a particular editor. I did edits, but not wholesale rewrites that changed the format and point of view of the book, because it was right the way it was.
However, just because I sold a book and then rewrote it completely doesn’t mean everyone will, or can. There were people who chose not to put in an offer for Rampant that may have done so had it come to them in the form that my editor suggested. (Actually, I know this for a fact.) My editor made it better. Editors are there to make your books better.
If you’re lucky. I know a bunch of writers who have editors who are too busy to do substantive editing of their work. I know a writer whose manuscript came back from her editor with a smiley face on the top and that’s it. One of my friends actually hires her old editor, who got out of the business, to edit her manuscripts freelance because she’s not getting it at her publisher. If you’re in this business for any length of time, you learn to consider yourself extremely lucky to get editors as invested, talented, and fantastic as the ones I have had for my last eight books.
So, to sum up: don’t ask questions about stats. Books are not widgets. Love your editor; she’s there to make your book better. Write hard.
As I wade through my final round of revisions on my latest novel, I’ve been thinking a lot about the requirements of retellings (I wrote about this some last year).
At the time, I said:
“Holly’s way of thinking about retellings freed my mind from some of the doubt demons I had about tackling my own. And basically, what I got from the conversation was this: fair game. No matter what the source material, that’s THEIR story. Your story is your own, and you can feel free to jettison, combine, and remix whatever elements you need to to make your story the best it can be.In fact, the more it is your own, the better I like the retelling.”*
And I still feel that way, after writing a retelling that both fully encompasses all the major plot points and character arcs of Persuasion while also jettisoning, combining, remixing and, most of all, adding stuff that makes sense for my version. (I’m not going to detail what that is quite yet. I’ve been working on that post in my head for the future, though!)
Recently, I was reading an article about John Scalzi’s new book, Fuzzy Nation, which is a reboot of an old SF series from the 60s. He says, in part:
“You start asking, “What do we expect from our main characters today? What do we want out of our protagonists?” Those are the things that I would be asking myself, as opposed to individual, particular story plots. The overall arc of the story, you’ll notice, is pretty much the same in both books. The way that I look at it is, here’s the opening part of the book, here’s the end part of the book. Both books inhabit a sort of plot field. And the way that both of the stories wander through that plot field is markedly different.”
That’s it exactly for me. The arc is the same, and most of the plot points (the biggies, in my mind, anyway) are the same. But there are things that concern me as a writer that didn’t concern Jane, that concern today’s readers that don’t concern hers, and that concern my heroine that did not concern Anne Elliot. There are ways that my protagonist is very different than Anne Elliot — she inhabits a different world and was raised in a way that is similar to Anne’s in many ways, but also completely alien in others.
The first time I watched The Fellowship of the Ring movie, I was impressed with the way the filmmakers (and I really give Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens a lot of credit here) simplified things by getting rid of extraneous characters. (I love Tom Bombadil and Goldberry as much as anyone, folks, but people who were first coming to the story didn’t need them.) The example of this that stuck with me most, as a storyteller, was getting rid of Glorfindel and putting Frodo on Arwen’s horse instead. It makes Arwen a more vital part of the story in a way that’s required, given the primacy of the love story on the plot, and it cuts down somewhat on a pretty enormous character count.**
I think when you sit down to do an adaptation of any sort, you have to ask yourself what aspects of the story are the parts you are most interested in preserving, and what must change in order to serve those aspects of the story within the framework of your adaptation (even Tolkien didn’t know how to incorporate the love story into his book, which is why it’s an appendix).
There’s an added psychological benefit if you’re like me, and are neurotic enough to offer an apology to the little-Jane-looking-over-your-shoulder every time you make a big change — you tell yourself you’re doing it so you can keep something else, something important, something that both Jane and you love.
______
* Though when some people criticized me for that blog post, they quoted out of context an entirely different section of the post that made it seem like I don’t believe in saving anything from the original. In fact, I am quite faithful, and there are certain parts of the book that are to me, absolutely sacrosanct.
** Yes, I said that — me, who is known for populating her novels with entire football teams.
It’s been a crazy busy month Chez Diana. I’ve had book festivals and conferences, revisions due, and tons of houseguests. Q has been growing like the weeds in my garden — I guess they really start packing on teh pounds when they go from just milk to solid foods — and she’s also started getting really fun. This is my favorite baby stage so far. She sits on her own, plays with toys, and is taking her first tentative “steps” toward crawling (she inches backwards, mostly, and just rolls to get where she needs to go). Her favorite activities include: sticking things in her mouth, pulling out Rio’s and my hair, sticking things in her mouth, smiling and laughing, sticking things in her mouth, rolling, sticking things in her mouth, and banging on stuff. Oh, and Sailor Boy started a new job.
Biz-ee.
So forgive the lateness of my goal check in. Where were we?
Writing: Finished my revisions. Yay! My goal this month is to write my latest short story for an awesome Random House antho and fix a few little bits of clean up for my book so it can go into copyedits.
Home: Major progress on this one this month! We cleaned out the basement and turned it into Sailor Boy’s new home office, and finally unpacked all the boxes of books and put them in my new ginormous bookshelves. Seriously, I have my cookbooks (my darling Bittman!) back at last. My favorite improvement, however, is our new, child-friendly piece of furniture:
Previously, we kept our liquor and glassware in an IKEA Billy bookcase, which, as you might imagine, is not friendly to exploratory kidlets like Q. But there’s no way she can get these doors open with her chubby little baby fingers. She won’t even be able to reach them until she’s old enough to know better, and then, when she’s old enough to know even BETTER (i.e., get into our liquor) we’ll revisit the issue. Also, it was an awesome Craigslist find we scored for 80% off retail. And it has custom touch lighting installed. I can’t tell you how much I love this thing.
Blog: I blogged 12 times in April and this is only my third blog for May. Must get on that.
Quality time with SB: We haven’t had another date night (see aforementioned business trips) but we have spent a lot of time together in the evening after the baby has gone to sleep, and we’ve also had a lot of lovely quality family time (like the big family hike we took last weekend). Also, having him working from home also is Ah-maze-ing.
Rio: Poor Rio has been to the vet TWICE this month (with ear and bladder infections). My poor baby girl. Sailor Boy has been doing most of the walking of her, lately.
Garden: Coming along. My mint is surviving, the strawberries are mostly rabbit food, the herbs are doing well, I picked up some flowers (citronella that’s already planted, coxcomb and marigolds that need to be), and I’m putting the tomatoes in today. I also have a few tomatoes coming up from last year. Yay. I think I may also do a squash and a zucchini, but only one of each this year. Not sure what else I want to do. I’m open to suggestions, though.
And, the big list:
- Revise/finish my contracted novel.
- Write short story #1
- Write short story #2
- Write short story #3
- Write short story #4
- Write new proposal #1
- Write new proposal/book #2
- Go to one writing-related conference.
- Walk my dog.
- Plant a garden.
- Make sure I spend quality time with Sailor Boy.
- Do at least two home improvement projects.
- Cut our budget.
How are you all doing?
I’m amassing quite a collection of foreign editions of Morning Glory:
Look at all those different covers. The Brazilian one (which just came in and so is not included in this picture) has the same cover as the French one (top right).
And there’s other fun stuff, like the sticker on the Korean one proclaiming the screenwriter’s history with The Devil Wears Prada:
And the fact that my name, in Czech, is apparently Diana Peterfreundova:
Makes me sound like a spy in a Cold-War era James Bond film, dah?
Given that I was named for a Bond spy, I’m okay with that.
And of course, there’s the way the Spanish version doesn’t use quotes for dialogues, but instead, em-dashes:
Very Emily Dickinson.
I have done a lot of foreign deals over the years, but most of my books have used the same art as the US versions. So it’s fun, for once, to see the different covers.
Speaking of foreign deals, I have some big news for my Brazilian readers. Editora Record, the publishers of the rest of the secret society girl series, has made me an offer on book four, Tap & Gown. And, in case you can’t get enough of my books, they’ve ALSO bought my fantasy novels, Rampant and Ascendant. I’m so excited to be able to bring the conclusion of the series to my Brazilian readers as well as to introduce them to my fantasy novels as well.
Off to write!
 Now available as an iTunes app (iBook) for your Apple device. Yay!
Also newly available at the Diesel ebook store. And of course, still for sale at Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords (in pretty much any format your little heart desires). Read a free sample here.
In 18th century France, a noble family prepares to celebrate their daughter’s arranged marriage by holding a traditional unicorn hunt. But when an unusual nun arrives at the chateau with her beloved pet to help the rich girl train, nothing goes as expected. Starring hunters, fine ladies, fancy frocks, and killer unicorns. A 2010 Locus Recommended Read.
Also, I just ran across this great review of it:
“Surely an anthology is the perfect opportunity to attract new readers?
“Diana Peterfreund’s Errant is a stunning example of how to do this – it lasts just over 30 pages but packs in as much character development as some novels do, and is the perfect introduction to Peterfreund’s world of unicorn hunters. This is the story I mentioned earlier as rivalling The Spy Who Never Grew Up for my favourite in the collection, by the way. Similarly, Rachel Vincent’s Fearless is a prequel to her Soul Screamers universe. Mara Sabine, who feeds on people’s nightmares, is sent to a juvenile detention centre – but has to try and work out why no-one there is having bad dreams. She’s an author who was completely unfamiliar to me prior to this anthology but, like Peterfreund, is one I’ll be eagerly seeking out in the future.”
|
|
|
|
 |
