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Writing: Editor Conversations
Jun. 22nd, 2009 11:31 amOK, so I spoke to my editor on Friday for about 3 hours on the phone about revisions to the book Well of Sorrows, which is the first book in a new series set in the same world as the Throne books and eventually has a connection to the Throne books, but that won't be obvious until later on in the new series. This is supposed to be a post about some of the kinds of things that editors may ask an author to change or "fix" or whatever regarding books, for those of you out there who are interested.
First off, note that this is the first book in a new series. That means there are generally going to be alot more comments from the editor than if this had been the third or fourth book in the series, mostly because the first book has to establish the world, the setting, the rules, all of that, while by the third book the world is usually already set and the rules are generally understood. The first book also has to lay the groundwork for the later books in the series, even if those later books haven't even been sold yet (as in my case--please go buy my Throne books so they continue to buy the books in this series!). In other words, this first book in some sense is more important and must be more detailed than the succeeding books.
In addition, Well of Sorrows is by far the longest book I've written for DAW at 180,000 words. This is twice the length of The Skewed Throne when it was sent in. So there's more to critique, and of course more that can go wrong. Here's what we talked about:
The biggest category for the discussions came down to worldbuilding and clarity: make how this works clearer; make this person's motivations clearer; make it obvious how the societies are interacting with each other and exactly how their cultures work. These are "big picture" things that as I go through the revisions make me focus on the little things in the writing. This isn't something that can necessarily be fixed by "inserting scene A here and scene B here" and whalla! that problem is fixed. This is . . . finer than that. If you inserted scene A there and B there, it's almost guaranteed that scene A and B are going to be infodumps, and of course you don't want that. This is stuff that I'm going to a) have to figure out the details of before I sit down to do the revisions and b) as I revise, find good places to insert a sentence or two here and a sentence or two there, so that when all of the sentences I've added in come together, you get the whole picture.
One of the things I'm going to do for this is go through all of the notes I took during the phone conversation and do a write-up of what my editor said and the things I need to add in order to fix it. For example, she wanted to know exactly how many people are in the populations of the three cultures that feature in this series. I need to add in things like how many people are part of each House, each town, how many are in the army, how long-lived each culture is, how many children they typically have, and how all of this affects their relationships to the cultures around them and their own culture. Those who live longer and have fewer children are going to be more devastated by losing 100 people in a battle than the race that has 10 kids per family because they're farmers and only live to an average age of 40. Things like that. I need to add in things like the backstory of how the culture of this race evolved, why they're so focused on the Land and its preservation, and why this culture was forced to leave their own lands and come to this land, and why they're all being attacked by the evil bad things. How come the evil reacts the way it does? (As you know from the Throne books, I don't have evil for the sake of having evil; my evil needs to be there for a reason.) So I need to list all of these things down so that as I revise for other things, when I see an opportunity to put in a quick dash of dialogue or a paragraph or two that gets some of these things across without using an infodump, I can do seize it. And check something off of my revision list of course.
So, there's the clarity and worldbuilding issue. Most of this type of issue comes up because while I know all of this info in my head, it doesn't necessarily make it to the paper, even though I think it has. This is what editors are good for: pointing out where you haven't filled in the world as much as you think you've filled in the world. I also discovered that, particularly in this book, while revising this the first time BEFORE sending it to my editor, I cut out chapters and pages that had worldbuilding material in them that was needed and I didn't realize it at the time. In this case, I HAD written that into the story, but it got accidentally cut later on. Editors are good at catching this as well.
So, that's the top level kind of thing that gets discussed. There's obviously a layer beneath that. This layer usually involves more specific things. For example, I was asked to add in more scenes from two viewpoint characters in particular: Garius and Aeren. Now, Aeren already has quite a few scenes written from his POV, but my editor felt that there needed to be more from him because a) he was an interested character and she wanted to know more and b) because it would give us a little more perspective on his culture earlier on in the novel if I added in some scenes from his POV when Aeren first meets the other main characters. At the moment, we meet Aeren, but don't get anything from his POV until MUCH later on in the book.
Garius is a different story. I haven't written any scenes from his POV in the book at all, but my editor felt that he'd give us an opportunity to see the third culture in more detail (since the third culture is the one least addressed in this book) and it sets up this culture for later books in the series, when the culture plays a larger roll. So this addition isn't necessarily because his character is interesting, but it gives us a chance to show more of the culture through someone from the culture's eyes. It will make that culture, and this character in particular, much more three-dimensional. I hadn't done much with this culture or character because he and the culture don't play a huge roll in this book. My editor felt laying groundwork for later books would be a good idea now.
She also wanted me to add in some scenes involving the priesthood of the one cultures religion. Again, to establish and flesh out more about that religion. Similarly, I need to add some more conversations/scenes about Lotaern, the head of the religion in one of the other races, to flesh out that religion, how it operates, and how it related to the power structure of that culture, because a significant part of this book is how that power structure is changing during the course of this book and how it affects the outcomes of the later books.
As you can see, these type of fixes typically require adding in additional scene to the novel (especially the POV scenes) or adding in more to already existing scenes, such as continuing a conversation as the topic changes or something like that. In other words, these fixes aren't as subtle as the top-level fixes. I can actually plan these fixes out a little more ahead of time. For example, I already know where I can add in a scene involving the priesthood of the one culture. The moment my editor mentioned this as a problem, a character popped into my head, along with a scene with the main character, that would help fix that problem.
This level also includes some fixes that require more significant changes to the book. My editor did not feel that the make-up of the wagon train was exactly right, and felt that the make-up of the dissidents in the port town was off as well. So I need to go back and rethink how the dissidents in the port town formed and how, from that, the wagon train make-up would form. This requires reworking the first half of the novel to a large extent. Nothing of the plot will really change, or the main characters that I already have in play, but it does mean that during the rewrites I have to change the tone of any section involving the dissidents in the port town, changing wording and such, conversations, etc, and I need to do that consistently through the entire book. This is much more detailed work than adding in a scene. This is altering scenes on a sentence-by-sentence level, often word-by-word. A much more grueling task in the long run, especially with a book this size. I don't have anything that requires me to physically rip apart the book scene by scene and repair and repatch it so that things work, which I'm eternally greatful for.
So that's the middle level. Now the bottom level of fixes. These are typically the easiest to fix, because they're so specific, and because they usually only require a few sentence changes. My editor points out where, in specific scenes, I've done something studid continuity-wise, such as said the main characters has a knife, but I've never mentioned the knife before, or I said he's been there for 2 days when he arrived that morning. This sometimes relates to potential plot holes as well, such as when my main character conveniently DOESN'T use his magical ability for no apparent reason when using it would make life so much easier (which is fixed without too much hassle by just mentioning why he couldn't use it in that instance, or having him try to use it and fail for some reason; or which can't be fixed so easily and perhaps requires a ripping apart of the plot at that point and reorganizing). Sometimes it's something simple like having someone of a different race escorted into the city and NOT having them draw the curious attention from the general masses. Sometimes it's because I'm trying to have a scene do too much, like when I have Aeren watching 2 different parts of a battle that he's actually participating in as well. He can't possibly fight and keep track of the 2 other areas of action all at the same time (although I apparently thought he could at the time). Have fantasy-worlds not heard of multi-tasking?!?! Geesh!
In any case, those are the kinds of things that get discussed during such talks regarding the book. There are also other things, such as the deadline for the revisions (GAH!) and when the book might be coming out and such. My editor had looked up the release date, but hadn't written it down, so I'll let everyone know once she looks it up this week. And she will, because she needs to make certain the deadline she gave me is good and won't be calling me next week to ask where the revisions are when I'm only up to chapter 3. Right now, I have until the end of August to revise the entire book. This is good, because I know I can do that without too much fuss. We also discussed upcoming conventions and such where we might be able to get together to discuss other things, such as whether they're interested in buying more books from me and whatnot. This is the main reason that I'm now attending Worldcon in Montreal. *grin*
So in summary, buy my books, so that DAW buys more books from me. *evil grin* And if you have them already, thanks. And consider buying them for your friends. Because I like revisions. They are fun.
Now off to do them . . . OOOOO!!!! Look at the shiny email!
First off, note that this is the first book in a new series. That means there are generally going to be alot more comments from the editor than if this had been the third or fourth book in the series, mostly because the first book has to establish the world, the setting, the rules, all of that, while by the third book the world is usually already set and the rules are generally understood. The first book also has to lay the groundwork for the later books in the series, even if those later books haven't even been sold yet (as in my case--please go buy my Throne books so they continue to buy the books in this series!). In other words, this first book in some sense is more important and must be more detailed than the succeeding books.
In addition, Well of Sorrows is by far the longest book I've written for DAW at 180,000 words. This is twice the length of The Skewed Throne when it was sent in. So there's more to critique, and of course more that can go wrong. Here's what we talked about:
The biggest category for the discussions came down to worldbuilding and clarity: make how this works clearer; make this person's motivations clearer; make it obvious how the societies are interacting with each other and exactly how their cultures work. These are "big picture" things that as I go through the revisions make me focus on the little things in the writing. This isn't something that can necessarily be fixed by "inserting scene A here and scene B here" and whalla! that problem is fixed. This is . . . finer than that. If you inserted scene A there and B there, it's almost guaranteed that scene A and B are going to be infodumps, and of course you don't want that. This is stuff that I'm going to a) have to figure out the details of before I sit down to do the revisions and b) as I revise, find good places to insert a sentence or two here and a sentence or two there, so that when all of the sentences I've added in come together, you get the whole picture.
One of the things I'm going to do for this is go through all of the notes I took during the phone conversation and do a write-up of what my editor said and the things I need to add in order to fix it. For example, she wanted to know exactly how many people are in the populations of the three cultures that feature in this series. I need to add in things like how many people are part of each House, each town, how many are in the army, how long-lived each culture is, how many children they typically have, and how all of this affects their relationships to the cultures around them and their own culture. Those who live longer and have fewer children are going to be more devastated by losing 100 people in a battle than the race that has 10 kids per family because they're farmers and only live to an average age of 40. Things like that. I need to add in things like the backstory of how the culture of this race evolved, why they're so focused on the Land and its preservation, and why this culture was forced to leave their own lands and come to this land, and why they're all being attacked by the evil bad things. How come the evil reacts the way it does? (As you know from the Throne books, I don't have evil for the sake of having evil; my evil needs to be there for a reason.) So I need to list all of these things down so that as I revise for other things, when I see an opportunity to put in a quick dash of dialogue or a paragraph or two that gets some of these things across without using an infodump, I can do seize it. And check something off of my revision list of course.
So, there's the clarity and worldbuilding issue. Most of this type of issue comes up because while I know all of this info in my head, it doesn't necessarily make it to the paper, even though I think it has. This is what editors are good for: pointing out where you haven't filled in the world as much as you think you've filled in the world. I also discovered that, particularly in this book, while revising this the first time BEFORE sending it to my editor, I cut out chapters and pages that had worldbuilding material in them that was needed and I didn't realize it at the time. In this case, I HAD written that into the story, but it got accidentally cut later on. Editors are good at catching this as well.
So, that's the top level kind of thing that gets discussed. There's obviously a layer beneath that. This layer usually involves more specific things. For example, I was asked to add in more scenes from two viewpoint characters in particular: Garius and Aeren. Now, Aeren already has quite a few scenes written from his POV, but my editor felt that there needed to be more from him because a) he was an interested character and she wanted to know more and b) because it would give us a little more perspective on his culture earlier on in the novel if I added in some scenes from his POV when Aeren first meets the other main characters. At the moment, we meet Aeren, but don't get anything from his POV until MUCH later on in the book.
Garius is a different story. I haven't written any scenes from his POV in the book at all, but my editor felt that he'd give us an opportunity to see the third culture in more detail (since the third culture is the one least addressed in this book) and it sets up this culture for later books in the series, when the culture plays a larger roll. So this addition isn't necessarily because his character is interesting, but it gives us a chance to show more of the culture through someone from the culture's eyes. It will make that culture, and this character in particular, much more three-dimensional. I hadn't done much with this culture or character because he and the culture don't play a huge roll in this book. My editor felt laying groundwork for later books would be a good idea now.
She also wanted me to add in some scenes involving the priesthood of the one cultures religion. Again, to establish and flesh out more about that religion. Similarly, I need to add some more conversations/scenes about Lotaern, the head of the religion in one of the other races, to flesh out that religion, how it operates, and how it related to the power structure of that culture, because a significant part of this book is how that power structure is changing during the course of this book and how it affects the outcomes of the later books.
As you can see, these type of fixes typically require adding in additional scene to the novel (especially the POV scenes) or adding in more to already existing scenes, such as continuing a conversation as the topic changes or something like that. In other words, these fixes aren't as subtle as the top-level fixes. I can actually plan these fixes out a little more ahead of time. For example, I already know where I can add in a scene involving the priesthood of the one culture. The moment my editor mentioned this as a problem, a character popped into my head, along with a scene with the main character, that would help fix that problem.
This level also includes some fixes that require more significant changes to the book. My editor did not feel that the make-up of the wagon train was exactly right, and felt that the make-up of the dissidents in the port town was off as well. So I need to go back and rethink how the dissidents in the port town formed and how, from that, the wagon train make-up would form. This requires reworking the first half of the novel to a large extent. Nothing of the plot will really change, or the main characters that I already have in play, but it does mean that during the rewrites I have to change the tone of any section involving the dissidents in the port town, changing wording and such, conversations, etc, and I need to do that consistently through the entire book. This is much more detailed work than adding in a scene. This is altering scenes on a sentence-by-sentence level, often word-by-word. A much more grueling task in the long run, especially with a book this size. I don't have anything that requires me to physically rip apart the book scene by scene and repair and repatch it so that things work, which I'm eternally greatful for.
So that's the middle level. Now the bottom level of fixes. These are typically the easiest to fix, because they're so specific, and because they usually only require a few sentence changes. My editor points out where, in specific scenes, I've done something studid continuity-wise, such as said the main characters has a knife, but I've never mentioned the knife before, or I said he's been there for 2 days when he arrived that morning. This sometimes relates to potential plot holes as well, such as when my main character conveniently DOESN'T use his magical ability for no apparent reason when using it would make life so much easier (which is fixed without too much hassle by just mentioning why he couldn't use it in that instance, or having him try to use it and fail for some reason; or which can't be fixed so easily and perhaps requires a ripping apart of the plot at that point and reorganizing). Sometimes it's something simple like having someone of a different race escorted into the city and NOT having them draw the curious attention from the general masses. Sometimes it's because I'm trying to have a scene do too much, like when I have Aeren watching 2 different parts of a battle that he's actually participating in as well. He can't possibly fight and keep track of the 2 other areas of action all at the same time (although I apparently thought he could at the time). Have fantasy-worlds not heard of multi-tasking?!?! Geesh!
In any case, those are the kinds of things that get discussed during such talks regarding the book. There are also other things, such as the deadline for the revisions (GAH!) and when the book might be coming out and such. My editor had looked up the release date, but hadn't written it down, so I'll let everyone know once she looks it up this week. And she will, because she needs to make certain the deadline she gave me is good and won't be calling me next week to ask where the revisions are when I'm only up to chapter 3. Right now, I have until the end of August to revise the entire book. This is good, because I know I can do that without too much fuss. We also discussed upcoming conventions and such where we might be able to get together to discuss other things, such as whether they're interested in buying more books from me and whatnot. This is the main reason that I'm now attending Worldcon in Montreal. *grin*
So in summary, buy my books, so that DAW buys more books from me. *evil grin* And if you have them already, thanks. And consider buying them for your friends. Because I like revisions. They are fun.
Now off to do them . . . OOOOO!!!! Look at the shiny email!
