Re: Editors: threat or menace?


"Christopher B. Wright" <ubersoft@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1185900152.427695.156600@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jul 31, 9:43 am, "Patricia C. Wrede" <PWrede6...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

I've had my share of arguments with my editors, but when we argue it's
generally because *I* screwed up -- I didn't get the story I wanted to
tell
down on the page in a sufficiently clear manner. So the editor, going by
what's on paper, hares off in a completely different direction from the
way
the plot/characters were meant to go, and asks for all sorts of changes
to
make the ms. fit the book in *his* head, which is not the same as the one
in
*my* head. I've seen cases in which such disagreements were
irreconcilable,
leading to a book being pulled, but that's extremely rare; normally,
after
much, er, enthusiastic discussion, the editor and writer come to an
agreement about what the book is supposed to be like, and then the writer
fixes the ms. so that the book is clearly like that (instead of "that"
being
just one of several possible readings).

Follow-ups set to rec.arts.sf.composition.

One of the things I think I really need is that kind of back-and-forth
from someone who has no vested interest in re-enforcing my ego. :)
It's sad to hear that this kind of editorial involvement is fading
from the business, because I always imagined that if I ever got a book
accepted by a publisher that process would probably be the single most
invaluable thing I got out of it, and would make any subsequent
attempts to sell books that much more likely to succeed.

Oh, there's still some of it left -- see earlier comments about semi-colons,
tension, and the like. What you don't get these days are editors like
Maxwell Perkins, who some say should actually have been given co-authorial
credit on some of the things he edited. Like the one where he took 800
manuscript pages of rambling and "edited" it down to 400 pages of brilliant
novel. That takes skill and talent, yes, but it wasn't back-and-forth with
the author (at least, not in that case, that I've ever heard). Possibly the
author learned something from looking at the result, but I've always found I
learn more by doing it myself.

The feedback I get from the friends and family who critique what I do
is very valuable -- it's not like I only hang around with sycophants
or anything -- but they're really close to my wavelength when it comes
to what we like and dislike, and I don't know how well those tastes
translate.

That's what a good crit group is for, "good" in this context being defined
as one that is a) devoted to improving people's stories rather than
competing with each other and b) composed of members diverse in taste but
within a useful skill-range of each other so that everyone can get something
out of it. Sort of like rasfc.

The
highest level of editing includes examining character/timeline
inconsistencies... it's a little pricey, but I think I'd probably
benefit from having someone I don't know do that kind of stuff...
assuming it was a good editor, of course. It's not knowing that
combined with not being able to afford it that has kept me from doing
it at the moment.

I don't know anything about lulu's editorial services, but I do know there
are at least some professional editors who occasionally hire out as book
doctors to some degree, and I've known at least one writer who used to work
as a (reputable, legitimate, worth-paying-for) book doctor. The trouble is
finding them.

It seems a little odd to me that lulu classifies character/timeline
inconsistencies as something to be done at the "highest level" of editing.
To me, that's maybe the highest level of *copyediting*, but it's most
definitely not what I expect my regular editor to do. The most I've had, on
that score, from my regular editor was a question along the lines of "You
have an awful lot of dates and things here -- are you *sure* they're all in
the right order?" which was enough to send me back to prune and rearrange
and clarify, because if they were making the editor uneasy there were
probably too many specific references that weren't properly grounded. What
does lulu offer to do at their lower levels of editing?

Patricia C. Wrede


.

Relevant Pages

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