A FEW THANKFUL THOUGHTS by Penny Dolan

This last while, through an odd set of circumstance, I have been working on some early readers. These are not huge books, as you can imagine, but at times my head has gone into a whirl.  

Some of the whirl came about because the whole process was affected by the usual summer holiday pause (editors and consultants) and then by my own time away,/ While  there were long peaceful periods when nothing happened, there were others when suddenly a lot was happening.

Managing the various projects (while a few other Life things were going) was quite a frantic experience.

I had to make Lists and Charts and use coloured Sticky Notes because there seemed to be so different stages (or, in reality, the usual number of stages) to get through.


Therefore. now things are calmer - and yes, because I have an ABBA post to do* -  I thought I'd write a list of what was involved.

First of all there had been

My own research as to how the series itself was developing. 
General mulling and moaning until I got an idea into my head. 
Plus some background research to make sure my idea worked, was valid.

None of these steps counted as "external" activity.



But then, in real life, came the following steps:

1. Submit synopsis + art work suggestions ( and wait for response).
2. Create draft text and adaptations of my own artwork suggestions (and wait for. . .)
3. Revise text (etc) after consultants suggestions (and wait for . .)
4. Revised, revised text  (etc) with editorial/consultant comments. . . .
5. Illustrator choice arrives for polite approval ( though the choice has always been ideal)
6. Cover roughs arrive for comments and (tactful) suggestions..
7. Artwork and text roughs arrive for checking and (tactful) comments.
8. Cover proofs arrive for comments
9. Colour proofs arrive for approval and as a courtesy
10. Contracts, since these aren't being handled by an agent, anytime within this process
11. Invoices, ditto.
12. And, presented as Item 12, various emails connected with all of these.
And all of this times the number of titles that I'm working on.

I haven't noted down all these familiar steps for pity or for a sniffy "so what?" 

I noted them down because, while I was struggling to keep on top of my rather small overlapping batch here, I began imagining how it might feel for all those at the other end of this busy book process.


By which I mean that I started thinking of all the editors who - usually women, often part-time, often on variable contracts - do the work of managing all these aspects of the Book Process.

And they do this not for one person but for all the different titles and authors and illustrators they are dealing with at the same time too. (Not to mention the non-glamorous in-house meetings and admin and similar things they have to manage and of which I am blessedly unaware.)

Sometimes things do go wrong for writers. Sometimes editors aren't all we hope - which no doubt works the other way round too. Sometimes, now, as writers we can complete all the process for ourselves.

However, at a time like today , sometimes one just pauses and send some quiet thoughts towards editors and all those other people who help a long the way.

Thanks. Couldn't do it without you.

Penny Dolan

@pennydolan1

*I have been watching this date coming towards me and wondering what words i could even bear to use to write about it. And I don't mean Halloween.

The other side of the editorial fence (Anne Rooney)

A woman who became an editor later in life: not to be messed with
(Photo of Jackie Kennedy  ©  Victor King, 1963)

 Writers grumble about their editors all the time, yet editors are the people who make our OK books good and our good books great. I have worked with some annoying editors in my time, but most have been fantastic, talented people who just want to create a great book. They do a difficult job, as managing writers is like the proverbial herding of cats, or trying to persuade water to come back out of the plughole.

Bad editors largely fall into three categories:

1. People who would really like to be writers and would rather write the book themselves, making changes just to make their mark or because they think something would be 'better' their way. Often, they can't explain why another way is better and it's just a matter of voice or taste, or their way is actually worse. Also in this category are copy editors and proof-readers who change things because they feel they haven't earned their money if they don't make any changes, though their intentions are benign.
2. People who will one day be good editors but are still learning their trade — and that's fine, we all have to start somewhere. You should be helpful and patient with these people.
3. People who don't have a sufficiently good grasp of English grammar to be editors at all and just go through the book making things worse. There's no excuse for a publisher employing these people as editors, but unless you complain about them they will carry on blighting books. Best to suggest that they do any large-scale editing they are good at and employ a copy editor to do the rest.

Good editors, like unhappy families, are all good in their own ways. And superlative editors are worth their weight in gold. I've been writing professionally for 30 years and writing children's books for 20 and I've had about four or five superlative editors in that time. All but one are still editing and I still work with them given the chance. (Of course, more of them might be superlative, but you only find out over extended contact. Some editors I just do one or two or a few books with and then the editor leaves, or the series ends and we don't work together again for years.)

Good editors help a book to self-actualize. They don't ride rough-shod over the author's vision, but they do steer the book in the right direction when their overview and slightly less partisan position allow them to see that it could be better if a little different. A good editor cuts out dross, unnecessary verbiage, self-indulgence, showing off, over-explication and a million other ills that books are prey to.

A good editor is the reader's advocate: the reader needs space within a book to feel themselves grow, to make their own discoveries and to feel they own their response to the text, that they have built it together with the writer by bringing their unique experience, views and knowledge to bear on it. (This is true of any type of book except perhaps a textbook for a particular exam or an instruction manual on an entirely physical process, such as changing an engine.) By all means argue with your editor if you think they are suggesting something that will make a book worse. But don't argue just because they are reducing your presence or ownership in the book without examining whether that will be to the reader's detriment or benefit. You should not be arguing against your own future readers just for the opportunity for self-aggrandizement.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who is editing a book with many contributors (I'm not one of them) and she was bemoaning dealing with a particularly difficult author. He is dodging parts of the job he doesn't like, expecting her to pick up tasks that are his (because he is a man and too busy/senior to do these boring bits). It's interesting occasionally to see the view from the other side. And valuable to have friends the other side of the fence, too. She sometimes says things that give me new insight into how my editors might be feeling or behaving that helps my relationship with them. And I am advising her to be brutal with this thoughtless and arrogant writer. Today we will spend some time shrinking his contribution and giving more space to another contributor's work so that she doesn't have to do the parts of his work he won't do. And — with luck — he will learn that an editor is someone you work with cooperatively and respectfully, and your published work will suffer if you don't do your job as a writer properly.

As a reader, maybe look on the imprint page to find out who edited the book. Spare a thought for them: they have helped to shape the book, acted on your behalf during its production, and yet you don't know who they are. You don't choose books on the basis of who edited them, and editors often live in the shadows. Yet they also live in the space between the words and lines, in the hollows between the central pages of a perfect-bound quire and in the glue that binds the quires to the spine.

Anne Rooney
website

Dinosaur Atlas, Lonely Planet
edited by Joe Fullman

Whose book is this anyway? Lari Don

This month, I’ve been working with editorial notes on two different books – a novel and a picture book - and I’ve noticed slight differences in how I’m responding to those notes.

Obviously with any editorial notes, there’s the immediate emotional punch of ‘oh no, she doesn’t like it, it doesn’t work, she didn’t understand it, my story is RUINED!’ Then reality kicks in and I remember that the book always works in the end, and that editors are A Good Thing.

So I settle down and consider every single comment, suggestion and request, and work out how to respond, ie how much to change, how much to compromise, how much to defend the story as it stands.

And I’ve realised that, while equally open to every comment, I do seem to have a different attitude depending on whether we’re working on a novel or a picture book.

A novel feels like my vision, my story. So I will usually be happy to tweak, and often, if I agree, I will make major changes, but if I disagree, I will instead explain why I'd prefer not to change the direction of the story.

However, a picture book never feels like just my story, it feels like a team effort with the editor, illustrator and designer. So I’m much more likely to throw out a cherished sentence or scene in a picture book, much more likely to change direction entirely, in order to create the text that will support the best possible pictures.

I don’t want to give the impression (particularly not to my editors!) that I ignore editorial advice in novels or that I don’t feel passionate about the words in my picture books, just that I seem to approach them with a slightly different attitude. The novel is my story, and I’m happy to take advice about the best way to tell it, but the picture book is OUR story, and my words are only one part of that. So, my response to notes is based on that difference.

Whatever age group or genre I’m writing for, it’s always a bracing combination of illuminating, positive and painful to see my still soft and malleable draft story through someone else’s critical eyes. But it’s always worth doing!

I genuinely believe that books are BETTER when they have been worked on together by a talented editor and a confident writer.

However, I’ve realised this spring that even though I will weigh up each comment carefully, I clearly lean slightly more towards accepting the suggestions when redrafting a picture book, and slightly more towards proving my case for the original idea when redrafting a novel.

I wonder if any other writers feel that they respond differently to editorial notes depending on the story, the project, or even (!) the editor?

Right. Back to those notes and my responses...
 

Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than 20 books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales, a teen thriller and novellas for reluctant readers. 

Lari’s website 

Lari’s own blog

Lari on Twitter

Lari on Facebook

The proposal - Clementine Beauvais

This week I submitted another proposal to my editor, and it got me thinking again about that strange art.

The kind of proposal I mean here is the one that already-published authors submit to their editor; often, though not always, it’s in response to a request or suggestion by the editor. It’s generally composed of a pitch and summary, the first few completed chapters of the first book, and, if it’s a series proposal, some sense of what the next books might be.

As such, that kind of proposal is not unlike the book proposals unpublished authors address to agents or editors too; except that the book isn’t finished. In fact, the ‘luxury’ of the exercise, on the already-published author’s part, is that the book doesn’t need to be finished at the stage when it’s pitched.

Another difference is that you’re talking to someone who knows you very well, so you don’t need to be overly formal in the pitch and the explanations of the next few books; you can also refer to your own previous books to make it clear where it stands in relation to the rest of your writing (if you’re still fooling yourself that your overall oeuvre is a miracle of coherence and forward planning.)

The proposal is an odd mixture of pragmatism and passion. Generally, you’re writing it in response to a suggestion by your editor; whether it’s very specific (‘I urgently need a 5-7 steampunk series involving mermaid hedgehogs’) or rather vague (‘I’m thinking of, like, some kind of animal story? Quirky maybe?’), you will have in mind at least some parameters and you will structure and strategise the writing and pitch accordingly.

In that sense, the proposal asks for your cold and calculating superego to control quite strictly the writing-splurge ambitions of your writerly id. You can’t get too attached to the budding project, because it might well get rejected (it often is) or require drastic rethinking; in which case you might not agree with the suggested changes, and choose to withdraw the proposal.

At the same time, you do need to develop with your embryonic project at least some promise of future love, or else your few chapters will lack enthusiasm - and you will lack the motivation to carry on, should it be accepted. I have started, and scrapped, very many book proposals that I felt did the job correctly, but which would be an absolute chore to write, because they would have been written ‘as proposals’, not ‘as books’.

My writing folder is full of rejected proposals, forever deprived of middles and endings. Some had good pitches (I thought), but the writing didn’t seduce. For others, the writing pleased, but the pitch was limp. Rejection at proposal stage happens very often in the life of a writer.

It’s a strange kind of mourning, because the emotional investment hasn’t been quite strong enough to really deplore the non-existence of the finished books. After being rejected, proposals get forgotten quite easily. I’m not particularly keen to resuscitate any of them.

They’re a different kind of writing to the other kind of unpublished work, the full manuscripts, revised, rewritten and edited so many times, whose failures still sting. You know, when you’re writing a proposal, that it’s more likely than not to remain bodiless. 

People outside publishing don’t generally know about that kind of proposal, and when they hear about it they tend to be horrified at how dry and cold it is. But there’s always something to be gained from a proposal, even if it ends up being rejected. You’ve inhabited a world for a little while, thought up an idea, invented characters. They’ll come back in a different form, some day, somewhere else.

_____________________________________

Clementine Beauvais writes in French and English. She blogs here about children's literature and academia. 

Publishing deleted scenes – risky, cringeworthy, helpful? Lari Don

Publishers want lots of ‘stuff’ from authors now. Not just the book, but lots of other stuff. Content, it’s called, for online things.

One of the bits of content I’ve given my publishers recently is a file of deleted scenes, from my new(ish) teen thriller Mind Blind.

It wasn’t hard for me to find half a dozen deleted scenes, because I delete lots from my manuscripts as I rewrite and redraft. It’s not unusual for me to reduce the length of a book by 20,000 words or more between first draft and final publication. Which sounds very inefficient – wouldn’t I be better just writing shorter books in the first place?

But I’m not a planner and plotter. I discover the story as I write, as I follow the characters on their journey, and that means diversions and doubling back. I never deliberately write anything that I know is irrelevant at the time, every word helps me find out about the characters, their reactions to problems and my own feelings about the story. But once I reach the end and get a sense of the main thrust of the story, it’s usually clear that I've regularly wandered off the narrative path, and that some scenes are now unnecessary. They may have been necessary to get me to the end, but they’re not necessary to get the reader to the end. So I'm ruthless in slashing them out. I reckon that if you can slice out a scene without it seriously affecting the rest of the story, it probably wasn’t that important.

And in a thriller like MindBlind, where it’s very important to keep the pace up and the pages turning, I also removed scenes or parts of scenes because they slowed the story down too much. (Here’s an example of one.)

And sometimes I cut a scene, not because it’s slowing the story down or because it’s an unnecessary diversion, but because I come up with a stronger idea once I know the story and characters better. However, the original scene is still part of the way I got to know the character, so it’s part of my history with them. Here’s an example of that – it’s the first scene I ever wrote about Ciaran Bain, the hero (anti-hero) of the book. It’s not in the book, but it’s still the place I first met him!

Of course, it’s misleading to suggest that all this slashing and slicing is my idea. Quite a lot of it is, but some of it is in response to gentle prompts from my wonderful editor.

a mountain of many Mind Blind manuscripts

So, I have no problem removing large chunks of my first draft or even my fourteenth draft, because as I’m writing, I know that I’m just discovering the story, not finding the perfect way of telling it first time around. And I know that it takes a lot of work to make that original mess of scribbled ideas into a book.

But having taken all this stuff out, why on earth would I want to show it to anyone? These deleted scenes have often been removed quite early in the process, so they’re not that polished (why would I polish them, once I’ve deleted them?) So it does feel quite weird and slightly uncomfortable, revealing these unfinished bits of my creative process to the public gaze.

Even if these are scenes that I took out for plot or pace reasons, rather than pieces of writing I don’t like, they are still parts of the story that didn’t make it into the book. So is it a bit of a risk to show less than perfect examples of your writing to the world? And why on earth do it?

The first reason is the pragmatic one of feeding the voracious social media monster. (This is not a particularly good reason.)

But I wonder if a much better reason is that realising how much an author cuts from their early drafts can be useful, especially for young writers. It’s a very practical way to show that published writers don’t get it right all the time, that our first drafts are just the start of the process and that we have to work at them, slash at them, perhaps radically change them, to get them into shape. Deleted scenes are perhaps the online version of showing manuscripts covered in lots of scribbles and scorings out to groups of kids at author visits. ‘Look, I don’t get it right first time, so you don’t have to either. Just write, and see what happens!’

So, while I was wincing and cringing this week as yet another deleted scene appeared on Tumblr, I wondered:
How much do other writers delete?
Are other writers happy to let the world see the bits they sliced out?
And do readers learn anything about the writing process from deleted scenes?

Lari Don is the award-winning author of 21 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers. 

Lari’s website 

Lari’s own blog

Lari on Twitter

Lari on Facebook

Lari on Tumblr

Praise be to editors - by Nicola Morgan

This won't be the first time an ABBA blogger has praised editors but it would be hard to praise them too often, so I'm going to do it again.

When I had my Help! I Need a Publisher! blog, I used to come across so many writers who had turned or were planning to turn their back on the idea of aiming for trade publication because "the editing process would suppress my voice" or some such twaddle. Because twaddle it is. A good editor is a bit like a good singing teacher: nurtures and nourishes your voice so that it can sound its best. A singing teacher would also be a critic, suggesting when you've got it wrong. And you might occasionally disagree with the teacher, and you might be right, but that wouldn't make them not a great teacher.

Stick with the voice analogy for a moment: you accept how when you sing or speak you are hearing your voice through your own head, reverberating differently so that it sounds different when it hits someone's ears? Well, a good editor is that other pair of ears and can show you how you might wish to tweak or polish your voice to sound best for other ears. Because what it sounds like in your own head isn't as important as how it sounds to others.

And I am not so arrogant that I don't want to listen to a trusted expert, a trusted expert who a) wants my book to be as good as possible and b) can help me make it so.

Here I have to mention the long-suffering, eagle-eyed, hyper-intelligent and just plain darn brilliant editors working on The Teenage Guide to Stress with* me. Caz Royds and Alice Horrocks are editors to die for. And this has been a BIG task. (Notice the "with", because this is the ultimate teamwork.)

Editing fiction is a tricky thing (and they do that, too) but editing non-fiction requires a different set of skills and tuning. Five levels of headings - and have we at last got the hierarchy of information right??? Is the order of material right? Is everything perfectly balanced and weighted? What do we do about the fact that the author is paranoid about leaving things out and yet perhaps it can't all go in? Have we got the voice just right for 12 year-olds and 18 year-olds and adults? Is it sufficiently serious and yet not too dark? How do you tackle blushing and self-harming, sweating and suicidal thoughts all in one book? How deep should the contents list go? Index? Wahhhh! Glossary or not? And then the design issues that come with non-fiction become part of the editorial process - and here a big mention for the so-patient and talented Beth Aves, who somehow manages to incorporate every text change or order switch without complaint.

The complications of this rather large book meant that we have gone to the wire, time-wise, with last-minute "ARGGGGH"s flying back and forth, and yet with humour, respect and mutual admiration all the time. We go to print on April 29th and I'm sending them fizz to celebrate. We may have to have a Skype party!

Next project: The Demented Writer's Guide to Self-Inflicted Stress. You can all contribute!

NOTE: For the chance to win a copy of The Teenage Guide to Stress, signed on or before publication day, visit my blog and leave a comment on any/all April/May posts with "Exam tips" in the title. Each comment = one entry to the random draw, so comment on each post if you wish!

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Nicola Morgan's free Brain Sane newsletter is full of links and articles about the brain, reading, stress, positive psychology and mental health. Next issue is a special one on SLEEP, with gorgeous sleepy giveaways and books to be won. 

Title Horror: Ruth Symes

Coming up with a title:

Some authors don't write a word until they’ve thought up a title for their work, whilst others spend weeks chewing their pen’s end and pulling tufts of hair out trying to come up with just the right one, only to have their publisher announce that they've thought of something much better.

My first children’s novel to be published (back in 1997) was a gritty urban school based story with an extremely elusive title. Whatever I suggested my publishers, Puffin, didn't like. At one point there was a class of thirty or so 10 year olds being read the manuscript and trying to come up with something suitable but my publisher didn't like any of those either.

Finally my then editor, the lovely Lucy Ogden, told me they'd decided my book would be called 'The Master of Secrets' and later I found there was also going to be a picture of my anti-hero, Gabriel Harp, on the cover rather than the story’s real hero, Raj.

Much as I loved working with Lucy I found the publisher’s title to be confusing for readers who assumed, quite naturally, that they were going to be reading a fantasy novel.

Do titles make a difference to book sales?

Yup: When 'Dancing Harriet' was about to be published by Chicken House my editor told me the feedback from Scholastic in the USA was that they would prefer it to be Harriet Dancing.

'Of course it's up to you... but the potential for thousands of copies...' she murmured.

Harriet Dancing the book became.

'Chip's Dad' was originally ‘Colin's Dad’ until the publisher asked for it to be changed (I really should have realised it was going to be aimed at the US - which is the only place it sells and asked for a larger royalty than the pittance the educational publisher - who seem to have now gone bankrupt - thought was fair).

‘Little Rex’ started off as a crocodile with another name not just a title but a whole species change (I think – although crocs and dinosaurs must be related....) Then my publishers in the USA asked for the title to be Little Rex, Big Brother which was a brilliant idea because now I could have Little Rex and the Big Roar, Little Rex and the Big Mud Monster, Little Rex and the Big Egg even Little Rex's Big Day....

And finally my 2010 memoir written under the pseudonym of Megan Rix was originally 'The Puppy Mum' (my title) then ‘Puppies from Heaven’ (my agent’s title) before becoming ‘The Puppy that Came for Christmas’ (publisher’s choice). I liked this one – although with it’s pink cover the book does very often get mistaken for a children’s book rather than an adult one.

What title horror stories / experiences have you had?

And speaking of HORROR I wanted to let you know that I am going to be onstage around a cauldron talking about my Bella Donna books at SCAREFEST 3 on Saturday the 6th October at The Civic, Crosby from 1pm. Please come along if you can. It should be WILD. Tommy Donbavand, the writer of Scream Street, is hosting an interactive game show. There’s a budding author's workshop from 10-30-12, an exclusive staging of the 'Spook's Apprentice' and the 'Doom Rider' show from 4-5.30, and a 'Spook-Tacular Extra-GORE-Vanza' in the evening.

More info from the wonderful Tony Higginson at www.formbybooks.co.uk

PS Have just spent all weekend re-vamping my websites so if you have time to click by it’d be nice to see you at www.ruthsymes.com or www.meganrix.com