Category Archives: Working with literary editors

Experiences and advice from experts on working with editors on your books

September 12, 2014 · 12:59 pm

Since This is about What Not to Do. . . .

Here’s a basic truth I learned about fiction writing itself (and about how not to write a failed novel): When your characters tell you they don’t want to do something, listen. Don’t make them do something when they’re screaming No!

In my failed novel (at least the one I’ve written most about here), my plot, to which I was inextricably wedded, required my two main characters to have passionate, illicit sex about three quarters of the way through the book. I spent many lives trying to get them to the point where that moment felt right. It never did, but I stomped my foot and made them do it anyway.

At the time, I thought I was writing about how the drives of sex in combination with desperate emotional need could cause people to act irrationally, to get in all kinds of trouble when they knew better. Since I consider this tendency a basic human truth, you’d think my characters would have said, “Sure, we get what you want people to think. Stand back.” But the book’s critics–and the important reviewers were definitely critics–called the actions of my male protagonist “stupid.” Actually, he thought so, too.

My editor told me, “The chemistry feels wrong.” I  knew she was giving me good advice: it was wrong. But I was lost in a project beyond my then-powers (possibly beyond any powers I’ll ever have), and I was working in total isolation.

Working in total isolation: that’s Thing Not To Do #2.

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July 20, 2013 · 5:29 pm

How I Got Here, Next Step: The Plot Develops Lumps as It Thickens

I’ve tried to recall the problems that kept my 700-page ms. from getting snapped up for a hefty advance. I suspect it had to do with “700-page ms.” It was clear that the book was going to take work to get in shape. It takes a special editor to want to put in that kind of work. Out of the blue one day, that special editor called me.

L and J had sent him my 700 pages. He couldn’t wait to get going on them. His first instructions: change the ending. No argument, just do it. His second: cut 200 pages.

I use this account in my classes, even expository writing classes. He was going to publish my book. I said, “Yes, sir.”

So how do you know when to say “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am” and when to argue? Lord help me, I don’t know. I do know that in that case, I had no choice. First novel, major publisher, erudite editor who said he “pulled all-nighters” with my book and who wrote me 30-page letters exploring its strengths and pushing me to think about its weaknesses: in fact, he was a teacher of the art of writing commercially viable fiction, and I wish I had known enough to practice everything I learned from him.

He said something along the lines of (I have the actual letter with the exact quote in my university office) “There’s enough wonderfulness here for four books. We need to decide which of the four is the best and save all the rest for some other time.” He said, “I’m going to show you how to tighten by doing the first 40 pages for you. Then I want you to follow my example on the rest.” I show those pages, with those big slash marks across whole pages, to my students. I show them my own slash marks, following his example. He said, “If a scene’s just repeating the work you’ve already done somewhere else and telling readers what they already know, get rid of it.” He showed me how to give scenes and dialogue their own internal life, what screenwriters call “beats.” I learned how to find the lines that carried the weight and slice out the shaky bridges between them.

I can’t tell you how much better that book became.

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