Lisle, Holly Mugging the Muse

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continuity check. Make sure that your days and hours track that if a full moon hung
high in the sky at the opening of the scene (meaning the time was right around
midnight) you don't have the grandfather clock tolling six. Or that your hero's eyes
don't go from brown to blue halfway through the book. Or that you haven't left a
scene with little markers in it that you were going to go back and fix when you
figured out what happened there, without ever going back to fix them. (I've found
whole sections like this in books I've thought were finished, and I've been ever so
grateful that I took the time to go through the manuscript before I sent it out.)
Also look for clumsiness in the writing itself and places where you used almost, but
not quite, the word you intended. Check for places where you spelled a character's
name in different ways, and so on. By going over the manuscript as carefully as you
can after completion of the first draft, you'll make sure that what your editor reads is
what you sent, and not what you think you sent. There can be a world of difference
between the two.
" Deadline Concerns
Your editor says the first draft is due in December and the published book will be on
the shelves a year later. So you actually have some fudge time, don't you? You can be
a few weeks (or a few months) late getting the book in, right?
No. You can't. First draft is just the beginning of the process of getting your book
ready for publication. Once you're done with it, the editor will read it and she needs
some leeway on the time it will take her to do that, because yours is not the only
project she's working on. She'll make revision requests (more on those in the next
section). You'll need time to do your rewrites. She'll read (and we hope approve) your
rewrites, then send the book to the copyeditor. The copyeditor will work on a tight
deadline, and get the book to the compositor, who will set in into type. At some point
HOLLY LISLE
MUGGING THE MUSE: WRITING FICTION FOR LOVE AND MONEY 102
in this process, you'll get typeset galleys to go over and proof. Keep your rewrites to
the bare minimum at this point it costs money, and usually a lot of it, to reset
typeset print. Look for typos, things that are just plain wrong, and typesetting errors
(like the last word of a sentence orphaned at the top of a page, or a place where lines
were duplicated or inexplicably put into a different typeface.) You'll do galleys on an
incredibly tight schedule; I've had turn-arounds of one day before. The galleys go
back, the compositor finishes setting the type, the proofs are sent to the printer, the
pages are printed and bound, and a book emerges. In this process, too, there has been
cover design and marketing work going on simultaneously, and perhaps the
preparation of bound galleys to go out to reviewers (usually prepared from the same
galleys that you proofed).
All of these things take time, and the one thing that will screw up every single link in
this long and complicated chain every time is you being late with your first draft or
revisions. Take the deadline your editor gives you as being chiselled in stone, handed
down from on high like the eleventh commandment. In fact, for writers, it IS the
eleventh commandment.
THOU SHALT NOT BE LATE WITH THY BOOK!
If you are, assume that you will not be on terribly warm terms with anyone at your
publishing house for a while thereafter. If you have a thereafter.
" Revision Requests
If you skipped the section on Concept Discussions at the beginning of this article,
read it now.
If you have read it, there are still a few extra things you need to keep in mind.
" One: Your editor knows the market better than you do.
This is a tough nut for most writers to swallow and if you aren't careful, can
become a point of friction between you and your editor. If you editor says, The
ending is too downbeat to do well in the American market; we need to think about
ways you can give it a more upbeat ending, for example, you can take one of two
tacks. The first is to say, Look, I'm the writer, and this is the way I envisioned the
story, and I don't care how the American market prefers upbeat endings. I claim
artistic license, dammit; I don't want to change so much as a comma, much less
rethink the ending. This may get you some points among your peers as the Artist
with Integrity and Vision, but your editor is going to be justified in labelling you a
Pain-in-the-Ass Artiste, and at this point in your career, your buddies at the cafe
HOLLY LISLE
MUGGING THE MUSE: WRITING FICTION FOR LOVE AND MONEY 103
aren't going to be putting money in your pocket, and your editor is. The second
way you can approach the situation is to say, Okay, I can see how that ending
might be a little dark. Do you have any recommendations for giving it a more
upbeat feel without gutting the whole meaning of the book? Then you listen to
her ideas, and come up with a few of your own, and sit down at the computer and
rework the ending in the manner that feels best to you. And you send it off,
content in the knowledge that you have made your book as marketable as you can.
And I do hate to sound like the Commercial Sell-Out from Hell here, but if you
don't work to make your book as marketable as you can, you can kiss any hope of
a full-time writing career goodbye. Publishers all publishers publish books in
order to make money. If you aren't willing to help your publisher out by writing
books he can hope to sell, he will simply stop buying books from you. Put your
heart into your stories, and your soul, and the best of what you have to offer. Then
be willing to reshape your stories to make them better, more marketable, more
accessible. Keep the heart and the soul in there don't get cynical, however easy it
may be to get cynical. But keep your eye on the sales figures and the bottom line,
too.
" Two: Nothing you write is perfect.
I know this comes as a shock; it's a shock to me every time I finish a book and
find that it still needs work. But you cannot let the fact that your editor will want
rewrites on what you thought was a finished book (and she will) shake you. No
matter how good you are, you editor will be able to spot places where you were
lazy or sloppy or didn't think consequences through carefully. She will find ways
to make your book better. This is her job. Don't give her a hard time for doing it.
Remember that in the long run, she's making you look brilliant, and however
tough this whole process might be for your ego right now, you will be the primary
beneficiary when you get through it.
" Three: You can be replaced.
If nothing else I tell you sticks, make sure this does. Your publisher doesn't need [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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