Editors
While I was visiting asakiyume we had a small but excellent writing workshop. I came away all excited about what people had seen in my first chapter of a thing--the bad and the good. All during my travels I tinkered with that chapter, addressing issues that people saw, then I woke up the night before last and realized I have to scrap the entire thing except for the opening scene.
Writing is such a weird thing--we write for ourselves, but we also have an eye to the potential audience. We have things to say, but we often have to hide them. We are accused of saying things we didn't actually put into the text, because each book is different for each reader. And yet there is the shared sigh of satisfaction at this bit--or a general shudder for the horror reader at that incident, binding us together, those of us who read and reacted to the same book. One of the most powerful magics of fiction is the shared reaction.
The e-book revolution has returned the power of publication to the writer, as it was in the eighteenth century, when there were printers and booksellers, but no editors in the way we know them now. A New York agent was telling me a day or so ago, during a phone conversation, about attending a meeting of head librarians who were trying to address the problem of ebook purchase, and the agent reported heartfelt cries of "We need gatekeepers! Why won't these writers get editors?"
Well, just like in the eighteenth century, the self-published writer will either find her audience or won't, the audience will either like the book or turn away in indifference. Nobody has the formula for success, with or without an editor.
But for those who are sticking to the established publication route, what do you do when the editors (or agents) say, "Yes, but . . ."
Writing is such a weird thing--we write for ourselves, but we also have an eye to the potential audience. We have things to say, but we often have to hide them. We are accused of saying things we didn't actually put into the text, because each book is different for each reader. And yet there is the shared sigh of satisfaction at this bit--or a general shudder for the horror reader at that incident, binding us together, those of us who read and reacted to the same book. One of the most powerful magics of fiction is the shared reaction.
The e-book revolution has returned the power of publication to the writer, as it was in the eighteenth century, when there were printers and booksellers, but no editors in the way we know them now. A New York agent was telling me a day or so ago, during a phone conversation, about attending a meeting of head librarians who were trying to address the problem of ebook purchase, and the agent reported heartfelt cries of "We need gatekeepers! Why won't these writers get editors?"
Well, just like in the eighteenth century, the self-published writer will either find her audience or won't, the audience will either like the book or turn away in indifference. Nobody has the formula for success, with or without an editor.
But for those who are sticking to the established publication route, what do you do when the editors (or agents) say, "Yes, but . . ."