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I don’t remember where I read it but I do remember it was in the comments section of some blog. I think it had something to do with self publishing or something like that. It’s fuzzy in the brain right now. But what the commenter said was that the only reason published books were good was because of the editors on them, not the authors. Now, I’m not someone that gets offended easily but that felt like a punch below the belt.
Of course it shows the commenter’s total ignorance on the writing process and there’s really no use in explaining it but what the hell? Then why don’t we leave the writing to the editors, then? If they make the book, let them work it up from start to finish! What do we need authors for?
Just in case anyone reading this didn’t know (if you’re reading this and didn’t know, please come out from under that rock, the sun is nice and warm), editors fine tune an already heavily edited manuscript. It starts with the author who writes it, edits the shit out of it, rewrites it, edits more shit in and out of it, rewrites it again ad nauseum until they feel it’s finally ready for query. Agents will not take on manuscripts that need to be heavily edited. It’s too much work and, quite frankly, a waste of resources. If they feel there’s huge potential there, they’ll offer editing information and ask the author to resubmit AFTER the edits are made. With or without that step, an agent takes on a manuscript and may or may not make a few more tweaking edits prior to subbing it out to publishers. Once it’s taken up by the publisher, the editors give it one more once over, make whatever suggestions they deem necessary and hand it over to the author to correct. After all of that, a final, publishable copy is born.
Now, who did all the actual editing in that scenario? Most of it was self-edited by the author. Minor bits and pieces were RECOMMENDED by the agent and, eventually, editor. Editors do not make changes. They suggest them. The author then has to take his or her talent and transfer it to those recommendations. And they are minor suggestions. Changing a chapter is minor. Rewriting an ending is relatively minor. Doing a major overhaul on a manuscript at publisher level is unheard of.
So let’s get this straight, okay? Editors do not make the writers. They do not create the book you hold in your hand after purchasing it from the store. They sand the hard edges of a nearly finished product. They put that extra layer of laquer on it to make it shine that much more but they didn’t create the table. They didn’t bevel it. They didn’t inlay the wainscoting. They just put the cherry on the sundae.
Got that? Yes, editors make an author’s work look better (in theory, anyway) but an author has to create the work and build up the pyramid on their own before an editor can put that final pointed piece on top. So let’s not kid ourselves here and let’s never say that editors make the books. The book needs to exist first and that lies squarely with the author.
I briefly mentioned yesterday that I had a wrench thrown into my spokes in the shape of a rather large boy that I had no intention of being in the story. Well, because of that, the whole thing’s now reshaping in my head. It’s done this once already–started off pretty small, grew and then whittled itself down into something more manageable. Once it kind of tweaked and twacked itself into what I’m currently writing, I thought I was good to go. Boy am I wrong. Looks like it’s on the upswing again. It’s starting to remold itself like a handful of Silly Putty and what I once saw as only one story with some other works within the world is turning back into at least two stories with other works in the world. It won’t stop morphing!
Not like that’s a bad thing or anything but I thought I was blind-sided by that random-yet-soon-to-be-important character. Sitting at work today the story was reshaping of it’s own accord (actually it started last night before I went to bed but it continued today), giving me a subplot that could rightly be a main plot, thus pushing out the current main plot into another book. And I like this sub/main plot that’s emerging, especially as I write the other boys in this group.
This is not what I had in mind for them at all and while the tone is still pretty light-hearted, the underlying stuff is so freakin’ dark. Well, I did want a darker story and I’ve maintained that from the original inception of the work; just the way it’s told has changed. I’m now on the cusp of incorporating aspects of this world into the main story that I never thought I would because the personalities of these boys is shaping it so. They opened their mouths and I went, “No! What are you doing?! That’s not how you’re supposed to be!” Obviously it’s not about what I want.
The kicker is that I’m trying to punch out my website for the horror convention I’m going to the weekend before Labor Day. Why does it matter? Well my website is on my business card and I figured something should be there should people take a gander at it before I can put anything to it. So I’ve been trying to throw up pieces of the Raydin world just to have something more than a summary of the work but considering the rush and how changeable it all is, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.
