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Revision Requests© by Holly Lisle
All Rights Reserved
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 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 you. Your
agent doesn't need you. And your editor doesn't need you. For every
'you' out there who has gotten far enough to have a book accepted
and to think that now you have the world by the throat, there are
ten thousand others waiting for a chance, with their manuscripts
ready and their minds made up that this is what they want to do.
If you have a shitty attitude and think you're God's gift to the
field, well, one of them won't. And you'll find that your books
stop selling and your agent stops returning your calls, and you
can take full responsibility for your crash onto your own shoulders.
Why should anyone have to put up with a jerk when there are people
out there who write just as well as you do and who are pleasant
to work with? You don't have to grovel, you don't have to eviscerate
your work to sell it, you don't have to kiss ass---but you do have
to remember that you are not the answer to everyone's prayers and
the salvation of the book industry. Not yet, anyway. When you sell
like Stephen King, come back and we'll talk.
Manuscript Proofing>>
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