This is number eighty-seven in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
DIDN’T I JUST SAY sitting down to an empty page was the hardest thing a writer does?
Well, sort of. It’s the hardest part of writing. A first draft. Any published author will tell you that between the first draft and a published book, there are many very hard stages.
For the most part, first drafts are garbage. Even if an author starts with a detailed outline or beat sheet, the product that results is far from ready to publish. I have said in jest on occasion that many things I have read on SOL look like the author spewed out the words and never went back to actually read what he’d written. Thankfully those stories are fewer and further between these days. Nonetheless, you may have read a book purchased in a bookstore or for an eReader that made you think this as well.
Over the past years, the role of an editor has changed, both professionally and in popular view. At one time, an editor guided the author in the creation of his work, all the way from concept to market. If there were areas of expertise the editor did not have, he hired people who had those skills. But the editor was the manager of the book from start to finish.
In a conference I attended fifteen years ago, though, it was obvious that the roles had changed. An editor (at a major publishing house) I spoke to said she didn’t want to see a manuscript that hadn’t already been looked at by “the book doctor” and had been cleaned and proofread. Her role was taking in a manuscript at the publishing house and ‘selling’ it to the rest of the staff. She had to show that it was marketable, there was sufficient demand, and that the author was dependable for a second and third book when this one was successful. Then she guided the book through the publishing company, including layout, reviews, design of covers and marketing materials, and budgeting for release.
When I wrote The Strongman, just last winter, I had a detailed beat sheet that showed exactly how the story would progress and how the characters would develop. But the first draft was still a disaster. So was the second.
The story still didn’t develop well. But I rewrote and carefully followed my beat sheet. I frequently stumbled with what should happen in the next beat and how to get to it.
Then in the third draft, I still found I was losing character development for the sake of the plot. When I finished that draft, I needed to send it to my editors for comment and proofreading. Sometimes editors disagree with each other regarding how things develop. Getting a final draft ready involved looking at and comparing all their notes. Some spellings for words and punctuation even differed.
Of course, having a ‘polished and finished’ manuscript still wasn’t the end of the path. I recently guided another author through the process of getting her book in the market. At one point she exclaimed, I thought writing was supposed to be the hard part. That’s when I responded, “No, writing was the easy part.”
The Strongman has just completed pre-release serialization and is now available as an eBook at Bookapy, and in paperback from most online retailers.
Ah for the days when a perceptive story editor could delve into a new manuscript and give the author a piece of her mind. What would that look like?
As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, I’m currently writing my November Novel, temporarily titled “Sisyphus, a modern myth.” Temporarily, because though the story is inspired by the Myth of Sisyphus, it is not a retelling, and using the name in the title of the actual book would be misleading.
I’m now some 32,000 words and eleven chapters into the new story, being read as we speak by my Sausage Grinder Patrons on Patreon. But what is happening in the background is a treasure that is difficult to share. I have a story editor who was willing to take on this project.
There are fifteen pages annotated in detail as she asks me what I'm trying to accomplish at every step of the way!
She points out contradictions, inconsistencies, questionable actions, lack of detail, lacking transitions, unclear timelines, character questions, and sex positions that were impossible to get into.
I’d finished nine chapters when I received and read her notes on the first chapter. How do I proceed? It’s necessary to continue the story from where I am, but having her early guidance will help me straighten out and clarify things as I progress.
At the same time, I’ll start cleaning up the first chapter and rewriting the scenes, taking into consideration what she has said in her notes.
Yes, “taking into consideration.” Even though I have a terrific story editor in Lyndsy, the story is still mine. I can’t just blindly do whatever she suggests. She is seeing the story one chapter at a time. I am seeing the whole story in my head at once. Some of her suggestions might lead me astray for what I want to accomplish further down the road. But they will still enlighten me regarding what a reader will see when he opens the book for the first time.
Rewriting and editing can be a major challenge. Sometimes, the editor will point out the inappropriateness of a line or phrase that just doesn’t fit. And it might be a line or phrase that I am particularly fond of. At that point, I need to decide if the line is so important to my ego that I’ll sacrifice that part of the story for it.
I’ve had some incredible story editors over my years as an author. Sadly, even when I’ve rewritten 90% of a story, as I did with popular books like A Place at the Table, City Limits, and The Props Master 1: Ritual Reality, there are miles to go before I sleep.
I have been a book designer for many years and still offer that service to select clients, in addition to myself. Making the book, whether paper or electronic, look good when it is opened is a skill most authors don’t have. Then there is the process of creating accounts for distribution, creating cover art, looking at the best distribution models, and setting up pricing, marketing, and even royalties. Perhaps these tasks do not carry the same fulfillment as writing chapters and concluding with “The End,” but they are necessary in the long run.
I’m barely getting blog posts ready by the weekend as I’m so single-mindedly focused on my new creative work, but I’ll come up with something new for next week. It may have to do with writing through depression. We’ll see.