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The second book has now crossed the 150,000 word mark, with all but one (shortish, probably not useful) outlier chapter braided into it.
At this point, that means I should be shaping for the ending of this volume, and that’s about right. I expect it to swell out over the length I’ve set (equal to the first volume) and then shrink back down during editing (mine and the editor’s.) It will be easier to see what really belongs to it and what doesn’t when the kitchen sink and all are piled in there together.
The end run has a lot of stuff to fit in and should be written all in one swift burst…dastardly deeds by our enemies, heroic deeds by our friends, discoveries, reconciliations, all that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, I’m expecting the copy edits to arrive next Monday, with a short turnaround time and still have work to do for my UK editor on book one as well.
Today, however, the story is running free, so I’ll get back to it.
Comment by Dave Ring — June 18, 2009 @ 9:08 am
Given that we speak languages with a fair degree of reciprocal intelligibility, what differences are needed for US and UK editions?
Comment by elizabeth — June 18, 2009 @ 9:29 am
I don’t know…that end isn’t my responsibility, and for all I know they don’t change any language.
This time, my UK editor wants more background stuff in the book itself, since the original Paks books were less available there and the omnibus version won’t be out there until (I think she said) January. I’ll need to write some paragraphs, she said, and modify the intro essay that my US publisher wanted.
Comment by Shawn — June 18, 2009 @ 11:13 am
Just wondering, is a new version of Paks coming out any time soon? My original version is in tatters and my second has vanished in the move.
Also, who is publishing the new book, is it Baen or is Del Rey doing it since they published some of your other more recent works?
Comment by elizabeth — June 18, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
The omnibus trade paperback, THE DEED OF PAKSENARRION, is still in print and can be ordered if it’s not stocked at your nearby store–either from that store or from Amazon.com. It will have the same text as before.
The new book will be published by Del Rey in March 2010.
Comment by Kip Colegrove — June 18, 2009 @ 3:07 pm
My wife took pity on me and found a used hardcover edition of the Deed in almost-new condition to replace the falling-apart trade paperback edition I’d had for years. The new book, which has been around the house since Christmas, has already survived being knocked off the dresser by the cats and a close encounter with peach tea. The color balance is off on the dust jacket–too little in the yellow/green range–but it is nice not to have to worry about it disintegrating in my hands.
The trade paper edition is to be found in stock (usually only one copy, but hey, it’s there) in almost every bookstore dealing in new books that I’ve been in during the last half-dozen years. The stores in question have been located in eastern Nebraska and northeastern Ohio.
Comment by layla — June 18, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
I wish that we could see what these books looked like before any edits(except those done while written…). Is that me being weird, or is it valid. Books can be over-edited and have been several times. I trust you with that though. This is my i-dont-care-about-anything-but-bieng-a-book-freak behavior, so sorry.
Comment by elizabeth — June 18, 2009 @ 10:35 pm
Layla, I don’t think it’s valid. On the whole, more books are under-edited than over-edited, though a few are badly handled.
I don’t want anyone to see the raw form–I trust a few alpha readers, but beyond that I want people to see the best I can do, not the messy workroom. I can be very defensive about this–as an instinctive and “discovery” writer, who writes without an outline, the first draft is always a balancing act, with a lot of falling off and going splat. It’s one thing to share some “splat” moments here…I get to pick them…and quite another to contemplate someone looking at the rough version–not even my editor sees that. Editors see it only when I can’t figure out how to make it better. Then they help me. So far, the editors of my books have an excellent record of making them better.
Comment by elizabeth — June 18, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
Glad it’s staying in the stores up there, Kip. I love that cover. Close encounters with peach tea only prove that it’s loved (the cats knocking if off something only proves you have cats…)
Comment by Kip Colegrove — June 19, 2009 @ 11:49 am
I love that cover too, one of the best I’ve seen. I scanned the cover on the old quality paper edition (banged up as it was) into a digital graphics file before we sent it on to whoever ends up with it, because I wanted to have a properly color-balanced version on hand somewhere. It’s a pity that defective dust jacket got past quality control; I hope there weren’t many like it that made it out into the world.
Comment by layla — June 19, 2009 @ 7:25 pm
sorry. then i have a bad experience with books
. I have seen some very over edited books before. You are probably right though.
Comment by elizabeth — June 19, 2009 @ 7:51 pm
I’m not sure what you mean by “over-edited.” Are you seeing the original ms. and the various iterations of it? If not, what do you think indicates an over-edited book? I’ve certainly seen books that felt “thin,” but figured it was the writer who didn’t provide any depth to start with.
And I know some books have been mangled in production–whether it was the editor, or the publisher suddenly insisted the book had to be 30% shorter, or the printer-binder messed up (for instance, for one of my books a few copies had several pages of someone else’s book just stuck in…and the missing pages of mine probably ended up in their book.)
But I’ve read a lot of books, including some really lousy ones, and my writer/editor fingers twitch to get out the red pencil and scissors on some of those…they need more editing, not less. Editors do not put in that kind of mistake (copy editors, on the other hand sometimes do, and since their names never appear on the book cover, someone else always gets the blame.)
Comment by Michael C — June 19, 2009 @ 11:40 pm
I’ve never seen a novel in a partially-edited state, so I can’t talk about that. The closest analog I have experience with is movies, e.g. Serenity and Blade Runner.
The Serenity CD included a set of clips which had been cut from the final movie, with the director’s commentary on why they got cut. Usually it was pacing issues. Presumably the stuff which was cut because it was just unambiguously bad wasn’t even going to make the CD as a clip. Generally, I thought I would have preferred it if the cut scenes had been left in, but (of course) a movie shouldn’t be designed around those who are looking at the cut scenes after the movie is over. However, a few of cuts were definite “aha! – now makes sense”, or “that remark develops that character significantly and I don’t think it would have hurt pacing” though, so I thought cutting those out was over-editing.
So I think there can be a conflict between pacing and “amount of exposition” – does that make sense? – and those of us who are good with slower pacing, if that’s the price for more exposition, might like something less edited, if the edits were there to speed up the pacing. Of course, since the book is a fixed size, it’ll be at the cost of something that would combine both exposition and fast pacing later.
Blade Runner, of course, has now come out in something like 4 different editions, which highlights that editing must be an art rather than a science. (I’d be curious to see the first one again, to compare it to the most recent.)
Comment by elizabeth — June 20, 2009 @ 6:40 am
I think directors’ cut DVDs have taught people that “editing” is always “cutting” and hinted that the unedited version is enriched. Even for movies, as you say, the really awful bits don’t end up on the DVD…and the script has been edited a lot before shooting begins.
With books it’s different (but similar–isn’t that helpful???) For any story, there are length limitations, more or less strict, and those are closely related to the cost of production. If you write an 8000 word story for an anthology and there’s only room for a 5000 word story, you lose. Doesn’t matter how good a story–it didn’t fit. It’s like having a 6 foot wide painting and a 5 foot wide wall space.
If you-the-writer know ahead of time what your length limitations are, and you know your craft, you can shape the story to fit the space available. That’s not going to ruin it…it becomes part of the design. The worst cases of “cutting-edit” occur when either the writer doesn’t believe the limits they were given, or the publisher decides to shorten the limits after the book is done. In either case, it can be (esp. if time is short) like cutting the extra two feet off te painting so there’s room for the frame and painting to fit on that wall.
But editing is far more than cutting. Since writing is, in general, a one-person job, the person doing it often needs some help knowing what is missing. It’s not actually missing–it’s in the writer’s head–but the writer can’t re-read a chapter without mentally contributing more than is on the page. That makes it hard to see what never made it to the page.
For instance, when a reader thinks an ending is “rushed” and blames the editor, the problem is often the writer–who, by the end of the book, knows so well what’s happening and why that he or she races through, leaving out the well-known (to the writer) connections. (The writer is *always* glad to get to the end of the book–sometimes because of deadlines, and sometimes because of the mental discomfort of carrying the whole thing that long.) The editor may request adding material to the end (or anywhere else the editor feels is thin compared to the depth in the rest of the book.) That’s happened to me, and I write long books.
This is one place to see the difference between editing in movies and editing in book-writing. In movies, it costs more to shoot more scenes, especially after they thought they were through–those making the movie are paid by the hour or day. So it behooves the person in charge to shoot a lot more than they need, in a hurry, while they’ve got the actors together. It costs an editor nothing to tell a writer to add a word, paragraph, scene…writers are paid by the book, not the hour.
Exposition is a special case (or problem, or challenge…) How much exposition should be in any book is a matter of taste: some writers/editors/readers/critics want very little, and others like a lot…and this may change with time. In general, exposition beyond what following the story requires is excess weight on the story-engine. Up to a point, it may add interest, but it’s decoration, not substance. It’s not “plot-worthy.” If there’s too much of it, it slows the plot to the point where the reader’s grasp of plot slips.
This is a delicate point, because not all readers fall off the plot-train at the same point or for the same reason. If you have a reader who’s primarily a non-fiction reader, providing a very linear, simple plot with a lot of exposition piled all around it will actually glue them to the plot-train quite well. But a born fiction-reader won’t be satisfied and will lose interest during the pages of exposition.
And you’re right, in terms of length, wordage spent on one aspect of the book is taken from wordage spent on another. If you spend wordage on character backstory (for instance) you don’t have that wordage to spend on description of setting, or elaboration of subplot, or…. Elegant, efficient writing can pack more of everything into the same wordage, but the most elegant and efficient writing possible can’t put everything possible into one book…the best books are balanced harmoniously. The exposition is “used up” by the characters and the plot–none is left sitting in a heap for readers to fall over.
Achieving the best balance *for that book* usually requires help from someone other than the writer (just as “the director” has a lot of other eyes looking at the same scenes before compiling the final version.) Does the book have a consistent feel, a consistent depth of detail? Are the characters believable throughout? Are the motivations clear and consistent? (If Joey is terrified of spiders and motivated by that fear for half the book, you can’t have Joey letting tarantulas run up his arm without some explanation of what changed and how.) Does the ending go on too long, or is it rushed?
So editing is a craft (neither an art nor a science, exactly) and also a matter of taste (thus, knowing for which readership you’re editing.)
Comment by paul tar jr — June 20, 2009 @ 7:23 pm
Question…
I’m curious to see what background info is added to the UK version in comparison to the states. Would it be possible to have the differences eventually posted?
Thanks…
Paul
Comment by elizabeth — June 20, 2009 @ 9:27 pm
If I understand their concern, it’s that the original books were not as available to readers in the UK, and for that reason–and the length of time since the originals came out–UK readers may need more background to be fully oriented at the start of the first volume.
So there’s a more expanded note on the major characters, a slightly longer intro with specific mentions that Del Rey didn’t ask for.
Both publishers will, I believe, be referring to the Paksworld website as another source for readers.