John Scalzi has some great points today that extend our discussion of self-publishing from a couple weeks ago. Specifically I don't think I covered the returnability issue:

3. No access to bookstores or other retail outlets, because most bookstores won’t take non-returnable items, which my printed books would be. This further limits the chance that people who don’t already know me will find my work. This is a problem because I do in fact get a lot of my readers from people taking a chance on my books in the bookstores (for that I can thank my book and cover designers, who help draw their eyes in the first place). There are ways to get around this, but they take lots of time and effort.

Check it out.

I've said I'd write about this for a while and I've never quite found the time. I still don't have a lot of time, but I needed blog fodder and this is a long-standing question. Also, I think that even if you create your own world and intend to write a series, there are a lot of storytelling lessons to be learned from shared-world fiction.

As you probably know, Wizards of the Coast is known for its shared-world fiction--fiction in worlds shared by many authors. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron may be the most familiar WotC brand names, and outside of us, in adult and YA fantasy, there are novels in the Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Smallville, and many other universes. Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden are also shared-world fiction--and the models upon which a lot of shared world series build. (Notice how many shared worlds are media tie-ins. This is not always the case, but as I'll discuss below, movies and TV shows do lend themselves well to this kind of print fiction.) The challenges of writing within these already-established worlds are completely different from making up your own world from scratch--but at the same time, can be freeing in many ways, too.

Mirrorstone has several shared-world lines: Dragonlance: The New Adventures, Star Sisterz, and Knights of the Silver Dragon were our company's first forays into children's literature, and all of them were set in worlds shared by many different authors who had to coordinate between themselves and the editors to ensure consistency in style, worldbuilding, character growth, and plot. DLNA was set in the same world, Krynn, that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's original Dragonlance Chronicles were set, Star Sisterz got their world from a game by the same name, and Knights of the Silver Dragon used the world and monsters of the game Dungeons and Dragons.

Writing in a shared world is a great way for beginning writers to increase (and show off) their writing chops--and get their name out there. Rather than having to come up with the world--and sometimes even the characters--on their own, the writer can play with plot and characterization within an already-established world, complete with its own rules. Rather than having to make up the world, the writer can focus on story arc.

The challenge of doing so, of course, is that you can't just say, "I think Buffy should now have wings and be able to fly about the planet." Buffy's world has rules, and (warning: spoilers in link) unless she specifically has an affair with a particular kind of creature, she's probably not going to suddenly sprout into a giant. But this is important in creator-owned stories, too!

Then again, the challenge of doing so can also be to see just how you can explain certain things within a given set of rules, such as how a kender might be able to do magic.*

But don't let that fool you--because writing in another world can be just as challenging as making up your own, but in a different way. Shared-world series have changed a lot since Nancy Drew, but we might learn a lot from the old girl sleuth, too. (Which won't be covered in this post, as I went off on a tangent, but definitely see Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her for more information on the Stratemyer syndicate, who had a lot of shared-world mysteries for young readers in its day.)

I think the best way of looking at shared-world series is by using TV shows as a model. Multiple writers work on TV shows. Writers on a show may change from year to year, so the creative mix sometimes changes--but overall, the show must have a consistent voice, characters must remain consistent even as they grow (if the characters are meant to grow, of course). A lot of quality TV shows are made in this collaborative environment, and I think shared-world book series can have that same high quality of storytelling.

I often use favorite teen and fantasy shows as examples of storytelling for my shared-world authors (and for series in general), too--because shows like Veronica Mars (especially the first and second seasons) (also, created by a YA author), Firefly, Heroes, and Buffy use storytelling skills that can be easily transferred to writing book series. For example, look specifically at plot arcs. What kinds of plot arcs does a TV series like Veronica Mars deal with? First season, we had the season-long plot arc of the mystery of Veronica's best friend's killer. Then we had plot arcs that might last a few episodes, usually dealing with her relationship between her friends or boyfriend. Then there was the plot of the episode, whatever mystery Veronica was solving that night.

How can we apply these plot arc ideas to novels? For one thing, a series has to have an overall arc, whether you're talking about a trilogy or longer. If you're a fan of the Wheel of Time series, you have probably been following my friend Brandon Sanderson's discussions of how he's working on wrapping up the tail end of the series. While that's not a shared world in the strictest sense--after all, Jordan always intended to finish his own series, but his health got in the way--this is similar in that Brandon must deal with writing in someone else's voice, finishing up story threads that he didn't lay, and working with characters and plots that he didn't create. Jordan planned the arc of the series years ago (and created the notes and outlines that Brandon is now using as his guide). And so it is with any series, including shared-world, though with something as open-ended as shared-world sometimes all you can do is plan an arc and hope the next arc fits in.

So then we go back to the TV show idea--the Lost writers, for example, say they've known generally where they want to end the series since they began it, but they couldn't know whether the first season would be the only one or not. So it is in shared-world fiction a lot of the times, so you have to break down your arcs a little bit so that readers can still be satisfied with the smaller resolutions, while still left wanting more. At the end of an episode (one volume), that episode's arc should be wrapped up. But questions might remain. Veronica may only have found one clue to who killed her best friend--and that clue itself might lead her in the wrong direction next time. But the high schooler who just paid her $500 to find out who planted fake test scores in his locker should find out by the end of the episode who done it.

The Hallowmere series is technically a shared-world series because Tiffany Trent, its creator, is not the only writer playing in this world. The books are being released at the rate of about three or four a year, and I fear what I might do to Tiffany if I tried to make her write three books a year all by herself! So we brought in a few coauthors who are taking on the points of view of the main character Corrine's friends. Books 1-3 have an arc all their own--Corrine goes to Falston, discovers the world of the Fey, and from there they head off to adventure in mysterious places as Corrine and her friends try to track down the Unhallowed.

But at the end of Corrine's arc in volume three, the story isn't nearly over. No, actually, the story only grows from there. In volume four, Maiden of the Wolf, Canadian author Angelika Ranger (dragonegg), joins Tiffany Trent to write from the point of view of Ilona, the stubborn tomboy Hungarian. Each coauthor must coordinate with me and especially with Tiffany to make sure that her or his details match up with Tiffany's vision of the series and with where the series is going for each of the rest of the authors, to ultimately wrap up with Tiffany's solo conclusion in book 10, Ouroborous Undone. Each book has its own arc, revealing all sorts of mysteries, but supports the greater arc of the entire ten-book series.

Oh, there's so much on shared worlds I could pontificate on, and I'm afraid this post is already long and convoluted, and I have work to do. So let's stop here and see where we go. What kinds of questions might you have on shared-world fiction? Does this help answer some of them?


*Kender are a hobbit-like race in the Dragonlance world which are considered, basically, so ADD that they can't learn magic, but also some people believe it's a racial trait for them not to be able to do so. Personally, I like that Dragonlance: The New Adventures turned a lot of those stereotypes on their heads.



Topic for a future post: Working with an editor in shared-world fiction, working as an editor in shared-world (coordination between authors, series bibles, etc.)

Want to know more about submitting to editors? Check out the conversation over at Writing Excuses this week and next. 

This week I've been up to my ears in the duties that most people outside of the writing/publishing world think that an editor spends all her time at: proofreading and copyediting. The truth is that the copyeditor and proofreader are different people from the editor, and that I as the editor do a lot of what might be termed managerial duties at this stage--sending the manuscript out and receiving it back in, accepting and rejecting changes, and then keeping an eye out as I'm going through those changes for anything the author, copyeditor, proofreader, and I might have missed in previous passes.

It's actually kind of fun, but in a much different way than earlier on in the life of a manuscript. This step in the process really brings in my detail-oriented side. Comparing details and thinking about minutiae perhaps might not be as exciting as the developmental stage, but it's an important step in the life of a book. The extra eyes of the copyeditor and proofreader are vital to making sure that I haven't missed typos, grammatical problems, blue eyes here and green eyes there on the same character, and other mistakes--mistakes that readers will always catch. 

The thing about being an editor is that you're looking at different versions of the same text four, sometimes five or more times. When I'm first editing, I'm not looking for grammatical problems because if a character isn't working, the text might change dramatically. Not to mention that typos can be introduced in the course of even small revisions, so it's best to leave the detail work until the big picture is taken care of. 

Perhaps likening this to the installation of a new bathtub will help: you don't caulk the seals of the old tub and then rip everything out and put in the new tub, because you'll just have to recaulk (can you tell I just learned how to caulk a tub last weekend?). So leaving the details until the third or fourth pass is necessary. 

But that means that by the fourth time I'm reading it, the eye can easily elide over mistakes, even very obvious ones. This is why another pair of eyes is crucial to catch those last few errors. And then it comes back to me, the one who knows the project best (on the publisher's side--it also goes back to the author for one last look), to be sure that it all comes together.

So that's what I'm doing this week--working on bringing it all together for a couple books in various stages.

As I've mentioned before, I'm going to be at BYU's Writing for Young Readers conference June 16-20. Their website is now live, so if you're interested in a workshop that will really delve into your writing, this is for you. I've never attended, but I hear really great things about it. Each track has faculty assigned, and they'll look at the first chapter or two of your book and really workshop it. 

I'll be speaking there and then just generally participating, networking, etc. The title of my talk is “Passion or Practicality—Writing for Love or the Market." 

So go check it out, and sign up if it sounds like just the thing you've been looking for.

But you'll just have to settle for a straightforward entry from me today. Here's something for the "did you know?" column.

One of the things an editor must sometimes do that isn't editing is to write copy--catalog copy, cover copy, and even sometimes ad copy and discussion guide copy. After all, the editor is the champion of the book in the publishing house and they tend to know the book best, so sometimes coming up with a summary or a teaser is best done by that person.

I've heard that this varies from house to house--sometimes your editor writes that copy, and sometimes someone in marketing or an editorial assistant might write the copy.

But as you can imagine, for the catalog to be interesting to the buyers (book buyers at both independent bookstores and chains, and mass market buyers too), the catalog copy needs to really give a great sense of what the book is about and why that buyer would want this book. They need to get a sense of the atmosphere and to know what the plot is all about, who would be reading it.

It can be quite a challenge, which uses an entirely different part of the brain than editing. In fact, I like it, exactly because of that. Sometimes it's nice to have the change of pace. It brings back some of my earlier days in newspaper and trade magazines, in fact. I've never considered myself good at titles and headings, so to come up with one tagline to describe a book can be mind-racking. Yet at the same time, the brainstorming process--listing words and key phrases which might be combined to interesting effect--is quite fun. 

I think this process might actually help writers as they write cover letters and queries in the submissions process. Pretend you're writing cover copy for your book. What does the reader need to know to want to pick up this book? A good rule of thumb is "less is more" in cover letters--boil it down to one or two sentences. In Hollywood I think they call it "high concept." (Not that your story should be high concept, but that you can boil down your plot and characters to a few sentences for such purposes.)

An example of catalog copy from a previous season might help you know what I'm getting at. Here's what we had for Red Dragon Codex in our Spring 2008 catalog:

Mudd lives a peaceful life in his small town, tinkering with the mill and any mechanical devices that he can find. But his peaceful life soon changes when, out of nowhere, a red dragon attacks, burning the town and kidnapping Shemnara, the village seer. Only one clue is left behind—a cryptic note telling Mudd, “Seek the silver dragon.” In this first Dragon Codex, R.D. Henham spins a fantastic adventure where dragons take center stage.

Now, obviously, you wouldn't praise your own writing the way marketing copy might praise the writer's writing. But the point is the same: your cover letter or query is marketing copy. You are marketing your writing to an editor or agent. So briefness and the big concepts are what matter here. It gives the editor the hook and doesn't ramble on.

I've had conversations with a few friends outside the publishing industry lately who tell me that they think self publishing is the way to go for their fiction. They've got a lot of reasons for it, but the one that stands out is that they think they can make more money by self-publishing, because writers make so little per book that unless you're a hit, publishers don't pay any attention to you and you'd be better off hiring a PR firm to market your book.

There are so many things I'd like to dispute in this thinking about the industry, not least of which that you only get PR attention if your book is already big (not true). While self publishing can be quite successful for very particular purposes--for example, independent comic artists tend to do better by self publishing (see my friend Howard at Schlock Mercenary for a great example)--and it can definitely serve writers who only have a limited audience in mind--as a family historian, I can tell you I'm looking forward to using LuLu or a similar service for several personal projects for which the only audience would be my family, and I know one friend who wrote a picturebook for her daughter and wanted to have it published in time for the daughter to be able to enjoy it, and felt that any other sales she might get would be a bonus--in general, for fiction, self-publishing is a sure way to ensure you spend a lot of money and that few people will ever see your book.

If you're okay with that and have money to spare, go for it. But if you want your book to sell to a wide audience, especially if you'd like to make a living at your writing, self-publishing is definitely not the way to go, even if you know someone at a PR firm who would do some google-bombing and social networking for you. There are some very few exceptions—very few. Out of the several thousand self-published books every year, about 5, tops, break out enough to actually make a profit for the writer and/or get picked up by a trade publisher, and few more are actually well-written*. That's not really very good odds, especially if the author is paying out of pocket for the PR and marketing.

Let's break it down and talk about why this is. I'm pretty sure the majority of my readers will have heard this kind of thing before, especially if they frequent blogs like Writer Beware. But let's assume a lack of basic knowledge of publishing for this post, because that's where these friends, most of whom fall into the 'would like to write someday" category, are coming from.

( A big ol' long list behind the cut )

*And believe me, I see a lot of the other kind in my slush pile. (DO NOT think that self-publishing will get you the attention of a real publisher. In fact, it will ensure that book will never see the light of day from a regular publisher in most cases except for the very rare exceptions.)

Also, one reader asks:

No doubt you don't need anyone to tell you this, but I wish SP folks realized that the places to advertise their book are not 1) editors--since if it's already published they don't need an editor (see Editorial Anonymous), 2) agents, since you can't rep a book that's already been published, and 3) boards for writers to discuss craft and traditional publishing. SP is not for me, but maybe a few pointers on where it IS appropriate to plaster your ads would be helpful to those who want to do it?

This is a very good question. Anyone want to tackle this in the comments? I'd say stay out of my inbox, stay off my Myspace, and please don't market to me as an editor, period. I don't want to see previously published stuff in my slush pile because I can't publish previously published work.

I do think that especially if you're writing science fiction and fantasy, you should be going to as many fan conventions as possible to market to actual readers. Sometimes school visits work. I know that Eragon did so well because his family packed up a van and traveled across the country selling it--I don't know where. Was it at flea markets? Something like that--someone correct me, as I don't have time to google it. Whatever it was, they did a great job and it ended up being successful for them. But just know that it's going to be a big, uphill battle if you go the self-publishing route, and that when you act as your own publisher, you're going to have to fill all the roles of the people I listed above, or hire them out yourself. That's a lot to juggle, and for most people, they'd rather just be in charge of their writing, period. They're willing to do the self promotion because it's a necessary evil in this market--and because it connects them with readers.

moar humorous pics

In other news, I'm feeling a little evil genius-y myself. I'm working on a post about self-publishing vs. regular publishing (inspired by the questions of a friend), and I've got some great quotes on writing for children I want to share. I also have two or three other post ideas on the queue which will be coming out in the next few days. I'll keep you posted.

I'm on a social networking site for personal reasons (it's not Facebook or MySpace). I've got a lot of personal friends on there, many of whom I don't keep up with in any other way. But I don't mind letting people know that I'm a children's book editor because it's fun to point people in the direction of the basics, like The Purple Crayon, SCBWI (and its attendant local writing groups), and a few other good children's book resources.

I'm on MySpace too, in a more professional capacity. I generally use that account to promote Mirrorstone (but now that we have a Mirrorstone MySpace, it's less necessary) and to participate in groups like the Readergirlz chats. The Mirrorstone MySpace lets librarians and others on our friends' list know about author appearances, contests, and other important information. On my personal account, I love connecting with teen readers and with writers published and unpublished on a social level to talk about literature and recommend both books that I've worked on and others' books.

I personally use social networking sites, in other words, to network socially. There's a professional aspect to it, but mostly it's about the fun of, in one case, all sorts of things with my personal friends, and in the other, all things books-related.

The complications come when someone expects personal attention because they're a "professional" in some related industry. (Perhaps they know graphic design, or they are in the magazine industry, etc.) But if they don't know children's books--and there are a lot of really great people on both sites who aren't published but who know the industry--generally their lack of understanding of this very particular industry shows, and they're just as likely to tell me all about the illustrator they found for their picturebook, or to ask me, a perfect stranger, to read their manuscript.

So here are a few guidelines for connecting with an editor on a social networking site. Just some friendly advice that hopefully will help you avoid annoying the person you might like to help you. For most people who know children's books, this will be obvious information. 

We editors tend to be a cynical bunch, because we've probably seen the same thing a hundred times before in our slush and at conferences. So it's best to treat an editor online the same way you would in person.


It all comes down to basic professional behavior. Just because you're on the same social networking site as the editor and 50,000 or a million other people (and ESPECIALLY if you don't even have a friend in common!), don't think that somehow it will give you any kind of edge. If you ask me a question about publishing on a social networking site, I'll give you the same information I give anyone on this blog, on my blog at Gleemax*, on the Mirrorstone blog, and pretty much at any conference I might speak at. I don't play favorites, especially with perfect strangers.

Know the industry. Write well. These are the secrets to success. There are no magic bullets. 



* I've been meaning to post about that blog at Gleemax for a while, but I haven't really gotten it up and running yet. Mostly my plan is to copy over important posts from here for a while, but I haven't really had the time to do a lot of copying yet. Gleemax is Wizards of the Coast's new gaming social network, which is in alpha right now. Several staff members keep blogs there. Most of them are from the gaming side of things, though I and an editor from the adult imprint keep blogs, too.

The feeling when an editor looks at the final correction on a galley and passes it back to the typesetter without any more corrections is a very happy moment. It means a lot of things: the first is a feeling of relief--one less book to juggle on my schedule! But it's also a joyful feeling of the culmination of a year or more's work (and that's just the time I spent on it, not counting the artists, art directors, designers, typesetters, and of course the author). Soon it'll be out there for people to read!


*If you're wondering, the book in question is Red Dragon Codex by R.D. Henham (with assistance from Rebecca Shelley!), the first of a series of books featuring the dragons from A Practical Guide to Dragons. In the first book, Mudd lives a peaceful life in his small town, tinkering with the mill and any mechanical devices that he can find. But his peaceful life soon changes when, out of nowhere, a red dragon attacks, burning the town and kidnapping Shemnara, the village seer. Only one clue is left behind—a cryptic note telling Mudd, “Seek the silver dragon.” It's a fantastic adventure in which dragons take center stage. Look for it this coming January--I hope you love it as much as I did.

And now a public service announcement from the adult side of the books department. If you've seen the latest PW, you should look for the WotC Discoveries ad about halfway through--it's very nice. Note that they'll be open for unagented submissions next month, though agented submissions can be sent year-round.

Wizards of the Coast Discoveries™ is a fantasy-tinged speculative fiction imprint that discovers new worlds, new talent, and new voices for adult fiction readers.

Wizards of the Coast Discoveries, a brand new imprint debuting in January 2008, is looking for well-written speculative fiction. We will open for submissions September 1 and close for submissions January 15. Further guidelines can be found at http://www.wotcdiscoveries.com.

Agented submissions are welcome year round.

In January 2008, Discoveries will launch this exciting new imprint with Firefly Rain, a southern gothic ghost story by Richard Dansky. Further launch titles include Last Dragon by J.M. McDermott and Devil’s Cape by Rob Rogers, both first-time novelists who were selected from previous open calls.

Good Luck!

So if you've got a manuscript you think would fit Discoveries--I hear from my compatriots that they're looking for speculative fiction like magical realism, high fantasy that breaks boundaries (i.e., this is not your father's high fantasy), horror--they're pretty open right now, but it needs to be of a literary bent for adults. Follow the submission guidelines and don't submit until Sept. 1.

And feel free to pass this along to writers you know, writing groups, etc.

You've caught me on a working Saturday, but I needed a break, so I paused to read a chapter of my much-anticipated new copy of Storm Front by Jim Butcher, the first book in the Dresden Files. As you might have heard if you read Meg Cabot's blog (or, y'know, mine), there's a new wizard named Harry in town (well, old, actually--the book was first published in 2000), which SciFi has turned into a really awesome TV show. This Harry's wand is a hockey stick or a drumstick as opposed to unicorn tail hair and ... willow, is it? 

And even if you're not into fantasy, Harry is well worth watching. It's urban fantasy ala Charles de Lint and Holly Black, with of course its own twists. One reason I love it is the setting: I lived in Chicago for 2 years and I'm an Illinois native, so Chicago is close to my heart. It's a great setting for an urban fantasy and much different from a New York or other East Coast setting (which also are interesting, just very different in culture and setting).

Well, I didn't get quite a chapter finished because we also had our landlord pop over for some maintenance stuff, but I read enough that I wanted to share with you snippets from the first pages to show you what I mean by a good beginning, in answer finally to nomoretwaddle's question from last week.

First, here's the first three paragraphs:

I heard the mailman approach my office door, half an hour earlier than usual. He didn’t sound right. His footsteps fell more heavily, jauntily, and he whistled. A new guy. He whistled his way to my office door, then fell silent for a moment. Then he laughed.

 

Then he knocked.

I winced. My mail comes through the mail slot unless it’s registered. I get a really limited selection of registered mail, and it’s never good news. I got up out of my office chair and opened the door.

The new mailman, who looked like a basketball with arms and legs and a sunburned, balding head, was chuckling at the sign on the door glass. He glanced a me and hooked a thumb toward the sign. “You’re kidding, right?”

I read the sign (people change it occasionally), and shook my head. "No, I'm serious. Can I have my mail, please."

Must Love Books is a new blog by T.S., a colleague of Alvina (of the Blue Rose Girls). He's an editorial assistant at a children's book publisher and has made a good start with a post giving advice on getting into publishing. Welcome, T.S.!

ETA: Thanks for all the congratulations and well-wishes. And yes, my slush pile *does* get promoted with me. Nobody else will be reading it...

I haven't been over to JacketFlap for a while, simply out of negligence, which means that recently that when I figured out how to do buttons on my sidebar I forgot to add this one:



... (well, one similar to it) which you should see now over there on the right. Especially if you don't already do the LJ friends-list thing, JacketFlap is a great way to aggregate your children's publishing related blogs all in one spot--blogger, LJ, all of them.

In their own words, "JacketFlap has become the world's largest and most comprehensive resource for information on the children's book industry. Writers, illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, and publishers visit JacketFlap every day. JacketFlap is one of the best resources available for getting your blog in front of the right people."

My blog reading is usually just reading my friends page here on LJ, because it's the easy way to do it for what I know how to do, but Tracy and the JacketFlap people have really been doing a great job in creating interesting content and figuring out all the good blogs and getting them all in one place--another reason I haven't been over there, because I know if I add all the interesting blogs to my reader I'll spend all my time over there!

So anyway, if you don't know what JacketFlap is, check out the link. If you're a children's or YA author and your blog isn't listed, check with the JacketFlap people about how to go about doing that.

Now I'm going to go figure out all the blogs they've added since I last browsed...

Continued from Part 7

(We're getting near the end, don't worry! This was only a one-hour talk.)

Now, we're on to Tiffany's second draft. With this particular draft, Tiffany focused on improving the initial buildup.  Then she turned in the next draft (just like the other thumbnails).

• Go to conferences
• Do local promotion—library, school visits, actively talking to booksellers before the book comes out and let them know you’re a local author, be willing to do what it takes to get out there and promote your book
• Keep a blog or LJ.
• HAVE A WEBSITE—and make it as good and informative as you can make it
• network with other writers—sense of community, and gets the word out to other book-loving people

And keep writing! Make your second book and your third book even better than your first. Tiffany has already written book 2 and is now working on writing book 3 and revising book 2.

Oh, I lied. That's something they didn't hear in the presentation! ...because I have been thinking about it ever since.

There are happy ever afters, too.

Because when you're doing what you love, that is a happy ever after, despite--and because of--all the work you continue to do. 

Thanks for listening. Hope this has been helpful. Any questions? (Really, I mean it. Ask your questions and I can address them in a later post.)

Continued from Part 6

Yesterday, we left off with the outline stage of In the Serpent's Coils. Let's continue with the rest of the revision process. Like I said yesterday, Tiffany went through 6 different drafts with me from first sample on 8/29/05 to turning in final draft to me on 7/31/06. So, over the course of a year—and this includes writing time, due to the nature of this kind of series work—she went from sample chapter and outline to full, fleshed-out manuscript. Then, when you’re working with an editor, this process continues, and that editor will be the person asking even more questions. 

Let’s look at the first chapter of the first draft, and see how it’s changed (click on the thumbnail for the full image).

 

 

As you can see, she starts the chapter off at a completely different place than in her sample. I really liked this, because I got a chance to get to know Corrine before we bundled her off to reform school.

 

I don’t believe I said to Tiffany that we needed more at the beginning for build-up to the scene with the uncle, but Tiffany’s instincts hit on that before I ever had to tell her.

 

Corrine going through the desk wasn’t right in the first chapter. She needed the motivation to be going through the desk, we needed to set up what was going on in the plot.

 

A good two or three chapters were added to the beginning of the book to establish who Corrine is, what she’s going through, who her uncle is, and why he doesn’t want her in his study.

 

All very important to getting her out the door to Falston, where the real mystery begins—and all indispensable to the story, because each of these scenes sets up the mystery Corrine must investigate and the danger that’s stalking her.

 

However, it still wasn’t quite finished. Questions I asked at this point:

• Mostly big-picture, but some details
• How can we increase the sense of mystery?
• Why are the letters so intriguing to Corrine? (be more specific)
• What is Corrine’s motivation? (perhaps she’s a “detective”/snoop, curious girl who can’t stop investigating) How can we establish her personality better? 
• What is Corrine’s talent (magically)?
• How can we flesh out the characterization of minor characters?
• How many students at the school?
• How did reform schools work in that time period?
• How can we condense/expand to give a better sense of the passage of time?

Continued from Part 5

(For anyone coming to this late, this is a talk from Life, the Universe, and Everything, a symposium/convention hosted at BYU in Provo, Utah, every February.)

Now we get to the most interesting part! You’ve found a publisher who is interested in your book. You get an offer! Now what?

Philip Pullman: This is where editors come in. Their function is to snatch the book from you and run away quickly!

Tamora Pierce: Yes, and then to come back and say, "Okay, here's what you were doing." And you're sitting there: Wow. I'm smarter than I thought. 

• A good partner brings out the best in you
• Trust your editor, and she’ll trust you
• A good relationship is all about compromise
• Honesty is the best policy (or, hell hath no fury like an editor scorned)