Mistakes writers make
Jul. 26th, 2005 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithWell, I've committed a cardinal sin. I've fallen in love with a scene, which means that when the time to edit comes, I'll resist cutting it even it if it needs to go. Even if I know it needs to go.
Refusing to cut something that needed to go almost cost me a blurb from CJ Cherryh. She had been asked to give one for LAW, but the old first chapter--which contained so many images and so much dialogue I liked a *lot*--turned her off big time. She almost quit on the book--didn't like Lucien, but more importantly, didn't like Jani--but persevered. Wound up telling her editor, iirc, that the book took off after chapter two, and wondered if I would reconsider rewriting chapter one. I had about a week and a half to do it, and it cut into my go-over-the-copyedits time, but, well, sometimes you ignore comments like that and sometimes you don't. Thing is, I knew in the back of my mind that she was right. The old first chapter wasn't working. The tone was wrong--it made Jani seem the wrong sort of hard, and it didn't set the stage for the conversation with Niall and all that came after.
But in the old chapter one, Jani sees Lucien off at the train station. They don't touch. They don't kiss goodbye. As his train pulls away, he remains standing in the car entry, and they stare at one another like animals in adjacent cages.
Ok, you may not care for it, but I really, really liked it.
One of these weeks, I am going to have to post an edits page on my website. "And this section was hacked out of LAW...and this one was razored out of CI..."
Refusing to cut something that needed to go almost cost me a blurb from CJ Cherryh. She had been asked to give one for LAW, but the old first chapter--which contained so many images and so much dialogue I liked a *lot*--turned her off big time. She almost quit on the book--didn't like Lucien, but more importantly, didn't like Jani--but persevered. Wound up telling her editor, iirc, that the book took off after chapter two, and wondered if I would reconsider rewriting chapter one. I had about a week and a half to do it, and it cut into my go-over-the-copyedits time, but, well, sometimes you ignore comments like that and sometimes you don't. Thing is, I knew in the back of my mind that she was right. The old first chapter wasn't working. The tone was wrong--it made Jani seem the wrong sort of hard, and it didn't set the stage for the conversation with Niall and all that came after.
But in the old chapter one, Jani sees Lucien off at the train station. They don't touch. They don't kiss goodbye. As his train pulls away, he remains standing in the car entry, and they stare at one another like animals in adjacent cages.
Ok, you may not care for it, but I really, really liked it.
One of these weeks, I am going to have to post an edits page on my website. "And this section was hacked out of LAW...and this one was razored out of CI..."
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Date: 2005-07-28 04:45 pm (UTC)I saw enough versions of the first book to know that you explore a lot of options before deciding on which way things should go.
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Date: 2005-07-28 04:57 pm (UTC)This time, I'm pushing through to the end, inserting comments along the way. I won't know how the beginning needs to be set up until I reach the end of this one.
Yeah, I explore options. Except that I don't realize they're options at the time...
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Date: 2005-07-28 10:57 pm (UTC)