Storytellersunplugged

Where Words Meet

I don’t think it ever gets finished

I’m doing rewrites on one of my novels. Again. I’ve sold the novel already,. It’ll come out later this year, actually, but that’s not the point. I’m doing rewrites on the damned thing. Again.

 

When I was starting in this business lo these many years ago, I never quite understood how it was that successful writers, people I admired and whose works I had read and enjoyed and damned near studied, could look puzzled from time to time when I or someone else mentioned a favored scene from a book or a comment from a character. I mean seriously, completely puzzled by the remarks. They had to think about it and I couldn’t wrap that notion around my brain, because I always knew exactly what a character had said or done.

 

I had the exact same problem when it came to reading a book that I’ve had published. One of my friends and a damned fine writer in his own right, Christopher Golden, looked at me one day while we were rooming at the same convention and shook his head when he saw me reading one of my own stories.

 

“Jim, what are you doing?”

 

“I’m reading my book, Chris.”

 

“Why? You wrote the thing, didn’t you?”

 

I frowned and thought about that for a moment.

 

“Yeah, but what if there are mistakes?”

 

He shrugged and we went on to discussing what panels each of us had for the rest of the convention.

 

But it’s true. I have to read them one last time when I get them in. I have to know if I screwed up, or if the editors did, or the printers. I have to edit them one more time, even when it’s too damned late to do any good at all.

 

That is, I think, a part of continuing your craft. I suppose people could argue that it’s really just an ego stroke, but if I only wanted that, I can look at the copies of my books on the shelves and get me daily dose of ego. No, I read them again because I have to see what I could have done better, even if it’s too late for the flaws to be hidden away.

 

Maybe that sounds weird to people, but I don’t believe for a second that I’m alone in my madness. I think everyone does it to one extent or another.

 

I’m looking over a novel now that I’ve edited and re-edited no less than four times since I wrote it. It’s slated to come out in October, and this will be my last chance to look at it before the editors come along with their mighty red pens and start slashing. I in turn will look at their suggestions and curse their names repeatedly, but it’s still all part of the process.

 

The reason is simple: I want the book to be its best and so do the editors and the publishers. Quality products will, hopefully, sell well. Even if they don’t, the odds are very good they’ll sell better than a poorly edited manuscript with as many typos as words.

 

Continuity is a big thing for me, and it’s getting bigger. Somewhere along the way I decided that I want to use the same universe and sometimes even the same characters in my books. That means I have to know what has gone before and I better not screw it up. If I say that Joe has two kids in one book and later say he and his wife never had children, you can bet that someone somewhere will notice it and point it out for me. That’s okay. I think I’m probably up to the challenge, especially since I’m not at all afraid to go back and read a manuscript again to make sure.

 

It’s bad for me. I can’t imagine what it’s like for someone like F. Paul Wilson with his Repairman Jack character who has shown up in almost a dozen novels and a few short stories and novellas as well.  Or for Stephen King, who had to keep the entire Dark Tower series clear and concise in his head for the 20 odd years it took to write.

 

Then again, I’m re-editing CHERRY HILL,which has the same main character as UNDER THE OVERTREE and the SERENITY FALLS trilogy. Jonathan Crowley has gotten around a bit. So I guess when you get down to it, I’ve put myself in the same boat.

 

Research. Even when you’re doing your own stuff, you run across the need to actually study now and then. I think if I’d been as meticulous as a student as I have to be as a writer, I would have gone to college and likely with a scholarship. In order to finish a novella that takes place after CHERRY HILL, I had to go back and read about one of the incidents that is mentioned in passing. In order to write CHERRY HILL, I had to go back to SERENITY FALLS and make sure that Jonathan Crowley said what I remembered him saying, because a lot of words have been written by yours truly since I wrote SERENITY FALLS and I can’t trust my brain to get it right. I’d rather double check, even if it slows down the writing speed a bit.

 

I’ve said before that there is no right and no wrong in this business, provided you’re acting like a professional. Get it done by deadlines, try to follow at least most of the rules of grammar, don’t act like a buffoon in public or on the internet bulletin boards where your words are likely going to be saved for all time by a few people, and the rest of this gig is almost foolproof. I edit and re-edit. I also don’t outline. I suppose the constant edits are my way of compensating for that. Or maybe I’m just a little paranoid after a few of the early reviews that lambasted the dubious edit jobs of those first few novels. Sometimes a little paranoia is a good thing.

 

My point here is that you need to have something in place to check and recheck your work. Typos and misremembered facts are like stones in a farmer’s field. Even after a dozen careful examinations, the damned rocks are waiting in the soil to make tilling everything a laborious endeavor.

Four edits in, and I’m still finding typos and the occasional sentence that made perfect sense when I wrote it and is now about as clear as a freshly soaped window. Back to the editing board.

 

A side note. Today is my sister Ro’s birthday. I hope she has a wonderful time. 

See you next month, folks.

 

James A. Moore

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