Facing Changes
My friend Sandra M. Odell might have a sale on her hands — if she's willing to face the prospect that most writers dread, the spectre of having to Make Some Changes:
[T]hey want me to cut into one of my babies, butcher one of my children in the name of publication. What's wrong wtih my baby? Ugly, is it? Where is my shotgun? My nail-studded club? How dare they – ?
Hold on a minute.
What's wrong with an editor taking a chance on one of my stories and, in doing so, take a chance on me? This is a request, not a demand. They could have gone with another story. I can pitch a fit, burn my bridges and walk away. I can politely bow out and, again, walk away. Or I can set my ego aside and consider the changes, learn something. Do I want to do this? Can I do it? Will the changes improve the story? Kill it? Make no never mind? Am I so attached to the story that I can't be bothered with the truth?
– Writing to the Next Level « Sandra M. Odell
I certainly have sympathy for this — certainly, by the time, I'm done with a story, I've managed to convince myself that it is now in its final, ultimate, perfected form, with not a single word out of place. Why would anyone think it could possibly need to be changed?
As it happens, I've only had one experience, so far, with requested editorial changes. That was for my story for How the Doctor Saved My Life, edited by Simon Guerrier. I was certainly trepidatious about it at first — what if he asked for revisions that would completely change my story? But it turned out to be a fun and positive experience.
Sandra ends her post by asking, "What would you do?" I'd have to say — me, I'd make the changes. Here's why:
It's okay to mutilate your darlings. It's been said, "when writing, kill your darlings" — in other words, you have to have the emotional detachment to remove those parts of a story that you just love if they don't really serve the story as a whole. Similarly, I'd say you have to be willing to mutilate them a little sometimes. If you're willing to sell your work at all, then you're already prostituting your darlings — sending them out into the marketplace to meet the whims and needs of the first john — I mean, editor — who comes along offering money. And sometimes, if he looks over your darling and says she'd be perfect if she weren't quite so tall, you just need to smile sweetly and cut off her feet.
Editing can be an act of collaboration. Okay, that last point was horrible. Let's look on the bright side. Writing is kind of a lonely art — usually, it's just us and a blank word processor screen. But once you introduce an editor into the equation, you're not alone anymore. There's someone else whose also trying to think about how best to bring this story to life, someone who might bring viewpoints and word choices you'd never considered. That was definitely what happened with Simon — most of the changes he wanted to make, the lines he suggested, were great, and I honestly think it's a better, stronger story thanks to his input.
You can always push back. Of course, if some of the changes the editor suggests just flat out work against the story — speak up and say so. Even though they're the one who's "in charge," it doesn't mean you need to meekly sit back and do everything they ask without question. Simon had some minor changes to my story that I disagreed with, but that weren't really that important to me in the grand scheme of things, so those I let slide. But when he suggested that maybe a certain line of dialog would work better if another character said it instead, I realized that changing this line would change the entire point of the story. So I told him my reasoning, and he agreed with my argument and left the line as it was.
The original story will still exist. This happens all the time — writers will sell stories to magazines, and they'll see print, and then some years later, the writer will put the "real" version of those stories in anthologies of their own. Think of it as a Director's Cut.
Those are my thoughts on the issue. Anyone else out there have any experiences or opinions to share?
