The Imaginary Publisher
Beware the #ImaginaryPublisher or the IP for short (no other meaning intended!). I am presently working on my duology or two book series (if you prefer) called Hunter. Book 1 is Heart Hunter and Book 2 is Rain Hunter. This duology started life as a Ph.D thesis, one of the first of the new breed of 'creative' Ph.D's where the vehicle used to explore the hypothesis is a narrative, and the critical exploration of the narrative's 'findings' is an exegesis.
My hypothesis was whether Joseph Campbell's 17 part hero quest or monomyth structure, could be successfully applied to a female hero. In Campbell's treatise 'The hero with a thousand faces' he asserts that the 17 part structure applies to both male and female heroes, but his examples are overwhelmingly male.
So, the driver of Snowmelt (as the Hunter duology was first called) was a narrative that demonstrated these 17 sections. I like to think that this did not detract from a story that was, and still is, worth telling, but it obviously had an effect on the writing.
Once the Ph.D was through, I did what most Ph.D candidates presently do who use narrative as a thesis, and that was to rewrite with publication in mind.
The novel went through a lot of changes before my (then) agent submitted it to Allen and Unwin, the publishers of my first three books. Feedback was provided and I did a lot more work on the story before Allen and Unwin finally declined it.
The first major rewrites were thus from feedback from an actual publisher, but since then, I've had feedback on it from other sources and from pitch sessions.
Each time I've responded with rewrites. It's been a long time since I've submitted it anywhere, and the duology is now a long, long way from the original Snowmelt. It is a very different story, written in a very different way, but is it any 'better'?
Many of the later rewrites have been as a result of imagined feedback from the IP (the dreaded Imagined Publisher). My work with Allen and Unwin's wonderful editors/publishers is still strong in my mind and influential, but I've also been around long enough now to know that, after a certain point, quality/effectiveness/well-writtenness is subjective.
Because I concentrated on NaNoWriMo projects such as The Third Moon and The Emerald Serpent for 18 months, I've only just got back to Snowmelt/Hunter duology recently. The break, as any writer (and editor) will tell you, has been incredibly useful.
Firstly, I don't like what I am reading. Whatever this story is, it isn't mine. It is something which I (used to) hope would please an IP. And in trying to please an IP, I have lost the integrity of what I set out to do in MY story. I have had to work hard to recapture the essence of what I had but am now back on track.
So the moral is? Well, the moral isn't to justify poor writing by saying it's 'my' story and to edit it would be to lose control of it', rather, to write the best story that you can without the IP hovering over your shoulder.
And that's exactly what I'm doing now.
My hypothesis was whether Joseph Campbell's 17 part hero quest or monomyth structure, could be successfully applied to a female hero. In Campbell's treatise 'The hero with a thousand faces' he asserts that the 17 part structure applies to both male and female heroes, but his examples are overwhelmingly male.
So, the driver of Snowmelt (as the Hunter duology was first called) was a narrative that demonstrated these 17 sections. I like to think that this did not detract from a story that was, and still is, worth telling, but it obviously had an effect on the writing.
Once the Ph.D was through, I did what most Ph.D candidates presently do who use narrative as a thesis, and that was to rewrite with publication in mind.
The novel went through a lot of changes before my (then) agent submitted it to Allen and Unwin, the publishers of my first three books. Feedback was provided and I did a lot more work on the story before Allen and Unwin finally declined it.
The first major rewrites were thus from feedback from an actual publisher, but since then, I've had feedback on it from other sources and from pitch sessions.
Each time I've responded with rewrites. It's been a long time since I've submitted it anywhere, and the duology is now a long, long way from the original Snowmelt. It is a very different story, written in a very different way, but is it any 'better'?
Many of the later rewrites have been as a result of imagined feedback from the IP (the dreaded Imagined Publisher). My work with Allen and Unwin's wonderful editors/publishers is still strong in my mind and influential, but I've also been around long enough now to know that, after a certain point, quality/effectiveness/well-writtenness is subjective.
Because I concentrated on NaNoWriMo projects such as The Third Moon and The Emerald Serpent for 18 months, I've only just got back to Snowmelt/Hunter duology recently. The break, as any writer (and editor) will tell you, has been incredibly useful.
Firstly, I don't like what I am reading. Whatever this story is, it isn't mine. It is something which I (used to) hope would please an IP. And in trying to please an IP, I have lost the integrity of what I set out to do in MY story. I have had to work hard to recapture the essence of what I had but am now back on track.
So the moral is? Well, the moral isn't to justify poor writing by saying it's 'my' story and to edit it would be to lose control of it', rather, to write the best story that you can without the IP hovering over your shoulder.
And that's exactly what I'm doing now.
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