Jason Howell asked Danika Stone:

Hi Danika... I'm asking this of several writers, some friends, some strangers... Q: Who doesn't want to make a hit? Be a hit? It seems in order to accomplish this, things must be reduced. The novel reduced to a shareable ad, let's say. The writer reduced to a public persona. But how does the need to reduce wind up impacting the writer and the work? How do you negotiate it? Thanks.

Danika Stone Hi Jason. Great question! In my case, I always figure that your first draft is really for yourself, and I often think of it as my 'real' version of the story. Once I plan on publishing it, however, I recognize that other readers need other things from the novel I've written. (And in some cases, other endings!) I've been incredibly lucky to have a team of editors I can trust, so I've had a good experience with that. Yes, I needed to reduce what I'd written - for length, for genre, for story arcs. No, the resulting draft wasn't the story I originally intended to tell, but it was the one that needed to be told for that particular audience. Publishing is a collaborative process, and in the end, it's the sharing that matters.

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