Welcome back my friends to the show
that never ends
We're so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside!
Come inside! Come inside!
From
Karn Evil 9 by Emerson Lake and Palmer
Well
I’m back. How have you been? I’ve been busy. We rebuilt our patio
and I rebuilt the fence. We also have a new puppy, EMD Watson. But
that, as they say, is a tail for another day.
What
brings me here today is that I’ve recently had the dust shaken from
my gilded view point of the publishing community. I had to do
something last weekend that it never occurred to me that I would ever
do. I asked a publisher to pull my story from publication in their
anthology.
I’ve
worked with many publishers, so far all very small press
unfortunately, and everyone has been courteous, kind, and reasonably
intelligent. Once you receive the coveted acceptance email from the
publisher the next item you will receive is the contract. In it there
is usually a line that states “The Publisher reserves the right to
make minor edits to the body of text, which will then be presented to
the Author for approval prior to Publication.” The key words in
this sentence are “minor edits”. Herein lies the problem.
I
received a copy edited by the publisher. The email attached implied
that the edits were very minor and few except for removing all of the
interview portions from my story. Immediately I was on guard. The
interview portions were transition segments I was using to let the
reader know more about MIS Disposal and the man who created it. I
liked these sections and felt they made an interesting switch between
scenes, not unlike a relevant quotation before a chapter which you
see in many books.
I
opened the file not without some trepidation. I wasn’t prepared for
what I found.
The
first few pages contained many revisions I felt were a bit arbitrary.
Example:
revising a minor character from saying “A minute only” to now
become “Only a minute”. Okay, fine, not what I wanted, but no big
deal. I liked the more formality of the voice of the first one
feeling that is the way I thought the character would speak. But in
the end, no big deal. I could let him have this one.
In
the next paragraph he began to change verb tense and to actually make
the action more passive. Example: I wrote “The army pulled in.”
He changed it to “The army had been pulled in.” Now why do this?
First, it took an action that was happening right at that moment and
made it happen in the past. Second, the addition of “had been”
also made the action more passive. It didn’t fit with the rest of
the paragraph.
So
far not too bad. Then I went a few pages on. That is where the
editing stopped and the rewrite began.
It
started with a paragraph scratched out entirely and replaced with
nearly the same wording but different order. Another “have been”
was added in along with a “that was”. Much of what was done did
not affect the writing for the better. On the contrary it weakened
it.
The
next page was worse. The entire page was red, the entire next three
pages were red. He had rewritten everything and even added in imagery
that did not exist in my original story. “A line of soldier moved
in tandem like a monstrous centipede.” Huh? No, that’s awful.
There was an entire new paragraph about the monster attacking a
hospital. What? Nothing even close to this was in my story. WTF?
After
9 pages I stopped writing comments and gave up. It was no longer my
story. He had changed the voice of the story, taking me away and
putting in himself in my place. I looked ahead a few pages. Page
after page had been crossed out and redone. He was making himself
co-author and what’s worse, making it a really schlocky story as
well.
I
saved what I had done and sent the editor an email saying I’d be
happy to look at edits to my story but what was sent to me was a
rewrite. In the past an editor might say, make this part more
exciting or this sentence is missing some color. Then they would
allow me the opportunity to revise it. Not take it upon themselves to
do it. I told him that if this is the story he wanted to publish I
couldn’t allow it and asked it be withdrawn.
He
replied stating that due to time constraints on the publication he
was sorry but would pull my story. He was totally surprised that I
had reacted in such a way. No one else had done so. Many of his
comments had come from suggestions by a number of “beta readers”.
No wonder it sounded so disjointed now. It had been rewritten by a
committee.
Obviously
there are authors out there that will let someone else totally
rewrite their story and still feel fine with putting their name on
it. There are a couple dozen in that anthology it seems. I’m not
one of those. For $11 and a free copy it just wasn’t worth it. I
want to be able to point to a story, say this is my work, and be
proud of it where ever it is published.
I
never thought I would do this, it never occurred to me I would ever
want to do this, but it’s done. The story has been pulled. I never
want to do this again.
Did
I do right? Did I overreact? Does this make me a prima donna?
Let
me know in the comments.
Don’t
forget I still have 3 more stories being published this Fall. I’ll
keep you posted.
And
as always, thanks for reading me.