Hello All,
Since my last post about The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, the book has been steadily climbing the New York Times bestseller list, where it currently resides at #5 - very exciting for this first-time author! He has taken some time out of what is no doubt a frantically-busy schedule to answer a few more questions for us.
LR: Tell us about your experience working with your editor, Lee Boudreaux. At what point in the life of the book did she first read it? How much did it change since you two began working together?
[Note to readers: many of you who aren't in the book publishing business may never become aware of who edits a particular book, but the editor can often have a significant influence on a work. This editor, Lee Boudreaux, is well-known and respected in the industry, and is the force behind a number of high-quality works of literary fiction.]
DW: Lee first saw the book in December 2006. It had been a "completed manuscript" several times over at that point. I'd been working on Edgar for so long that I'd declared a moratorium on changing anything until some editor put the book under contract, which I expected would be never (despite the prediction of my superstar agent, Eleanor Jackson, who said it would be placed by the end of the year.) In fact, I was so sure Edgar wasn't going to be published that
I accepted a new, demanding job that November and resigned my old, comfortable job. During my two weeks' notice period, we went from no interest to several interested editors, to an auction.
Note to self: never doubt Eleanor.
That manuscript -- the one Lee accepted -- was the result of a cutting-only draft that took four months and reduced the length of the book by about 15 percent. I thought I'd cut everything that could be cut, maybe even a little more. I was wrong, of course.
LR: How did you work together – was she a hands-on editor or not?
DW: I have nothing to compare our work with, so I can't say in any absolute sense. Lee might answer quite differently than I. But it FELT as if she was hands-on, in a good way. The number one thing to know about Lee Boudreaux is that she eats rocket fuel for breakfast. Every once in a while she slows down to my speed, but it takes an effort of will on her part, and I can almost hear the thunderclap when she hangs up the phone and shifts back into her regular gear.
Lee went over that manuscript with an eye for detail that was, to put it mildly, alarming. Since I had recently cut so much, I knew she was bound to find continuity errors. But Lee probed everything, including story elements that had been givens from day one. She'd warned me, but I was still floored. It took several months to think through all her questions, and I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it. But her questions were legitimate, across the board, and she was always
asking what was best for the book. We ended up going through the book twice more, with varying emphasis, before calling it done.
The end result was that the manuscript shrunk by an additional ten percent as we cleared away extraneous details and narrative tangents that obscured the story's larger movement. That was a surprise. I'd thought the final result might actually be longer.
[more to come...]
Since my last post about The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, the book has been steadily climbing the New York Times bestseller list, where it currently resides at #5 - very exciting for this first-time author! He has taken some time out of what is no doubt a frantically-busy schedule to answer a few more questions for us.
LR: Tell us about your experience working with your editor, Lee Boudreaux. At what point in the life of the book did she first read it? How much did it change since you two began working together?
[Note to readers: many of you who aren't in the book publishing business may never become aware of who edits a particular book, but the editor can often have a significant influence on a work. This editor, Lee Boudreaux, is well-known and respected in the industry, and is the force behind a number of high-quality works of literary fiction.]
DW: Lee first saw the book in December 2006. It had been a "completed manuscript" several times over at that point. I'd been working on Edgar for so long that I'd declared a moratorium on changing anything until some editor put the book under contract, which I expected would be never (despite the prediction of my superstar agent, Eleanor Jackson, who said it would be placed by the end of the year.) In fact, I was so sure Edgar wasn't going to be published that
I accepted a new, demanding job that November and resigned my old, comfortable job. During my two weeks' notice period, we went from no interest to several interested editors, to an auction.
Note to self: never doubt Eleanor.
That manuscript -- the one Lee accepted -- was the result of a cutting-only draft that took four months and reduced the length of the book by about 15 percent. I thought I'd cut everything that could be cut, maybe even a little more. I was wrong, of course.
LR: How did you work together – was she a hands-on editor or not?
DW: I have nothing to compare our work with, so I can't say in any absolute sense. Lee might answer quite differently than I. But it FELT as if she was hands-on, in a good way. The number one thing to know about Lee Boudreaux is that she eats rocket fuel for breakfast. Every once in a while she slows down to my speed, but it takes an effort of will on her part, and I can almost hear the thunderclap when she hangs up the phone and shifts back into her regular gear.
Lee went over that manuscript with an eye for detail that was, to put it mildly, alarming. Since I had recently cut so much, I knew she was bound to find continuity errors. But Lee probed everything, including story elements that had been givens from day one. She'd warned me, but I was still floored. It took several months to think through all her questions, and I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it. But her questions were legitimate, across the board, and she was always
asking what was best for the book. We ended up going through the book twice more, with varying emphasis, before calling it done.
The end result was that the manuscript shrunk by an additional ten percent as we cleared away extraneous details and narrative tangents that obscured the story's larger movement. That was a surprise. I'd thought the final result might actually be longer.
[more to come...]
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