by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I read a Salon post by Joseph Lord— “Walking Dead” author is OK with AMC’s creative liberties“– on Sunday that struck a particular chord with me.
The article was about Walking Dead creator, Robert Kirkman’s, thoughts on AMC’s plot changes and character changes for the series (Walking Dead started out as a graphic novel.) Basically, as the post’s title indicates, Kirkman was fine with it.
But what I was especially interested in was this statement from Salon writer Joseph Lord:
…he doesn’t mind the implicit criticism — and revels in the opportunity to revisit, re-craft and re-create five-year-old writing.
The article goes on to explain that Kirkman is creatively involved with the television show, which means he’s helping craft the changes.
What I found most thought-provoking was the attitude behind this statement—that creative fulfillment can be found by tinkering with a completed, published story.
Now, the reason Kirkman’s story is changing is primarily because it’s going from one medium to another. But I’ve also noticed this post-production editing phenomenon with the sudden popularity of ebooks. Even with some of my stories.
No matter what you might hear about traditional publishing’s superior editing process—mistakes still happen. I hate to admit that. I didn’t catch them, even though I read the manuscripts until I was cross-eyed. My editor didn’t catch them and Penguin’s proofreader didn’t, either. I’ve made small mistakes in, I believe, nearly every single one of my books. Not big mistakes—but hey…they’re all big mistakes if readers contact you over them.
And readers do contact you. They don’t look at the acknowledgments page and find the editor’s name and send her an email. Which is fine—it’s my book. I’m the public face for the book.
I’ve heard about a variety of different flubs on my part with my Penguin books. Each time I apologized to the reader who drew it to my attention, explaining that the last thing I wanted was to draw her out of the story. And…that was basically it. When the reader asked if the book could be corrected, I said if I was told it was going into another printing, I’d ask my editor to see if it could be corrected. As far as the ebooks…I’ve never heard it suggested that Penguin will correct those after the fact.
On the other hand…I’ve also heard about a couple of minor errors (still…errors…grr) in my Myrtle Clover self-published mysteries. You won’t find those errors—I removed them myself and republished the books. Again, I apologized to the readers who drew my mistakes to my attention. But this time, I had the real pleasure of telling them that I would correct the errors. And that was a pleasure. There’s nothing like fixing a problem.
That’s a big difference right there between traditional and self-published.
But, aside from proofreading….what might evolving books mean for the future?
I have some mixed feelings about changing books, post-publication. I’ve read posts where writers argue for story integrity—the story is the story. I understand where they’re coming from.
What if our story is a bit outdated? What if we mention Facebook in our ebook and Facebook goes under (oh happy day!)? Should we go back into our story and remove the reference and republish? Or will this destroy historical texture in our books? Okay, maybe we won’t do that with a Facebook reference. But what if our backlist book referred to the Twin Towers and we were republishing it as an ebook? Would we update those types of references, given the opportunity? What if Dickens and his descendants had updated his story all the way to the present day?
Of course, nonfiction might acutally benefit from this approach. Imagine creating a resource that doesn’t become obsolete or outdated.
On the pro side—I don’t think I’m the only one who has ever reread an old book I wrote and wanted to make changes. A better word, a better bit of dialogue. A stronger verb. Who’d even notice the difference?
On the con side–there is such a thing as over-writing. I know I used to write the life out of my story and the personality out of my characters by scrubbing relentlessly at my manuscript over and over again…when it was really fine to begin with.
What about reader preference? What if an author read complaints about the sagging middle of his published book—then he had a fantastic idea about changing it? Should the readers influence the book’s text?
Maybe the above example was a weak one…because I think many authors would want to fix a weak scene or two if they knew how to. What if it were a more controversial change? What if a writer received complaints about the profanity in his books? Should readers get a vote on that? What if it were fifteen readers complaining? What if it were a hundred? Would that change our answer? How much input should readers have? How responsive should future authors be and what’s our responsibility to our readers, ourselves, and our story?
One other point…we do need to get on with writing our next book, don’t we? To establish a name for ourselves, income, and a career. It’s probably not in our own best interests to stay stuck on the same books…after a certain point, anyway.
Or—can we/should we, as the article stated—“revel in the opportunity to revisit, re-craft and re-create”?
How much messing with a book is too much? And y’all…I don’t have an answer for this, so I was hoping you could weigh in. Maybe our responsibility is to the reader to provide the most perfect entertainment we can and to capitulate to their requests. Maybe that’s outrageous for a finished book. Maybe our responsibility is to the story itself. But…I know that when I’ve gone into my self-pubbed books to make my proofreading corrections, I couldn’t resist tinkering with other stuff, too. Where does it stop?
Image: MorgueFile: jdurham
Elizabeth – What an interesting topic! At what point is enough enough. Like you, I can think of several mistakes I’ve made in my books that I’d love to correct. But I wonder too about post-production changes to the guts of the story. One of your examples was Facebook for instance. Part of me wouldn’t want to go back and change something like that. It’s a part of that story. And it’s part of that atmosphere. I think that’s the kind of thing that I would leave alone even if Facebook did leave us. I would say in general that I would want to change grammar/spelling things or errors of fact. But plot things? Probably less so. Hard to explain exactly why but there it is.
Hi Elizabeth – it’s so good when people admit a mistake and correct it or promise to .. wish more people would do it – in general life.
Interesting topic – Kirkman sounds as though he’s totally involved with his book and adjunct ventures … so perhaps he’s allowed to tinker.
We do get reworked classics which can often bring the original to light in this day and age .. I’m thinking Alice by Tim Burton, Dickens too ..
Getting it right or putting it right would be my thing – but becoming cross eyed with re-reading and then missing things is so easy to do … I even did it with my mother’s services – someone said it’s your uniqueness don’t worry and your mother would have laughed too ..
I like your thoroughness though .. and your posts etc are always full of useful information .. cheers Hilary
Hilary–Thanks so much for your thoughts and for coming by. Yes, I think Kirkman is in a special position–they’re allowing him to really impact scripts. But it also appears he must be very easy to work with…which makes a difference.
And…good point about reworked classics bringing new understanding.
Those are others’ ideas about a work, but what if we wrote our own adaptations or just straight-out changed our original text as an adaptation.
I’m like you–if something’s just out-and-out *wrong*, I want to fix it. It seriously irks me that I can’t fix my traditionally published books.
I think over-writing is a major pitfall of this.
Look at Star Wars. Regardless of what anyone thinks of the changes made over the years, particularly following the release of the prequels, most can agree that George Lucas needs to learn to leave well enough alone and stop tinkering with the original trilogy. That’s a perfect example of re-visiting run amok.
I think fixing errors is fine. Spelling or grammar fixes don’t change the story or the characters. But it can be important to leave cultural references as they are, I think. As a reader, I’d start to feel like I was going to have to keep buying new editions any time the writer went back to change something otherwise.
Great post; something I haven’t seen written about anywhere else! I think it’s great that changes can be made post production. I was a technical writer for many years and we always ended up making changes or issuing errata sheets or updates for mistakes and/or product changes. It’s nice to think that the process for fiction can be at least somewhat interactive, particularly with mistakes… but honestly, I’m not even opposed to making other changes, too. Thank you for giving me something to think about!
It’s one of those situations where “with great power comes great responsibility.” I love that we can correct things, but I don’t believe we should change things blithely on our reader. Something that makes you squirm, as a writer, might be a reader’s favorite part.
What does excite me is the ability to re-envision — and publish it anew. A “director’s cut” or even a new story on the same theme.
Next week I’m actually going to talk about this on my blog (several posts): a couple of variations on telling the same story over.
Margot–Right. I mean, it *does* date a book to refer to things that no longer exist. But then–dating a book can be interesting to readers, too…it can transport them to a different place and time. It’s tricky to know what to do.
Paul–Over-writing is easy to do…sigh.
I think you’re right. We can mess up our work just as easily as we can fix it.
I think automatically updating versions in ereaders when new editions of a book are released would be a perfect solution for readers. I don’t know if that’s possible now…or happens now. Seems like it should.
Julia–Thanks! Oh, as a technical writer, I can only imagine how nice it would be to just go back into the original and make the changes (I suppose with tech writing a footnote would be required somewhere about the update). And…interactive! Yes, that’s a great way of putting it. In many ways, I love the idea of reader input into a story. I’ve changed my books, moving *forward*, in response to readers…actually, I’ve even revisited old characters in a series because readers wanted more. But doing it working *backward* is a new concept and a very interesting one. I’m fascinated by the idea, but also wondering if we’re opening up a can of worms or Pandora’s box or something!
Grammar or continuity changes make sense with each edition. But I really really really dislike it when publishers update fiction books for the current generation. My nephew has the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary and Fudge books by Judy Blume, and unfortunately the publishers have altered them. Hate it! They were written at a time when kids didn’t use electric toothbrushes or receive CDs for Christmas, yet for some reason those types of things were added.
These older books should be kept the way they are, because it helps teach kids about history when they have to ask questions like, “What’s a record player?” My sister said if she had known they’d be changed, she never would’ve bought them and would’ve tried finding older editions at a flea market or used bookstore instead.
Laura–That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m wondering about and thanks for your thoughts. When I read “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” I’m not wanting to have Rebecca zipping around in a car. If I’m reading “Little Women,” I don’t want Jo to listen to her ipod. That’s the part that’s worrysome to me–the updating. Some of it might be okay…an archaic reference deleted or something. But I’m on the fence about how *much* would be okay. When should we leave well-enough alone? What if it’s a book that is a modern classic….like “To Kill a Mockingbird.” What if Harper Lee just decided to go back in and change some stuff (since she’s still with us). Would it still be a classic?
I rewrote Breakthrough but I really needed to as the first release had major POV issues. And I added six chapters to the end (really, the first six chapters of Opening) so Breakthrough would not end as a cliff hanger.
I can see a few chapters of breakthrough and Opening could still be rewritten and add dialogue rather than telling or even showing what is happening. I think I will do that, but only for a few chapters.
Stephen–You bring up another good reason for tinkering with an old book–the fact we improve as writers. I’m sure most of us see stuff in our first couple of books that we’d like to change or even rewrite because we’ve gotten better and can see weak writing.
I love the thought that we can change our self pubbed e-books – hadn’t thought of that benefit for fixing those inevitable typos :) On the other hand, I’m not sure how much messing I’d do with a story afterward. I think for the most part, it’s okay to leave it!
I guess to me it sort of depends what it is. It always seems okay to fix typos, but I guess I don’t like the idea of changing the plot too much. I also don’t really like ‘updating’ because I sort of like a piece of anthropology to be part of the experience… thinking about what the author’s reality was as they wrote it. But for movies or TV, I can see a lot of reasons to tweak–it is more the spirit of the story I like to stay in tact.
It starts to sound like George Lucas and the original Star Wars trilogy.
A blatant error appeared in my first book that no one caught. I know my publisher fixed the eBook, but I don’t know if the print book was ever changed.
Typos and small errors? I say fix them.
The painter JMW Turner was so obsessed with getting his oil paintings right that he’d keep returning to them until each painting looked like a bas relief from the layers of paint, and his agent would sneak in at night and take them to sell or the painter would have starved.
Trying to get it right and obsessing have a very thin line between them, and the art and craft of writing is a constant learning experience which makes obsessing even harder to avoid.
The trick is to accept that nothing is perfect, and that even our mistakes have their own value.
The Daring Novelist–Hmm…that’s interesting. Hard to imagine some of our weaker writing to be someone’s favorite part, but you’re right–it *could* be. And I’d be more likely to scrap altogether a scene I didn’t like than to reword/rework it.
Ahh…I see. So a separate work, but an updated one with extras.
Hart–Anthropology! The perfect word for it. It’s like a glimpse back into another time, isn’t it?
Jemi–It’s always sort of a relief to move on to the next book. The idea of staying hung up with old projects worries me a little.
Alex–Ha! That’s what Paul thought, too.
Amazing no one caught it! Obviously you have sharp eyes. :)
Diane–Me too. At least, that’s what I’ve done so far, for my own projects.
Marilynn–Fascinating story and an apt analogy! It’s true…we can get obsessed over a book. I’ve always thought it was so much better to go onto the next book, a fresh project. And I’ve loved my publisher-imposed deadlines for that reason–they give me a reason to stop. But with self-publishing, we don’t *have* to stop…ever. It’s very hard.
Great point that our mistakes have value too.
Since so many others already responded, I read through the comments to see if I could add anything new.
I especially like the comments made by Paul Anthony Shortt, The Daring Novelist, Hart Johnson, and Marilynn Byerly. They most reflect my current views on this.
Thanks for bringing up this issue. I love to tinker, but there comes a point it has to end.
Re – your weakest writing being the audience’s favorite part: this is something I learned when one of my scripts was put on as a play.
I sat in the audience through three performances. There were lines in the script which make me wince — they are bad jokes, or spots where I strained a little to create a joke, or sometimes they were just spontaneous placeholders that I put in because the character had to say something and that was the best I could come up with.
In nearly every case, the audience responded strongly to those lines I thought were throwaway jokes. In some cases, the actors worked to sell the joke, but in most cases, they just went with the joke as is.
And places I thought might be too sentimental… the audience responded audibly to those too.
If you’re talking about cleaning up an unclear sentence, that’s just editing – it’s like clearing up typos. But cutting weak scenes or lines which you think don’t do the job: you need to do those before the audience “owns” it. I guarantee that someone, somewhere, considers that part to be the best thing ever.
But creating a new edition (while leaving the old available) that can actually be fun. One of the things I’m to talk about next week is what I want to do with that very play: I have two versions of that story in my head, one where the characters are unredeemable, and the other where redemption is never really in question. But the story situation is so unique, that I can’t do it as if it’s a different story.
So…. I’m thinking about doing it as a single volume, alternate realities of each other. Dark Side, Light Side. (And both will have bad jokes….)
Carol–I think there’s got to be an end to it, too. It’s why I like deadlines so much…but with these self-pub books, there are no deadlines!
Camille–Oh, that’s funny. Well, it’s probably just showing that *we’re* evolving and our writing is getting more sophisticated and we wince at some of our simpler stuff. But simple stuff is good! Simple is popular. :) So a good point from you…if we don’t like what we perceive as a weak scene (years later), maybe we should just keep it in there–somebody is sure to miss it when it’s gone.
I love your Dark Side, Light Side idea. It almost feels “Mystery of Edwin Drood”ish to me.
As for me, I prefer to be “done” when a piece is published. As a debut author I have written 2 new books since my debut one published this year and I have already seen how I’ve grown as an author in my work. I have put my debut novel on the shelve and said “goodbye” and don’t re-read as it’s hard to find things I would change now! Sort of like watching yourself on TV. Uncomfortable.
I also like the idea of books staying unchanged. They are unique – a product of the time they were written in and the state of mind of the author at the time. What if Fahrenheit 451 were “revised” or Call of the Wild? I would be sad. I love to re-read them as is, to re-visit old friends and remember them as they were.
Just my 2 cents.
Donna–I dislike reading my old books, too–I’ve even come up with a standard “cheat sheet” for them so that I can just review my sheet if I’m speaking to a book club, instead of re-reading my books! With the proofreading thing, though–hard to put the blinders on and not look at the text, looking only at the errors.
I’m like you–changing the classics? I’d hate it. Many modern books are the classics of tomorrow…so I guess the same standards should apply. We should learn to leave some elements of our books alone.
As I am about to release a 5 year old novel into the world at last, I suffer from typo-phobia. Severely. My eyes can’t catch them all, though I know the ones I habitually make.
The beauty of publishing an ebook is that readers can point them out and we can go in and fix them.
As for major changes, I published a novella, a Victorian Gothic called The Lady in Yellow. People gave it good reviews but complained it needed to expand, or develop – into a novel. Since this is a relatively new project, I plan to do that. Who know what will happen? I will tell readers it is an expanded version and get a new cover and see…
Wow, what an excellent question! Tp be honest, if given the chance, I”d probably tinker FOREVER!
Alyne–Congratulations on your upcoming release!
Oh, it’s just so nice to fix things. I’m one of those “fix-it” types in life, and I love being able to make everything as error-free as possible.
Isn’t that a joy? To be able to take a work and change it completely into something else, marketing it with a different cover? Who’d have thought, 15 years ago, that would ever be a possibility?
Julie–Me too! That’s what worries me. :)