On being edited.

I was wondering how you feel about being edited. This thought was prompted by a number of things. Firstly, the American writer Peter Straub, is due to release a new novel in early 2010, his first in 6 years, except he is releasing it in 2 editions.

“What Subterranean Press will be publishing is an earlier state of the novel now called A Dark Matter. I wish to have it preserved and published in this form as well as the final, many-times-re-edited form to indicate what I hoped its shape would be like. This is a much looser, sloppier, more wild-eyed version of the book, with blind alleys, red herrings, and false trails.” -- Peter Straub

“The Subterranean Press edition of The Skylark is approximately 200 manuscript pages longer than the trade edition, to be published as A Dark Matter.”

The American writer Robert McCammon stopped publishing novels for 10 years, between 1992 and 2002, because of difficulties with how he wanted to evolve as a writer and the publishers perception of what they felt he was (a horror writer). Robert has an unpublished novel called The Village about a Russian dancing troupe during World War 2 which may have had sympathetic characterization of Germans and his publishers did not want to publish it.

Stephen King has published uncut versions of The Stand and Salem’s Lot, the latter with a lot of alternative situations which seemed to have been cut or changed at the suggestion of the publisher.

So when you have finished a first draft of a new novel, what is your reaction when the publisher says “we love it BUT ….”? If you wrote a novel called “Charlie Parker goes round Ireland With a Fridge; Guinness Will Flow” would the publishers perception of the John Connolly brand mean that they would not be willing to publish it, unless big changes were made? How far does your Art and expectations of the publisher and public go in determining what you therefore write.

Will we get a 1,200 page uncut 20th Anniversary edition of Every Dead Thing? King wrote as Richard Bachman for a while, so do you secretly write chick-lit novels under an assumed name?!!! Main character called Charlotte Parker, with her buddies Louise and Angela!