Chalk and Cheese? The Author and the Editor

When I wrote my first book, The Tygrine Cat, I knew next to nothing about the editorial side of publishing. As an intellectual property lawyer, I could comfortably work my way around a licence agreement but I couldn’t have told you much about the inner mechanisms of a publishing house. Every book had an editor – that was a given. But what exactly did an editor do?

Chris Kloet and Inbali Iserles

I first met Chris Kloet in 2005 when I went for lunch at Walker’s sunny offices in south London. Her name sounded familiar. While leafing through The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, I realised why – Chris contributes the article on the children’s market. Online searches revealed that she had been fiction publisher for Victor Gollancz Ltd. I later discovered that she edits Anthony Horowitz‘s high-octane Power of Five blockbuster series and has worked with a slew of talent, from Ursula Le Guin to David Almond. The idea of submitting my story to the exacting eye of such an accomplished editor was exciting but more than a little daunting.

Three quarters of the way into my third book, the world of publishing remains – to misappropriate Churchill’s notorious comment on the Soviet Union -  ‘an enigma wrapped in a mystery.’ Yet I’m much clearer now on what an editor does. Chris’s role with respect to my books goes like this (in no particular order):

• Editorial Enabler
• Town Crier
• Good Shepherd
• Proofreader
• Factchecker
• Crisis Counsellor
• Bringer of Cakes

Getting the most out of the manuscript – editor as enabler

The editor’s most obvious task is to review the manuscript and make sure it is as good as it can be. An editor’s gimlet eye will catch problems as far-ranging as logical inconsistencies, character flaws, flat sub-plots and verisimilitude (there’s that word again – see last week’s instalment for more on this). The editor needs an overview of the story, keeping a high-level picture of its various characters and complexities. Attention to detail is essential. While most publishing houses employ copy editors for proofreading, an editor will also be scrutinising the manuscript for typos, spelling mistakes and homonym errors (mine are infamous). A full moon cannot turn crescent over consecutive nights and such sudden changes of phase will not escape the watchful editor.

A good editor will do all this without ego or agenda. This is vital because to work effectively together, there needs to be trust between the author and the editor. Although it may occasionally feel as though authors and editors are pulling in opposite directions, they both have the same goal: getting the book into the best possible shape. Which isn’t to say that I always agree with Chris (only 99 per cent of the time).

My ally on the inside – editor as advocate

The lesser-known but no less important role of the editor is as the representative of the author, and of the author’s books, at the publishing house. An editor is a writer’s principal contact with the publisher and, as such, she is likely to be central in any decision to publish a new book. Without Chris’s enthusiasm for The Tygrine Cat, it wouldn’t have made it through Walker’s exacting commissioning process.

An editor’s advocacy role does not end on signing a book – as my agent Pat White puts it, she is the author’s ‘good shepherd.’ With over 12,000 new children’s titles published in 2008, it is easy to understand how competitive the market has become. Before struggling against the tide of titles in the shops, books are forced to compete for attention and resources among a publisher’s own list. New writers may be forgotten amid the glitter and glamour of bestsellers. A debut title can be lost among numerous others – cannibalised by its peers before it hits the shelves. An editor will try her best to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

A debut title is unlikely to bring in significant royalties. Children’s publishers are increasingly keen to sign authors for the long haul, looking to develop an association with the writer to span many books. The editor is at the heart of this relationship.

Let them eat cake – editor as friend

Now that I practise as a lawyer part-time and write a couple of days a week, friends and colleagues joke that I’m taking the easy option. Those who write know better! The strains and pains of this business can feel legion. If a bookshop isn’t stocking my titles, I take it personally. My eyes still prickle when roundups omit to review. I’m learning to toughen up in a world where stiff lips and strong stomachs are mandatory. Chris is always on hand with a pep talk if things become gloomy, happy to chat through a writing dilemma or even to supply cream cakes (we share a love of patisseries and a taste for red wine). Not that she indulges me – she’s the first to tell me to get a grip when I lapse into temporary mania.

Perhaps that’s what having an editor is really about – knowing that there’s someone there who is passionate about your books. Someone with your best interests at heart. Someone who’s on your side. Oh dear, my lip is quivering. Chris will tell me to get a grip!

Next Week – Reaching out to Readers: Surviving Book Week

Eastern Cats and Western Eggs: The Trouble with Titles

Lisa: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Bart: Not if you called them ‘stench blossoms.’
- The Simpsons

The delivery deadline for my fantasy sequel is approaching at light-speed and I still don’t have a title. This realisation propels me into existential malaise: what is a story without a title? Little more than a manuscript, a jumble of words on a memory stick. To exist as a book it will need a name. I find myself asking, and not for the first time: why are titles so hard?

I sympathise with F. Scott Fitzgerald. He struggled to find a name for his prohibition-era classic, moving from Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires to Trimalchio in West Egg – apparently his favourite – before settling with The Great Gatsby. From its haziest beginning to its final conclusion, a book can dominate years of a writer’s life. Infinite subtleties, sub-plots and complexities lurk between its pages. Yet with a few pithy words we hope to capture its essence; to categorise it; to sell it to readers. Together with the jacket, a title helps the browser to speculate: ‘Is this book for me?’

Titles can be wilfully mysterious if not downright misleading. While The Perfect Storm does exactly what it says on the tin, To Kill a Mockingbird gives little away. A poignant appellation sets a novel apart. From the moment that I heard about Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I was determined to read the story. Why does the cage bird sing? I had to find out. Lian Hearn’s Across the Nightingale Floor sounded similarly intriguing – and I wasn’t disappointed. If Trimalchio hasn’t convinced you of the importance of a compelling title, let us turn a moment to the latest book-to-film triumph, Vikas Swarup’s Q and A. Pithy, it’s true, and inoffensive – but does it really sell the story? While who could resist the delicious contrast of Slumdog Millionaire?

I have wrestled with titles from the outset. The first instalment of my feline fantasy took time to emerge as The Tygrine Cat. Through most of its development it was The Feather and the Flame (with ‘working title’ self-consciously typed on the cover page). The feather sequence was deleted from the story long before I sent it to agents but still I struggled to sum it up. It’s a book about a special cat – a Tygrine cat – and the answer was staring me in the face.

You’d have thought that this business gets easier with time: apparently not. The provisional title for my second story, according to my contract with Walker Books, was The Arufa Heresy. ‘Heresy’ is such a captivating word. Even the etymology fascinated me, coming from the Ancient Greek for ‘choice.’ The book was all about choice, with a fair bit of dogma thrown in, so the title seemed fine to me. My editor Chris Kloet shook her head emphatically. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘that won’t do at all, it isn’t appropriate for a children’s book.’ The story was aimed at junior aged readers and teenagers. This audience would be unlikely to understand the word ‘heresy’; it could put them off. She was right, of course (she usually is). For months, we picked our brains. Here are some of the rejects:

Inbali's list of possible titles

• Aruva’s Spindle
• The Amity Bird
• Aqarti’s Second Sunset
• The Riddle Bird
• The Fulcrum and the Feather (note the similarity to The Flame and the Feather, original title for The Tygrine Cat!)
• Aruva’s Compass
• The Truth Beneath Gully Lane
• Aruva’s Voice/Song
• The Second Sunset

Some of these make me cringe with embarrassment. In the end, we plumped for The Bloodstone Bird, which seemed sufficiently tangible while retaining an air of mystery. Oh, and anything with ‘blood’ is good.

In a fantasy series, a title becomes part of a brand, a badge or origin that guarantees a type and style of content, such as Lemony Snicket, Redwall and of course Harry Potter. A reader who has read and enjoyed one instalment is likely to opt for another. This makes series titles even harder to conjure, upping the ante and hair-pulling impulses.

And so to the sequel of The Tygrine Cat. The story follows the adventures of Mati and the ferals, who are chased by menacing phantom cats. In a bid to keep things simple, I suggested The Shadow Cats. ‘Vague and rather dull,’ said Chris. She wanted to retain the word ‘Tygrine’ to indicate the book’s identity as a sequel. I was keen to keep ‘Cat’ so that readers would know that it’s feline fantasy. We considered more elaborate titles, such as The Tygrine Cat and the Secret of Sa, but these seemed clumsy – and how would they fit on a spine? We resolved to keep the original name while adding a spin and a sense of pace. A solution has appeared and I am excited to present it to you. Without further ado, I hereby lift the curtain on the sequel’s title:

The Tygrine Cat: On the Run

You heard it here first! Now writer: on the run – to get the thing finished…

Next week – Nubian Jaunts and Sailors’ Haunts: All in a Day’s Research