At the last meeting of a local writer’s group, a question came up concerning a young woman’s manuscript — a hysterical… (Er, sorry about that totally non-Freudian slip.) …historical romance that’s been going the rounds off and on for several months now because there’s a publisher “interested”…supposedly. Several people (Not me. I stayed out of it, just listening, until someone pinned me down.) suggested that she might think of changing a few things. The lady about came unglued at the seams. I mean, I swear I saw frayed threads and the hint of cotton batting sticking out. (Yes, really!) I sat startled, wondering why in the world such a book about such a tritely handled subject could bring such possessiveness of plot, story, character, and setting, when, clearly, several glaring problems could easily be healed by using the suggested alternatives. I mean, it isn’t as though this was some heavily researched, historically accurate drama. This was simply the life and times of “pretty-poor-girl-X” spurning the affections of “handsome-exquisitely-eligible-and-worthy-(if stupid)-rich-boy-Y”, all dressed up in horses, carriages, cobblestones, and even ivory-colored towers of hand-hewn stone. In other words, we’re not talking War and Peace, here. The more I listened, the more shocked I became. Was that me a few years back? Yes, I must admit. She needed to write a few more manuscripts. And she needed to divest herself from her emotional attachment to her books — from looking at her books as if they were a piece of her own body, where amputating or rearranging something would permanently mar her.
Uncomfortable with her anger and completely embarrassed for her, I got up to find another cup of coffee. That’s when someone cornered me with a pointedly directed question — what did I think?
“Ahhhhhhhhhh. Ummmmmm. We-eeeellllll. Hmmmmm,” I stammered.
“Oh, come on, E. J.!” — the newest leader of the group. (The last one quit.) “Answer the question!”
No weaseling out, I guess, huh? I thought, glancing back. “Let me get a cuppa,” I said, keeping my voice light as I desperately tried to figure out a way to stall my way into a nice, comfortable non-answer. Unfortunately, no nice, comfortably neutral response presented itself to me as I let the coffee dribble out the urn from a turn-cock half-depressed. Nor did that answer come while I slowly stirred in creamer (No sugar, thank you.)
Returning to my chair, accusing eyes watched my every move. (They all know I stall and avoid when it comes to their manuscripts now…after being viciously bitten more than a few times.) I put my coffee down, then faced my destiny — to wind up tarred and feathered by the group, once more. “Well, quite honestly, you’re creating a product. And you’re trying to sell that product for a handsome profit, right? So it has to make sense, has to be right, and has to be interesting.”
“Obviously,” someone said.
“So, when it comes to changes, you make them to get the novel that way.”
Some nodding heads. Then: “What about if you have a publisher already interested and they want changes?” — someone who’s also in about the same state as the one on the block tonight.
“Well, you aren’t the one financially at risk if it doesn’t sell, other than future royalties. You get your advance, but you aren’t the one investing the money to produce it, banking on how saleable your novel is. Sure, you’ve invested time, energy, imagination, and a little bit of money, but not thousands upon thousands of dollars to have it printed, marketed, and distributed. That’s the publisher’s job, right? So, unless it’s your memoir, which you shouldn’t write until you’ve got something memorable to write, or unless you think the book as it is written to be so substantially necessary to the world that it has to be kept intact, and you’re willing to invest your own money to publish and market it, then I think it’s wise to consider well-founded changes that will benefit the marketability of your novel. This is fiction, after all, not an autobiography.”
Silence.
I picked up my coffee and promptly scalded my lips and tongue.
“So what about your books, E. J.? I bet you wouldn’t change them.” — glare.
Now I’m getting peeved. I purposely put on a smirk. “Actually, I would. There isn’t anything in them that can’t be rewritten or re-conceived.”
“How about the end?” — challenging.
I nod. “I’ve already changed the ends of many of them several times. And I keep all of them, just in case, because they all work, and they’re all good endings.”
“How about the setting?” (This was gently asked by one of the nicer and shyer members of the group.)
“Well, that’s a bit harder, but it could be done,” I say.
“How about the lead characters?” (…From another hostile.)
“To their personalities?”
“Yes.”
“Some things, sure. Not others, because then the story falls apart. Personality, experiences, and circumstances dictate the decisions that a character makes, so you’d have to change a great deal to pull it off, but predictable changes that match what’s available as possibles in the plot along with things supported by the character’s inner motives and viewpoint, sure.”
“So you think it is okay to blow holes in a manuscript and totally change the story?” — this was the woman having hysterics tonight over changing a few things in her romance.
“I do it all the time,” I said, and, I’m afraid I was really getting sharp now, totally irritated and ready to step on some toes, never mind that the smell of hot tar was getting stronger.
The lady was not pleased.
Now, remember, the above recollection is somewhat paraphrased here. I take a more round-about circuit to getting to my point, hemming and hawing, uming and ahing a lot more unless someone is stupid enough to press me enough to get my ire up at what I consider utterly farcical attitudes.
My books aren’t extensions of me except that they represent the creative part of me doing what I like — writing novels — using what I know best…and worst from life and the living and experiencing of it. The few books that are so important to me that I won’t allow more than cosmetic changes to some of the grammar and punctuation, aren’t for sale. They are safely locked away in storage. I think most serious fiction writers wanting a career doing what they love have much the same attitude. We write what we know and like to write, not what we have some personal stake in as our self-portrait to the world. And we certainly aren’t going to suffer permanent disfigurement by changing some things inside our product. At least I hope not. 
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- Offline for a week.
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