The editing process

Right now, Brian is working on his vigorous first full edit of HUNTERS, and I’m working on the same for SANDWORMS. Finally home after the hectic pace of Orycon last weekend, we’ve both had a week to settle in and start concentrating. I’ve managed to go through the first twenty chapters (out of approximately 86).

Brian considers the hardest part of writing a novel to be “pulling the words out of the air,” making up the sentences and scenes from scratch.  To me, that’s a lot of fun, making up stories and painting the imaginary pictures.  From my point of view, the hardest part is the first edit, taking the rough drafts of all the chapters and trying make them fit together.

What exactly is involved in this “first edit?” Brian and I each wrote half of the chapters in the two novels (43-46 apiece per book, in this case).  I’ll talk in detail about our collaborative process in a later post. Given the outline, we know the shape of the story and the sequence of major events, but we don’t start out with any of the details.  It’s the difference between looking at a blueprint and actually building a house (or a skyscraper, in the case of a DUNE novel); or, the difference between having a map and a set of directions and actually driving across country. From that rough description, we have to write each chapter.  Brian never knows how I’m going to tackle my scenes, and vice versa.

For example (one that doesn’t give give anything away), the chapter outline might say “Murbella fights with an Honored Matre challenger to secure her rule over the unified Sisterhood.”  What triggers that specific challenge?  Who is the challenger?  What is the choreography of the fight and how does she win? Where is the scene set -- in the dying orchards, or inside the Chapterhouse Keep itself, or out on the dunes in the spreading sand belt, or on a Guild Heighliner?  Who else is with her?  We view each chapter as a self-contained short story, carrying the characters from point A to B and moving the plot along.

So, when I receive the chapters from Brian and read them for the first time, it’s always a surprise. Since, even in the DUNE universe, characters can’t be in two places at the same time, we have to make sure the scenes are consistent from one appearance to the next.  Our descriptions of places, people, and ships need to conform; threads from one storyline have to link with other chapters.  That’s the first edit.  Right now I’m expanding scenes, cutting redundant explanations, filling in holes, tying up minor plot details, making characters refer to things that happened in other parts of the book.  From that point on, each draft becomes a fine-tuning process, getting smoother from draft to draft.  I’m already making copious notes for large-scale things I want to change during the next go-round.

Finally, as a postscript, several entries ago I mentioned Stephen Youll’s new cover art for my upcoming “Seven Suns” novel OF FIRE AND NIGHT. We’ve posted it here, so you can see another great job by our artist.

--KJA

Next Entry (November 15, 2005)