S. K. Dunstall

I came across this blog post (from back in June). I hope K. Eason doesn’t object to my reproducing quite a large chunk of her post. This one’s for the Ann Leckie fans, and the Mad Max fans, and for all of us who name our electronic devices.

It was a dilemma

… what to call the new laptop. Furiosa, because FURIOSA … but I wasn’t sure I needed that kind of anger (and tendency toward violence) in a working machine. Also, the cybernetic limb made me a little nervous. I don’t want bits falling off.

… Then I remembered Ancillary Justice. So then it came down to Justice of Toren, or Breq, or OneEsk …

So OneEsk, it is. But I swear, if this machine starts singing, I’m outta here.

K. Eason Mythistori

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K. Eason has two books, Enemy and Outlaw, coming out from 47North in 2016.

Charles Dickens sold his stories one episode at a time. To quote Wikipedia:

His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication.
Wikipedia entry for Charles Dickens

With the advent of eBooks, serialisation of novels seems to be entering another golden age.

John Scalzi’s The End of All Things, was recently released as four eBook novellas—one novella per week starting on 9 June and going through to 30 June.

A lot of people seem to think it’s the best thing to happen to books in a long time.

Is it?

Is it, as Maya Rodale asked on the Huffington Post last year, modern torture? Or the best way to read fiction?

Some people love serials. Others hate them.

I’m in two minds. I sometimes read them and enjoy them, but in general it’s not my favourite way to read books.

But then, I get frustrated if a full-length novel in a series ends on a cliffhanger.  And a series of novels is just a serial in its own way, except the stories are a lot longer.

I read short stories and novellas and enjoy them, but my favourite form of fiction is the full-length novel. I also like to read novels straight through. In one sitting if I can (I’m a fast reader); otherwise over a period of days. If a book takes me longer than a week to read, I’m probably not planning on finishing it.

I admit, I even subscribed to Ann Leckie’s newsletter so that I could read the first chapter of her novel in one gulp, rather than a sentence a day. And you know, just one chapter is frustrating when you’re waiting for the full book.

Waiting every week for the next instalment in a series … it would have to be something truly special to keep me coming back. I usually give up two or three stories in.

Once upon a time people watched weekly serials on television and tuned in to see what would happen next week. Many of us still do—look at Game of Thrones—but equally as many download and binge view.

I even have friends who refuse to read a book series (of full-length novels) until they know the series is done, for they don’t want to wait for the next book.

Modern publishers appear to be pushing out books in a series over shorter periods of time. Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, with three full novels over eight months is an extreme example, but many novels come out nine months apart.

I can’t work out if serialisation is just an extension of this, or not.

If you don’t know the story behind the publication of Go Set a Watchman by now, you’ve probably been living without television or internet for the last few months.

Back in the late 1950s, Harper Lee tried to sell a novel, Go Set a Watchman. Publishers J. B. Lippincott bought it, and came into the hands of editor Tay Hohoff.

Ms. Hohoff was impressed. “[T]he spark of the true writer flashed in every line,” she would later recount in a corporate history of Lippincott.

But as Ms. Hohoff saw it, the manuscript was by no means fit for publication. It was, as she described it, “more a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel.” During the next couple of years, she led Ms. Lee from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its finished form and was retitled “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Jonathon Mahler, “The Invisible Hand Behind Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’“. New York Times 12 July 2015.

The rest is history. To Kill a Mockingbird had been Lee’s only published novel until the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman resurfaced recently. There was some controversy over the discovery of the manuscript, and whether or not Lee truly wanted it to be published, but published it was, and sold a million copies in its first week on sale.

Another controversy is over the quality of the book. As Joe Nocera says in “The Harper Lee ‘Go Set a Watchman’ Fraud”

Issue No. 2 is the question of whether “Go Set a Watchman” is, in fact, a “newly discovered” novel, worthy of the hoopla it has received, or whether it something less than that: a historical artifact or, more bluntly, a not-very-good first draft that eventually became, with a lot of hard work and smart editing, an American classic.

Joe Nocera, ” The Harper Lee ‘Go Set a Watchman’ Fraud“, New York Times, 24 July 2015

One thing everyone agrees on. Tay Hohoff had a lot to do with just how good ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was.

I think many people underestimate the work an editor does.

Most authors I know would say that the novel they initially turned in is not the one that gets published.

Sure, the days of the having two or three years to work on the edits is gone (for most of us, anyway), but a good editor will make suggestions as to how you can fix your work and make it better.

The editor doesn’t rewrite the book for you—that’s your job—but your book will be better once the editor has given their input.

To paraphrase one of the commenters on Nocera’s article,

… Lee’s two books are … the perfect example of the adage that great books are seldom written, they are re-written.

Bejay, commenting on The Harper Lee ‘Go Set a Watchman’ Fraud. 25 July 2015.