Megan Crewe – another world, not quite ours

What I want to know more about is the editorial process you went through with GHOST–-how long was your editorial letter, how many of them did you get, how big were the changes, how many drafts did your editor read?

Okay, some of this is working off of memory, because GHOST’s revisions started more than three years ago and I haven’t hung on to the ed. letters. (I kind of wish I had, as mementos of the process, but I’ve moved twice since then and you get to a point where anything you don’t absolutely have to hold on to, you chuck rather than find another box for it.)

The first editorial revision I did for GHOST was before it sold–an editor at Holt was interested but wanted some changes made before bringing it to acquisitions. That letter came by e-mail and was quite short (since it’s electronic I still have it so I can check): a little more than a page. It focused on one major character issue the editor had. I didn’t have to make any big changes, but I did need to adjust Cass’s voice and actions across the entire book, so I did a full rewrite.

That editor loved the rewrite, and was able to offer on the book. After which we went through three rounds of revisions. The first letter was about eight pages, I think, and involved taking out a subplot and replacing the scenes that referred to it with others, some more minor character and plot tweaking, and altering the pacing and some of the events at the climax and ending. The second (about four pages) was mostly small tweaks with some more changes to the ending and the third was line edits, so all in the marked up manuscript. (All three revision notes included a marked up manuscript as well as the letters.) For each of those I just made changes as I went and rewrote scenes only when necessary rather than rewriting the whole thing. Then we were on to copy-edits!

So in total… My editor read the original submission, the pre-offer revision I did for her, that revision again when she was coming up with the first editorial letter and marking up the manuscript, the first post-offer revision, the second post-offer revision, the third post-offer revision, the copy-edited manuscript, and the page proofs. So she read it at least eight times! Just one reason why an editor has to really be in love with a book to make an offer on it. Can you imagine reading the same book eight times in the course of a year and a half?

How do you go about deciding character names? Is it something you put a lot of thought into? Or something that just springs on you as you plan? Why was Cass, Cass?

I pick names mostly by feel. The associations I have with the name, and whether that seems to fit the particular character. For Cass, I’d always liked the name Cassie, and I also liked the mythological association (in Greek mythology, Cassandra was a woman cursed to make true prophecies about the future and have no one believe her–granted, people do believe Cass at least some of the time, but she does speak a lot of truth no one wants to hear). And as I got to know her character, I knew she’d have shortened her name from the softer sounding “Cassie” to the more no-nonsense “Cass” as part of her transformation after junior high.

The original Cassandra

I do give a lot of thought to finding the best name possible, though, and they don’t always just come to me. I often flip through my baby name book (I use 1000,000+ BABY NAMES) once I’m getting close to the outlining stage of a story idea and jot down any names that jump out at me and fit the tone or setting of the book or one particular character. Then I pick out the names for all the main and secondary characters I know about, trying to make sure that none of the names sound too similar. (For ex, I avoid where possible having more than one character’s name start with the same letter, unless they’re otherwise very distinct from each other, e.g., in my current WIP I have a Jena and a Joss.) The list also comes in handy as I’m writing and minor characters pop up who need names.

What I find most interesting about character names is how the characters themselves use them. Like Cass shortening her name from Cassie, and which characters refer to her the new nickname or stick to the old one. In the WIP mentioned above, my main character is a pretty manipulative guy, and one of the ways you see that is in how he adapts people’s names: using childish or girly (for a guy) nicknames with people he wants to assert himself over, or giving a tough new nickname to someone whose confidence he’s trying to build.

Now I have a question for all you readers: What’s your favorite character name, and why? (from any book)

How many edits did you go through before deciding ‘Give Up The Ghost’ was ready for agent eyes?

If we’re counting an “edit” as a revision big enough for me to create a new file for it (which I usually do for each draft, both because of my habit of rewriting rather than just editing and because I want to have the old stuff in case I realize I took something out that maybe I shouldn’t have), then the answer would be approximately 4 and 1/3.

The 1/3 is the original version of the story, that stalled (as you might guess) a third of the way through. I’d written myself into a corner I didn’t like, and I couldn’t figure out what to do instead. So the story sat for about nine months percolating in my head.

Then I tried again, and made it through the whole first draft. Woohoo! As usual, I knew there were plenty of problems with the rough draft, so I rewrote it without showing it to anyone, fixing the things I knew needed fixing. I sent that second draft to my crit partners, who pointed out all the things I hadn’t realized needed fixing. I did another rewrite. Then I printed out that third draft and marked it up with red pen (I find it hard to do line-edits on a computer screen). The draft after line-editing (fourth) is the one I sent to agents.

And that’s pretty standard process for me, in terms of when I think a book is ready for professional eyes, though it does vary a bit from book to book.

Can you tell us what you are working on next? Or at least give a couple hints?

The book I’ve been working on recently is another YA, separate from GIVE UP THE GHOST. Three things I can share about it:

1. I’ve already talked about it on the blog twice, once giving a taste of the “soundtrack” and once discussing the format.

2. I printed off and marked up a calendar to figure out what was happening when and keep my timeline straight:

3. The story takes place on an island, and I drew a (very rough) map on my whiteboard to make sure the main locations stayed consistent:

More soon!