Thursday, 30 August 2007

Don't Shoot the Editor

Just finished going through the copy-edit of Last Argument of Kings. All I can say is that I need to learn the differences between span and spun, between no-one and no one, and between half-way and halfway, and my life would be a great deal easier.

For those of you who might not be familiar with how the editing process works, allow me to elaborate:


I write the last words of the book. I celebrate said book's completion. Hurrah for me! The manuscript is sent in the form of an electronic computer file to my editor, the resplendent Gillian Redfearn at Gollancz.


1. Edit
She reads the book and makes general, large-scale comments. This chapter is not as effective as it might be, this strand is not working as well as it might, the behaviour of this character is unconvincing, things of this nature. She makes suggestions as to how some of these problems could be remedied. This, I suppose, would also be the point at which she would say - this book is shit! Die, author, die! Fortunately, that hasn't happened quite yet. My fingers are always crossed.

I now make a pass through the book looking at her changes and making cuts of my own. I agree with some things, refuse to do others. I rethink, realise she was right, and do most of the rest. Sometimes, her comments stimulate new ways of thinking in my fragile mind and I make improvements not suggested. Other times the text seems to have set like cement and it is a gargantuan effort just to change a sentence. I am not forced to do anything. If my editor feels very strongly about something, it would behoove me to carefully consider her opinions and find some compromise, but, in this tiny corner of my life, mine is the final word. Having celebrated the completion of the book, it is returned to my editor.

She goes through in detail, marking up the manuscript. Clunky writing gets the red pen, cuts are suggested (usually at the level of sentences or paragraphs, rather than whole chapters), factual errors, mistakes about the light in a room, time of day, what could be seen or could not, are flagged up. I go through the manuscript and address these issues, accepting the changes I agree with, rejecting those I don't, and do another round of fine tuning of my own.

Editing is finished. I celebrate completion of the book. Hurrah for me!


2. Copy Edit
The manuscript goes to a copy-editor (also called a desk-editor) who goes carefully through it, looking chiefly at the fine details - spelling and grammar, imposing house-style (the right kind of apostrophes, punctuation, and capitalisation etc.) It gets sent back to the author, previously as a big heap of paper, but more recently as a Word file with changes. I go through and accept what I like, reject what I don't. Probably one more pass through the whole manuscript at this point, to check no clangers have been made at any stage, and smooth off any rough prose. My critics guffaw. Alright, any prose that I think is rough.

The copy-edit is finished. The book is therefore finished. I celebrate its completion. Hurrah for me!


3. Proof-Read
A month later or so, with bound proofs hopefully printed and on their way to reviewers, the page-proofs come back, a big-ass heap of A4, pages set as they will appear in the finished book. I read through once again, checking for errors with the setting, plus a last look through for spelling mistakes, dodgy turns of phrase etc. Hopefully no glaring plot-holes at this point because (in theory) I must now pay for each correction I ask for (though if you don't do too many they usually let you off.) Simultaneously a proof-reader somewhere is doing the same. Between the two of us, hopefully, we catch any remaining mistakes.

Having reached the end of this final read-through, the book is finished. Time to celebrate completion, hurrah for me, etc.


Job done. Time to write another book ...

Clearly this is my experience, and I can't speak for every publishing house and every author, but the sharp-eyed among you will note that at no stage am I forced to do anything. In the light of this, it's amazing how often you read, in forums, blogs and reviews, opinions along the lines of "this book could have done with a tighter edit." How do these folks know that the book was not in fact already slashed to a third of its original length, thanks to heroic efforts on the part of the editor? Or that the editor didn't plead and plead for timely and intelligent cuts only to be refused by the author?

Another one you often see is "This book was full of spelling mistakes. It needed better proof-reading." Well, maybe, but perhaps the proof-reader already fixed 90% of the legions of errors? And why didn't the author make sure there were no mistakes in it? Did they not bother to proof-read it? It's their name on the front, no?

Often the 'author apologists' will go quite a few steps further, in fact, something along the lines of "I heard the author was forced to cut thirty pages to suit some arbitrary commercial pressure, and the start of the book felt a bit rushed, so I bet they made them take out loads of brilliant stuff at the start. Yeah, it would have been amazing if only those really great bits had been left in." As if the all-powerful editor is sitting on an angular throne, cackling with glee as they consign the best pages of the manuscript to the flames of Mount Doom, while the sweating author, chained hand and foot, weeps, "no, please, don't destroy the bestbits your Dark Majesty! Think of the readers!". It reminds me of people getting excited over deleted scenes on DVDs. I mean, there's a reason why they were deleted in the first place, right? Because they were unnecessary, and, in all probability ... cack.

Maybe I'm just amazingly lucky, but the folks I work with (chiefly the aforementioned Gillian Redfearn at Gollancz, but also the wondrously tall Simon Spanton) don't want to spoil my books and cut out all the best bits. Strangely, they seem to share my goal of wanting to make the books better, and, what's more, they know how to do it. There might conceivably be trifling reasons why a book would be better commercially at a certain length, but the ultimate commercial pressure, after all, is that the books be good.

Oddly, I've never EVER seen the reverse opinion expressed in a review. "Brilliant work by the editor. This book was exactly the right length." The author always seems to be given credit for good pacing. I mean I'm not saying they shouldn't get the credit (especially if it's me) I'm just saying they should shoulder the blame for the faults as well (even if it's me).

Ultimately, it's the author who has to take responsibility for their book.

So don't shoot the editor, eh?

Labels: process

Saturday, 25 August 2007

Hello America

Although the US edition of The Blade Itself isn't actually due in stores until 6th September, I'm delighted to report that amazon.com is stocking it from today, and at a generous discount. Only think, you could order that bad boy right now and crack the spine ten days before publication date. Only imagine: for those 240 hours, your friends will worship you like a god.

Simultaneously, a review from the appropriately titled Blood, Blade & Thruster, the magazine that mixes speculative fiction, satire, and self-deprecating humour (it's like they made a magazine just for me). They say, among other things:

"A fantasy novel full of enough ironic and slightly self-deprecating humor and Scorcese-esque violence to make the average hipper than thou non-fantasy reader want to learn more about the genre (my favorite kind to convert), yet filled with enough touchstones to make your average Tolkien weaned fantasy reader quite happy indeed ... This book is highly recommended by BBT Magazine!"

So any Americans out there, fantasy fans or otherwise, keen to find out what all the fuss is about?

You know what to do ...

Labels: announcements, news, reviews

Monday, 20 August 2007

Other Life - V Festival 2007

For those of you that don't know, I enjoy a double life as a film and video editor, mostly of live music these days (concerts, festivals, DVDs for bands), although over the past ten years I've done a lot of documentary and a bit of entertainment tv as well.

This weekend I was working fifteen hours a day at the V Festival at Chelmsford, attended by some 80,000 music-lovers. Most editing jobs that I do go on over weeks or even months. These shows are filmed throughout each day and transmitted not long after the headline acts leave the stage. The result is that, for the acts on early in the day, you get some time to tinker and improve on the live edits done by the excellent men in the truck. As the day goes on you get more and more up against it, until as darkness closes in you are desperately trying to fix things in the final part of the show as the first couple of parts are transmitting. You finish on Saturday at two in the morning, the time having flown past. A quick beer then back on the bus to the hotel, into bed, up at eight to do the whole thing again.

Quite a rush, I can tell you, in spite of the usual festival pitfalls of dodgy catering, occasional pissing rain, working at plastic chairs in what are basically cargo containers with doorways cut out of them, and that hexagonal plastic flooring in front of the toilets that seems to be designed to send fountains of dirty water squirting up your trouser legs whenever you step on it. Knackering and exhilirating in equal measure, but a great sense of camaraderie all round. A bit like being at war, maybe, but without the violence or the poetry. Alright, so it's not like war at all.

Excellent line-ups this year on the two main stages, and some really good stuff in the shows, even though I say it myself (small cog in a big machine, and all that). Highlights for me? A blinding set in the pouring rain from the Killers, who I think are probably my favourite band of the moment. Foo Fighters and Kasabian, two bands who always cut it live. Editors, who I wasn't a big fan of previously, but I have to admit put on a hell of a show. Surprising? The Hours - not really familiar with them, but a very tight band.

Knackered now. Going to bed.

Labels: Other Life

Monday, 13 August 2007

Best Served Cold

Seems strange to be talking about it, what with the release of Last Argument of Kings still a good 6 months away, and The Blade Itself only just about to appear in the US, but a couple of people have been asking what's coming next, so:

Reached an agreement with the good folks at Gollancz to write two stand-alone books set in the same world as The First Law, probably with a faster pace and some simpler, more focused plots. They'll feature some new settings, some new characters, and a few well-loved (by me anyway) minor characters from the trilogy in more central roles. Can't tell you who of course, that'd be spoiling.

The first is going to be called Best Served Cold, is set in the warring city-states of Styria, and, in case you hadn't guessed, is about revenge. It's largely planned out and the first couple of chapters drafted. If forced to sum it up I'd probably call it a fantasy thriller, light on the magic and heavy on the blood, treachery and poison, with the usual hefty portions of dark grey characters and black humour. And there'll be elves. An awful lot of elves.

Only kidding.

It's scheduled for an April 2009 release and, believe it or not, is listed on amazon.co.uk already. I note that, at the time of writing, it has reached a heady amazon sales rank of 1,549,626. Which I don't reckon is bad for something that won't be published for 20 months. By my estimate, it means I must already have shifted at least one unit.

Woo Hoo!

Now I only have to write it . . .

Labels: news

Saturday, 11 August 2007

Varying Opinions

An interesting spread of opinions appearing over the last few days. Dreamwatch online had this to say about The Blade Itself:

"The real joy of the book, though, is the writing style, which is fast-paced, deeply sarcastic, spitefully witty and well observed. The dialogue is razor sharp, the author is comfortable changing voices depending on viewpoint and there is very little to find fault with."

And then this about Before They are Hanged:

"The story is by turns darkly humorous and incredibly well observed. The sheer number of brilliantly drawn characters is a joy to read and Abercrombie once again proves he is deft at changing voice as he changes point of view."

Everyone loves me, right? Well, er, not entirely. No less an organ than Publisher's Weekly voiced their opinion on The Blade Itself thusly:

"British newcomer Abercrombie fills his muddled sword-and-sorcery series opener with black humor and reluctant heroes ... The workmanlike plot, marred by repetitive writing and an excess of torture and pain, is given over to introducing the mostly unlikable characters, only to send them off on separate paths in preparation for the next volume's adventures."

Aaaaargh, my eyes! My valuable eyes! I mean it could be worse. Only the other day I saw a review in which watching a certain television show was likened to wading through thigh-high excrement. But I'd say it's about the worst review I've had. Can this really be the same book about which various staff of Waterstone's say:

"Enter the rip-roaring world of an imagined medieval nightmare and cringe at the cruelty, marvel at the descriptions and laugh heartily at the silly jokes."

"This is fantastic! Not over the top, it is perfect for someone wanting to try something different as well as a hardened Sci Fi fan. Definitley 5 out of 5."

Not to mention:

"Words can barely describe how much I love this book, probably the best debut I've ever read! Put simply, it's a cracking read! Take it!"

Believe it or not, yes. If you think about it for five seconds, of course, it stands to reason that different people like different things. One man's meat is another man's poison and blah, blah, blah. But there's a difference between blithely saying it and actually seeing it, stabbing you in the face in merciless black and white.

"Why don't they like me?" I blubber, my tiny hands beating piteously at my keyboard. "Why? Why? Why? How can the same characters be both brilliantly drawn and mostly unlikeable? What is the nice man at Dreamwatch missing? How could the good people at Waterstone's have got it so wrong?" There are no answers. It's all subjective, and we all know it, yet somehow, as an author, the bad opinions never quite stop feeling like a red-hot coal down the pants.

"But Joe!" I hear you cry, "what are we to think? Who's right? Publisher's Weekly or ... everyone else?"

You want my opinion? Buy The Blade Itself. Then you can be the judge.

Labels: reviews

Wednesday, 8 August 2007

A Tale of Four Covers

Covers. We all know about the dangers of judging a book by 'em, but it's amazing how many people do. I imagine that most publishing folks would agree with me that they're the most important marketing tool when it comes to selling a book, especially by an author who may *ahem* not necessarily yet be a houeshold name. This is why the publisher likes to remain in firm control of this key element.

For those of you who are unaware, we authors (even unlike me, proper, big-selling ones) have no contractual say in the covers of our books. Of course, it behooves our editors to seek our opinions and take some notice of them, lest we become tetchy and difficult. Just as it behooves us (strongly behooves, in fact) to take careful note of our editors opinions about the text, lest we be dropped by our publisher.

A great deal of work goes into the covers for my books, therefore, before I ever get close to them. Some, I'm sure, would even say more work than the inside of the book, but that's another story. So the first version of the cover for Last Argument of Kings that I saw looked a little something like this:



Loved the background. Loved, it, and still do. For me it maintained the basic theme of the other two books (which I'd always liked, despite having nothing whatsoever to do with the idea) while adding more colour, more sense of action, more impact. I was a lot less sure about the lettering. Hard to take in at a glance, which is always a worry, and just the slightest bit, for want of a better word, girly. The big vase of flowers on the 'L' I found particularly ill-advised. I wanted to go less Jane Austen and more Frederick Barbarossa on the font, prompting this response:

Once I calmed down from my towering rage on seeing my first name spelled wrong, I realised that it was a definite improvement. The 'L' was now much more butch, but had lost legibility somewhat, and had slightly the appearance of an overgrown climbing frame. I also felt that there was a degree of twee about the whole thing. A touch Yorkshire tea-house menu although, admittedly, a menu blood-spattered and on fire.

Plus there was that issue of foil to consider. The previous covers had both featured some shiny stuff to hook in the jackdaw-like fantasy fan. Could we not give 'em the old razzle-dazzle this time, too?


Now we were really getting there. The whole thing was bursting with testosterone. I feel more manly just looking at that bad boy, don't you? (Ladies need not reply).

Of course, I'm a pedantic git (as Gillian, long-suffering editor, and Laura, long-suffering designer, tell anyone who will listen, mostly each other). The lettering on my name was still perhaps somewhat spindly. The 'L' was perhaps now too scintillating in comparison to the rest of the text, and the gold needed to be spread out around the other letters to give the whole thing a valuable flavour. Also, the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed that there were still some letters near the bottom of the page, just below my name, left over from whatever document Laura had torched to make the background in the first place.



This version came in today, and I'm sure will be very close to the final one. The foil has spread out and become a darker and more sinister bronzy colour, the mysterious letters are gone, and my name is now bold as Boromir. The finished version will be on textured paper, and the lettering and certain parts of the burned surround will be de-bossed to give it yet more depth. Mmmmmmmm.

Thanks Gillian. Thanks Laura. Job done. You could sell any old rubbish with that round it.

Now to start whining about the back cover ...

Labels: news, process

Sunday, 5 August 2007

Props from the Bookie Monster

There have been a lot of new book-blogs appearing lately, but none better titled than The Bookie Monster, who just so happens to have reviewed The Blade Itself in his most recent post.

The Good?

Among other things - "I'm usually as wary about anti-heroes as I am about selfless, perfect heroes ... but the characters of Logen Ninefingers and Inquisitor Glokta were excellently written. Not villainous but definitely not heroic, one with a fractured mind, the other with a fractured body, they are fantastic protagonists and fascinating to read." One with a fractured mind, the other with a fractured body - a nice turn of phrase. I might even have to pretend I came up with that...

The Bad?

Well - he didn't really say anything bad! Woooooh! High Five!

His Conclusion?

"This is the new, streamlined face of modern fantasy. Deal with it."

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Labels: reviews

Wednesday, 1 August 2007

The State of Things

So, the final part of the First Law trilogy, Last Argument of Kings, is edited and sent back to the publisher. It finally weighed in at a beefy 235,000 words - a good 15% longer than either of the other two - but there's not an ounce of fat on that bad boy, I can tell you.

Most recent version of the cover art here. Still a little way to go, but basically very impressed with what the designer (the eternally talented Laura Brett) has come up with. Keeps the theme going but injects a much greater sense of action and danger appropriate to the rip-roaring content. Good stuff.



The UK hardback and trade paperback are slated for release in March 2008, but some of the lucky few may find proof copies in their hot little hands over the next couple of months. And the quality of the content? You'll find a little taster on the site, but for the rest, let me only say what I always say.

It's the best book ever written . . .

by me.

Labels: news

Characters, Worldbuilding, and a Couple of Gags

There's an interview with yours truly over at Aidan Moher's blog A Dribble of Ink, where we discuss such matters as: how I got into this crazy game, characters, worldbuilding and so on. I advise you to take a look because it is a hoot.

Out of interest he'd also reviewed my books The Blade Itself and Before They are Hanged saying such things as:

"Abercrombie has written a wickedly clever novel, with a biting sense of humour rarely found in the over-serious Fantasy genre, but does so with a subtle hand and a flair for the macabre that can't be ignored."

"As with the first novel, Abercrombie's characterization is top notch. As we spend more and more time with characters such as Logen Ninefingers, Sand dan Glokta and Jezal dan Luthar we find ever more intriguing facets to their personality ... I felt closer to some of Abercrombie's characters than I ever have before in reading a novel."

Which obviously warmed me to my very nethers. He did have some trifling concerns over the pace and plotting, but we'll just pretend that never happened, eh?

Labels: interviews, news

Up and Running

Welcome one and all to joeabercrombie.com, the website of fantasy writer, film-editor and bon-vivant, Joe Abercrombie. That'd be me.

Welcome, specifically, to the blog section, the beating heart of the entire enterprise, where I will be writing and updating regularly (and not at all five times in the first week, once a week for the next five weeks, once more six months later saying "hey, I'm back, everyone!" and then never again). Apologies in advance for the inevitable examples of dodgy formatting, shoddy writing, and incomprehensible nonsense that will no doubt occur as I try to fumble my way to competence with the interface (and, indeed, with life itself).

I'll be bringing you the latest news about my work, of course - new books, new editions, new translations, public appearances even - straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

I'll be trawling the internet for those nuggets of gold and nuggets of poo that people write about me and my books, bringing them to your attention and discussing . . . how they make me feel, deep down in my rotten, shriveled little remnant of a heart.

I may well be adding my worthless opinion to the already impossibly vast amount of worthless opinions out there, when some hot topic sweeps through the blogosphere like a forest fire of fury. We will see if at a single stroke I can irritate and alienate half or more of my potential readership.

I might even discuss a few entirely unrelated topics, like food, the London underground, TV series, video games, and so on. If I happen upon anything I love, you'll be among the first to find out. I don't hate everything, you know.

Just 99% of everything.

Labels: announcements, news