Quote: youngun, Tuesday, 22 May 2012 08:22OK, I’m sure there are people on this site who are just as experienced as me, if not more. So I’m not going to issue any ex cathedra statements, just offer one or two personal observations that may be helpful. I think this whole matter really divides into two stages.

The first is what I would call the creative process of translating an idea into live fiction. It’s this that I think we’re essentially about on this site. I wouldn’t get too hung up about the odd typo at this stage. I’d point out to an author if poor grammar etc was spoiling their whole approach - but personally I’ve found this very rare. What I concentrate on in reviewing is: 1)is there any way this MS can be made to work better in order to achieve what the author is trying to do; 2) what markets might exist for the work.
Now, one thing that has struck me is the different attitudes that some writers may have to revising their work. For example, a screenwriter will not be fazed at being asked to deliver as many as 15-20 rewrites, sometimes more. I’m not saying writers of prose fiction need to do this, only that perhaps there is a lesson there for all of us not to be too ‘copy-proud.’
Before we leave this early magical stage of authoring, perhaps I can make a recommendation. Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction by Patricia Highsmith is a volume that goes into considerable detail about the germination and development of ideas. I think it also goes well beyond the scope of suspense fiction, just as its author’s books are now rated well beyond the ‘thriller’ category.

The second stage of things for me is really about what happens when the MS goes into the production phase. In traditional publishing, this would include the stages at which galley-proofs (‘galleys’) and final or page-proofs are produced and any final copy-editing and proofreading amendments are made. It’s a while since I took a book through production, so no doubt a lot has changed. But the onus was always to keep changes to a minimum once the pages were set. Not least because contracts often specified that an author was only allowed a certain number of alterations at these final stages – any beyond that number being at the author’s expense!

A final thought. It’s not happened to me yet on YWO. But what if one were to receive a work that was experimental in form – say like early 20th century ‘stream-of-consciousness’ novels or later stuff like Jack Kerouac. Would we seek to apply the rules of SPAG to those? Or would we approach them with an open mind?