What would you do?

[j_cheney]

More tweaking...on the massive re-write. Rough in spots at the 'sentence level', so some line edits are coming my way.

I've already done a pretty big re-write to get this story to fit what this editor wants, so little line edits probably won't phaze me at all.

I'm always curious about working with editors on this kind of thing (as in, learning their editorial style). Some editors are likely to impose themselves on one's writing, others aren't. It doesn't really bother me as long as they don't cross the line.

Where is that line? For me, I suspect it would be:

a)where we had an instance of the "I'm going to make all your sentences simple (noun verb noun) enough for third graders." I hate it when people rewrite my sentences into third grade form. I'm not the Comma Queen for nothing! Or,

b)where they want to change something that would ruin the overall 'outside' story arc. By this I mean changing something that would affect a related novel--or in the case of a Dragon story, mess up the related short stories past redemption. And once the first story is published, some things will be set in stone.

What would you not be willing to change for an editor?

Comments

[tlmorganfield.livejournal.com]

I once turned down doing a rewrite because I thought the change the editor wanted would completely screw with character nuances and would in essence make the story I wanted to tell completely fall apart. It seemed like a rather minor detail at the time when ask me to change it and I said I would, but the more I tried to think of alternatives, the more I realized I couldn't change this particular aspect without considerably altering the story itself. After consulting with a few trusted readers and asking them if they'd had believability issues with this aspect like the editor had and was told they'd had no issues, I decided I didn't want to change it and wrote the editor back and explained my reasons for not wanting to make the change. I knew he'd reject the story for it, but he was nice about it and we parted ways with no hard feelings.

I've had editors line edit my stuff to a point I wasn't entirely comfortable with what they'd done, but decided it wasn't worth haggling about. I was miffed when one magazine undid all my capitalized pronouns for the Aztec gods but decided that too wasn't worth quarreling about (it was a Christian magazine and so I understood why they did it, but it seemed a bit reactionary to me, since the pronouns were used in dialog and the characters would have extended that particular reverence to their gods. I changed them all back when I submitted it to Anthology Builder though.).

[camillealexa.livejournal.com]

I've had editors line edit my stuff to a point I wasn't entirely comfortable with what they'd done, but decided it wasn't worth haggling about.

That's usually the case for me, too.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

That's sort of what I thought, too. I know why the editors are doing it, and it's their magazine/anthology so if I don't like it, I'll have to take my toys and go home...

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Ah, the creative control of AnthologyBuilder!

I do think I had one thing edited more than I wanted once, but it was flash, so I didn't quibble. As you said, wasn't worth haggling about...