I recently got to a point in the journey of the The Storyteller’s Reputation where I finally knew I had to do something different. It might have been the pandemic and my sudden lessening of creative thoughts and energy. Or receiving one more rejection letter. Regardless, I realized I needed help to be ready to be published.
I knew the story was good, as I had come close to getting published in 2018, and then again in 2019.
In 2018 I was asked for 50 pages, then 100 pages, then a full manuscript by Writers House in New York. This is a one of the best literary agencies out there, and my confidence (and hopes) grew with each request. But the final email was a very supportive, very constructive pass, citing their desire to see stories with a female protagonist and much more work done on the second act. I can’t say enough good things about in-house editor Genevieve Gagne-Hawes, who brought the story to Amy Berkower, and who was ever so supportive in her communications with me. The idea of a female protagonist for this story was a non-starter (as it was Geoffrey Chaucer’s story), and I’ve since created stronger female characters (Pippa Chaucer, his wife and Duchess Blanche, in the next two books). I did agree that the second act needed more work, and after a couple of weeks of grieving, I went back to work improving the story and honing my craft, and started sending it out again when I thought it was ready.
In January 2019 I received an email with an offer to publish from a smaller Canadian house, with the editors describing the book as “brilliant”. While I wasn’t completely surprised by the offer (as the groundwork had been laid in previous discussions), I was still very flattered and excited. But the devil, as they say, is in the details, and I soon realized that this email was from only one third of the team, and one of the other thirds was not as keen – or perhaps more accurately, was more clear about the steps needed to be taken before they would consider publishing. These steps included their editing an excerpt for inclusion in their periodical, and based on how I received those edits, they would then consider moving to edits of the full novel, with publication following if all was copasetic. So a very different process, but one I was keen to follow. As my former script editor (and brilliant award-winning author) Merle Nygate told me, “just get published, it’s a different game then”. So I jumped in.
While most of the initial edits were very helpful, a couple were non-starters, including a request to cut a major character from the excerpt. This character was key to Chaucer’s actions and reactions in the first chapter, and drove much of what happens next. I didn’t understand wanting to cut a character that would then magically appear in the same chapter in the novel. So I pushed back, and we agreed to disagree and parted ways.
I kept writing but started to lose focus as life got in the way.
Support from my writing group helped, and I turned my attention to the next two novels in the series. I had started The Storyteller’s Desire in 2018, and I progressed that a bit further to about 70,000 words before getting blocked. So I started a third novel, The Storyteller’s War, set in Navarre in what is now northern Spain. We know Chaucer was there in February, 1366, a couple of weeks before the start of the civil war between King Pedro the Cruel and Enrique Trastamara, his half-brother, with Enrique being named name King of Castile and Leon a month later. It is highly likely Chaucer was in Navarre acting as a diplomat and/or spy for King Edward the Third, trying to turn the English knights working as mercenaries supporting Enrique. A year later Edward the Black Prince joined forces with Pedro to defeat Enrique.
The writing progressed well, with 27,000 words done and the entire plot more or less mapped out. I’m normally more of a pantser but felt it important to ensure the facts were correct, and the characters properly placed in time and space. I began to make plans to travel to Spain and Bordeaux in southern France in late 2020 to conduct research. And then the pandemic hit. More on these two novels in my next post.
Writing pretty much stopped in early March as my day job (leading corporate communications for a national company) overwhelmed me. Six weeks later, after some reflection and as things began to calm down a bit, I turned back to the first novel and realized I needed help.
I had searched online and emailed a couple of editors, as I had found working with an editor (Merle Nygate) extremely helpful when I was working on the screenplay version of this novel.
After not receiving any replies from those editors (also probably reeling from the pandemic), I continued my search and stumbled on Reedsy.com.
The thing I immediately liked about the site was that I could enter specific search parameters (developmental editing; historical fiction; London; New York) and do a search, and thirty or forty editors popped up. I then carefully researched each and chose (up to) five to send queries to, with a price I was considering. A couple weren’t right (too busy; not interested), so I could cancel those and add two more. In this way I ended up getting five very good offers from five very talented editors. It was very hard to choose. I was drawn to the UK editors, but one in New York was very keen.
It ultimately came down to a gut reaction and also the extra work the editor I chose had done, showing how keen she was. I had chosen to do a developmental edit which was the full banana, soup to nuts, and I needed someone with a depth of experience who could help me with voice, character and even the pitch to publishers. I knew my dialogue was strong, so those editors with experience in that area weren’t as useful. The editor I chose also agreed to reduce the price, as I wasn’t sure (like most people around the globe) what my finances might look like in a few weeks, and the cost was higher than I expected (I have learned the hard way that you get what you pay for, and I wasn’t willing to skimp on this). The work will be starting shortly, and I’ll provide a part two update to this story after we finish.