Hi there Everybody!

Not long ago, a fantastic author, and friend of mine David B. Coe stopped by for a bit of Q&A for his Children of Amarid Blog Tour.

Well, David is releasing the second book in the LonTobyn Chronicle and he’s stopped by again for another 5 questions! How cool is that?

 

So, without further ado, here is my conversation with David B. Coe.

ME: Was this revision easier than the first book?

DBC: Yes, it was substantially easier than the revision for Children of Amarid, for a couple of reasons. First, the original manuscript of The Outlanders was much cleaner than the original version of Book I. My learning curve back then was pretty steep. That first book was raw and unrefined, and in editing it the first time around, I picked up on so many things about writing and storytelling that I hadn’t understood when I wrote the first draft. So the published version of book one was way better than the first draft. And then all I learned while editing that book — how to write leaner, when to trust my reader and when to explain stuff, how to get the most out of dialog tags, etc. — made The Outlanders even better from the outset. So I had less work to do this time around to make the book what I wanted it to be.

And then, of course, this is the second time I’ve done one of these Author’s Edits, and I learned a few things about this process as well. The more I edited, the more bold and ruthless I became. I was increasingly willing to kill off old “darlings” and reshape passages. I was more decisive, because I had a better idea of what my goals were for the final product. So, yes, this edit was a good deal easier than the first.

ME: How difficult was it to keep fan feedback from filtering into the story?

DBC: This wasn’t a problem at all really. The original book came out so long ago — eighteen years! — and, frankly, a lot of the feedback I received I’ve long since forgotten. But more than that, I’ve been doing this long enough that I have faith in my own ability to self-edit. I didn’t need to rely on others to diagnose the problems with the book. I could see them all. And I was able as well to recognize the strengths of the book, the things I wanted to highlight and build upon.

ME: What did you enjoy the most about revising the story?

DBC: My favorite part of the process this time around was being able to immerse myself in this book again. As I say in the forward to the new edition, this is my first favorite of my books. From the time I finished the first draft of the original version I LOVED this novel. Why? Well, for one thing, I had been thinking about Children of Amarid for years before I wrote it. I had a good idea of how I wanted it to come out. But when I finished it and turned to the task of outlining and writing the second volume in the series, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to do it. I feared that maybe I had only one book in me. Obviously  those fears were unfounded (he said, nineteen novels and counting later…), but they were real at the time. Writing The Outlanders convinced me that I had lots of stories to tell, and that I could have a long career as a professional writer.

More to the point, though, this book was just way better than the first. I love that first novel, but this one is more complex, more textured. The pacing is better, the character work remains some of the best I’ve ever done, and the writing was superior to that first effort in nearly every respect. So while I went back and made lots of changes in this Author’s Edit, I was also pleased to find that this book was every bit as good as I remembered it being. That was quite satisfying.

ME: No Spoilers – Was there anything that didn’t make it into the story the first time around – whether due to space, where you were as a writer, or for some other reason – that did make it into this release in some form?

DBC: No. Again, this book was written so long ago that any ideas I might have had that I ultimately omitted I’ve long since forgotten. And that really wasn’t the point of these Author’s Edits. I didn’t want to change anything with respect to plotting, character, world building, magic, setting, etc. Quite the opposite: I wanted to be faithful to the original story. The LonTobyn books had — and still have — a lot of fans, and I didn’t want to change things that those fans might remember fondly. My purpose in editing the books was to clean up the writing so that the other elements of the story could really shine. Could I have improved narrative elements, like plot, character, pacing? Sure. I’m a better writer now than I was then, and I’m sure I could have torn the entire book down and rebuilt it in a way that improved it. But that struck me as unfair to my younger self. For better or worse, this is the story I wrote two decades ago. I was happy to polish the language, but the rest — that was a bridge too far.

ME: As a corollary question: Was there any temptation to try and resurrect any of the “Killed Darlings” from the previous story since you had more freedom in the editing?

DBC: Those “Killed Darlings” are still mouldering in their literary graves. I don’t remember most of them. And, as I mentioned earlier, if anything I killed off more of them this time around. But I also found several phrases and moments that I loved when I wrote the story and still love to this day. A couple of them I fought to keep during the editorial process so long ago. And rediscovering them this time, I kept them again. That’s the best thing about the Author’s Edit (the writing equivalent of the Director’s Cut): I’m the boss with these versions. My editor back then always told me that the books were mine and ultimately I had the final say as to what was in them and what wasn’t. But I was still a young author and unsure of myself. Most of what he suggested I change I changed. This time around, I answered only to me, and that was freeing.

Again, I’d like to take up a little bit of space to say a huge “Thank You ” to David B. Coe  for making me a stop on his blog tour.

Make sure that you make it all the way down to the bottom of the post for a link to some awesome giveaways!!

About THE OUTLANDERS

Time: 10:46 am-ish

Music: Blind Guardian – Sacred Worlds