When I woke up this morning, I discovered an email that my editor had sent fifteen minutes before. She wanted me to call her. Generally, she thought the manuscript was terrific, but she wanted to chat.
I emailed her back, saying I would call in an hour, and I set about a rushed version my morning routine - the coffee, the shower, the gathering of writing materials (mainly manuscript, notes, and pen and paper for more notes).
I also fretted. I bit my nails. I considered calling earlier to get it over with. I know this woman. She's wonderful, but the word "generally" tipped me off that something big was wrong.
There was. I called and found out it was too short.
Apparently, there was a miscommunication between my wonderful editor and me. I followed the contract, which said 30K, but in her mind, she was thinking it would be longer, maybe 45-50K.
And so basically, my editor said, Good stuff, but we want more.
As far as significant revisions go, this is the best news ever.
When I received the contract, I knew how slender it would make the book - probably just as slender as The Spiderwick Chronicles once were. I knew that this would severely limit the amount of description the book would need, and when you're writing a middle-grade fantasy with a lot of plot, some description is necessary.
Also, since this is an IP project, the plot was already mapped out. With only 30K, I struggled to find room for slower, character-building scenes to balance out the action scenes. Without those scenes, I worried that the novel would come across as flat and ultimately forgettable, which is not what I want for my first novel.
I am so thrilled that I can expand this manuscript into a fuller story. The story can have all the room it deserves to have.
And then we can line-edit out the excess, of course. :-P
(The funny thing is that when I worked in editorial, we were forever struggling to get writers to cut their description. It's strange to be told that I have the opposite problem.)
