I have been writing about the experience of being a book editor and a writer on Ah, the Possibilities, a fabulous blog site run by Sarah, a lovely fellow West Aussie. Check out what I had to say here: http://www.ahthepossibilities.com/2011/01/drumroll-sara-foster-author.htmlcol-md-2
Posts
I’m about to start editing Beneath the Shadows, and I’m very excited about it. It is through this process that my book will gradually evolve from its raw first draft into a finely polished finished piece. With a background as an editor I feel very open to the editing process, which can be pretty daunting and confronting for a writer. Everything from characters, plot and pace, and the strength of the writing itself, is examined thoroughly during editing; and as a result the book can change quite a bit, sometimes in ways the author never envisioned. Come Back to Me was a much better book after editing, and I’m sure that it will be the same for Beneath the Shadows.
Beneath the Shadows is currently at the structural editing stage. So we’re looking at things like how the chapters work, both on their own and with one another; whether the characters are developing fully; if there are gaps that need filling, or sections that need paring back. So wish me luck, and I’ll post some updates on how it’s going.col-md-2
This blog also appeared on the Random House ‘Random Blogs’ website on 6th April 2010
It is always interesting to see how writers respond to editorial guidance. Some are completely open to suggestions, others are not, and there’s a third category who seem to be keen for a critique, but then either don’t like the reality, or don’t seem to alter anything much as a result. What many writers appear to get stuck on is the ‘Well, I like it’, or ‘It has to happen because…’ response. A writer becomes so attached to a piece of writing, or a certain event in their plot, that they will hold on to it come hell or high water. But I believe that the more malleable you see your work, right up to the point it becomes set in print, then the more likely you are to create a better book. This doesn’t mean you have to follow any or all editorial suggestions, because ultimately, and quite rightly, the author has the final say. However, it is worth remembering that editors are there to help you produce the best finished product you can, not to ruin your treasured script! Therefore their comments should not be dismissed too lightly.
That’s the theory, anyway, coming from an editor’s perspective. But how did I go as a writer? Well, I had this experience with Come Back to Me. The book had a prologue, which was the very first thing I wrote for the novel, and I loved it. Every time I reread the prologue, it made me think that maybe, just maybe, I could get this thing published. So when the script came back with a big pencil line streaking across the first page, I did have a bit of a gulp. And, if I hadn’t had an editing background, I would have probably argued passionately for it to remain – because I loved it. However, the thing is, while I felt it was a fine piece of writing, it interfered with something more important: it delayed the real start to my story. So when I’d had a few minutes to think about it, I knew the editor was right. The prologue was a personally beloved part of an earlier draft, but it didn’t belong in the finished piece. So out it went. And the book is better for it.col-md-2
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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
I live in Perth, Western Australia, with my husband and two young daughters.
Before I was a writer I worked as a book editor, at first in-house at HarperCollins UK and then freelance. I have edited and proofread well over 100 books, fiction and non-fiction, including novels by Paullina Simons and Liane Moriarty.
My favourite authors include Maggie O’Farrell, Toni Morrison, Nicci French, Sara Gruen, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Wendy James, Kate Morton, Liane Moriarty, Natasha Lester, Dervla McTiernan, Jodi Picoult and Taylor Jenkins Reid.
My favourite books include The Secret River by Kate Grenville, Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman, Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey, The Shifting Fog by Kate Morton, Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell. The list goes on and on.
My favourite poetry collection is The Self-Completing Tree by Dorothy Livesay.
I was one of the original editors of the Kids’ Night In book series, which has been raising money for War Child since 2003.
I’m a huge fan of dystopian fiction, and I’m studying the genre for my PhD at Curtin University. My favourites include The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, The Book of the Unknown Midwife by Meg Elison, and Pure by Julianna Baggott.
As a kid, in addition to devouring Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton books, I loved the Sue Barton nurse stories and Gerald Durrell’s animal adventures. Later on I read everything written by the Brontes, and devoured the dark thrillers of Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike.
I was born and raised in England, but I’ve always had family connections to Australia, and we visited the east coast a few times during my childhood. My introduction to Australian literature was reading All the Rivers Run by Nancy Cato, and after that I wanted to be Delie Gordon for quite a while. In 1999 I made sure I got to stand at the wheel of the Philadelphia paddle steamer when we visited the Murray River region.
My first pop concert, aged 12, was a Stock Aitken and Waterman event featuring my first love Jason Donovan. I was on a high for weeks afterwards. Little did I know that twenty years later I would end up editing his autobiography.
I love marine animals, and I’m a keen snorkeler and sometime scuba diver. I’ve played with baby sea lions, penguins and marine iguanas in the Galapagos and scuba-dived with Galapagos reef sharks and hammerhead sharks. I’ve glided with manta rays in Coral Bay (WA) and the Similan Islands in Thailand, encountered huge potato cod and graceful minke whales on the Great Barrier Reef, and swum with the mighty whale sharks of Ningaloo. I’ve experienced the absolute joy of being surrounded by wild dolphins in New Zealand and WA waters, and once had the very special experience of a dolphin ‘buzzing’ me while I was pregnant (using concentrated echolocation to ‘see’ the baby).
In 2011 I went to Japan while researching Shallow Breath, and visited Taiji, the town famous for its horrific dolphin drives. I was only there for two days, and thankfully I didn’t have to witness the brutal hunt up close, although I watched the banger boats drive the dolphins in from a distance. However, I did encounter the dolphins in captivity in the sea pens, being broken and starved while trained for human entertainment. Those images will stay with me forever.
I met my husband Matt when I was nineteen. We both love to travel, and we tend to pick places where we can pursue our passions for animal encounters and the natural world. Our highlights include four months in South-East Asia, including chartering a tiny vessel to Komodo Island and staying amongst the dragons. We got engaged on an island full of monkeys in Halong Bay, Vietnam, and for our honeymoon we visited Machu Picchu, Iguazu Falls, the Galapagos Islands, and travelled into the heart of the Manu Biosphere of the Amazon to see everything from capybaras to caimans. We have taken our two young girls to Japan, China, Singapore, the UK and Lapland, but Covid has meant we have spent the last couple of years exploring Western Australia – Dirk Hartog Island, Dunsborough and Walpole’s Valley of the Giants being some of the highlights. Whenever life allows, we’re always keen to have another adventure.
