Becoming Published, Part 2 — Working with an editor

Almost all of the classic story archetypes have a guide character in them, helping the protagonist move forward past their hurdles. My personal favorite is Obi-Wan (to Luke, not Anakin…yeesh was that a disaster).

My editor on The Goldfish is previous Summer Writing Project alum/winner Shaunn Grulkowski (Recontinuum). When we connected we mostly wound up talking about some of our favorite directors ad indie sci-fi flicks.

He worked quickly in getting me his notes, and I realized that while I had written chapter by chapter with daily consumption in mind, there were overall big picture elements across the story that needed addressing.

Since I focused on each chapter working as its own little story and facet of my protagonist’s story, I wasn’t as conscious about overusing certain phrases from chapter to chapter. Also, when I wrote the earliest chapters of the story, I didn’t know with direct specificity what I would pay off and what would fizzle into a dead end. Shaunn could approach this as a whole and give some much needed perspective.

The title of the novella is the initial name of the guide of the story. So, I suppose it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise when Shaunn took a special interest in Henry, the Goldfish.

And by interest, I mean he helped keep the personified computer programmed tasked with ordering Sam’s thoughts on task. Sam I knew and understood because I stole from myself fairly frequently as a little self-designed cautionary tale. But, Henry was firmed up with Shaunn’s guidance.

In the end, Shaunn did what I believe good editors do (or from my limited perspective, what I hear good editors do): he brought in some great suggestions, gave me a new perspective and dialed me back when I was trying to be too clever by half. He let the heart of the story be the heart of the story.

Having an outside perspective helped immensely to feel like this was a collaborative effort, which continued on with the artwork…which I will cover in an upcoming post.

vcD,
-Ryan

Update: Now The Goldfish is available for sale on Amazon! If you’ve enjoyed the story from JukePop during the Summer Writing Project, it would be immensely helpful if you would consider leaving a review.