Wednesday 30 December 2009

Editing...

...is a game, a tennis match, a battle of wits, an exercise in horse-trading, and whatnot, but every once in a while you just have to concede the point to your editor. So (sadly) the following lines will not now appear in White Crow, when it's published in July.

I know some who have seen great fissures in the earth, rent cave mouths and slit rock, wherein lies the entrance to the path to Hell. I spoke to a man from the North of England some years gone, who told me he had seen such an entrance with his very eyes. I understood from him that the gateway to Hell is somewhere outside Bolton.

Maybe it's for the best...there are some nice librarians in Bolton, after all.

I think I might start posting more deletions. Could make a whole new book out of them...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I guess there is the evidence that writers do need editors after all. But if you were going for humour, then I think it really works.

Please post more deletions.

Marcus Sedgwick said...

Thanks Becky.

Well, (in a surprise move), I was going for humour, but as my editor smartly pointed out, not humour that will work for the US edition. Though we could have made it Pittsburgh I guess...

OK - will post some more deletions when I get back to editing the last 60 pages of White Crow. If there's anything interesting...