Editor Extraordinaire and Author of Found
Objects
On the challenges of being an editor, the balance between editing and
writing and what matters in writing today.
Peter Gelfan is the
kind of editor every writer wants. He has the courage to tell you everything
that's wrong with your work while also pointing you in the right direction. He's
also a writer, the author of Found Objects, an intriguing new novel about love, loss and acceptance that
showcases crisp, powerful writing while challenging our conventional views on
love. Finally, Peter is a great teacher. He always asks the right question, but
he'll never give you the answer. And that's how you develop good writing,
folks.
What's the best part
of your job as an editor? The worst?
The best part is reading the next draft of manuscript I’ve
edited and seeing that not only did the writer understand the problems I
brought up, but also solved them in a creative way that enhanced the rest of
the work. The worst is the rare occasion when the next draft isn't much better
and the problems remain unsolved and apparently not understood.
How do you balance
your job as an editor and your job as a writer? Are your best moments as an
editor really different from your best moments as a published author?
I find I have to do one or the other. I can’t write in the
mornings and edit in the afternoons. For that matter, I only edit one manuscript
at a time. The shift of gears takes up too much time and is frustrating.
The best moments of each are quite different. Writing, the
pleasure comes from dreaming up a great idea for the book and making it work
well, even better than expected. When editing, to some degree I have to set
aside my own creativity as a writer. If I don’t, it’s all too easy to take the
client’s idea, run away with it, and start rewriting the manuscript as my own—hey,
how about turning your old-man hero into a young woman and setting the novel in
modern-day Cleveland rather than Roman Carthage? So I have to always keep in
mind what the author wants, and come up with creative ways to deal with
whatever stands in his way.
Do you use an editor
when you write?
Yes, mostly in the early stages, when I want input on the
general idea, characters, and so on.
How did you come up
with the idea for Found Objects?
I could give you a raconteur-worthy explanation, but it
probably wouldn’t be true. I don’t know where story ideas come from. It’s like
falling in love, we have no idea why we fall for this person instead of that
one, but after we do, we come up with all sorts of handy reasons, both
plausible and not so.
The general question—why do people pair up romantically,
sexually, and domestically instead of coming to a more interesting and useful
configuration of three or four or more—has knocked around my brain since
puberty. But such arrangements rarely last long. How come? Even from close up,
or especially so, it’s hard to fathom. The question had prompted a couple of
starts earlier that never bore fruit, but then the central premise of Found Objects popped into being and
began to grow.
What are the most
common issues that you find when editing fantasy?
Some writers become so fascinated by the fantasy world they
have thought up that they think it’s their story, and so the novel consists
mostly of a guided tour. We get exotic lands, strange creatures, different
forms of magic, lots of special effects, intricately designed backstory, but too
often little real plot. In fantasy, it’s easy to forget that the world the
writer, godlike, has created is, in the universe of the novel, mere setting. In
fantasy, setting is often more important than in an earthbound novel, but it’s
still just a stage upon which a story of characters in conflict will unfold.
What matters in
writing today?
The same as always. Having something to say that could be of
value to someone else, and saying it well.
The novel is still evolving, and it’s hard if not impossible
to predict where it’s going. But I have a theory, not about where’s it’s headed
but why it continues to thrive in whatever form. A novel allows
and invites readers to live a life and even its death as if it were their own.
Humans may be the only creature that can learn from others’ experiences without
directly witnessing them. Stories expand a thousandfold the scope of our innate
self-education process of trial and error while avoiding its frequent real-life
consequences of injury, death, or wasted years. We absorb those lessons not as
dry information but as ersatz experience that, like real life, engages not only
the intellect but all our faculties. It’s easy to brush off fiction as
entertainment or artsy diversion, but in fact it’s a vital element in our personal
and cultural advancement.
Thank
you so much for sharing your insights with us, Peter. It's been a pleasure talking to you.
****
Peter Gelfan has been editing and ghostwriting both
fiction and nonfiction for the past 20 years. His clients range from beginners
to published and bestselling authors and celebrities. He also edits screenplays
and has sold two he wrote under his own name, one of which was produced and
recently released in France. His novel Found Objects was published
in May 2013.
****
Dora Machado is the award-winning
author of the epic fantasy Stonewiser series and her newest novel, The Curse Giver, available from Twilight
Times Books. She grew up in the Dominican Republic, where she developed a
fascination for writing and a taste for Merengue. After a lifetime of
straddling such compelling but different worlds, fantasy is a natural fit to
her stories. She lives in Florida with her indulgent husband and three very
opinionated cats.
When
she is not writing novels, Dora also writes features for Murder By Four, an
award-winning blog for people interested in reading and writing, and Savvy
Authors, where writers help writers.
E-mail:Dora@doramachado.com
Website: www.doramachado.com
Newsletter: http://doramachado.com/newsletter.php
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoraMachado
Dora and Peter, this is a fascinating interview. Peter - thank you for being our guest on Murderby4!
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