I have a bumper update this time with fresh information about the editorial work and the cover design. Also, if you are one of those who supported the book at 'Name a Character, Alien Creature or Exo-Moon' or higher, or simply contributed £50.00 or more at the crowdfunding stage, then now is the time to contact me via maximilianhawker@gmail.com to let me know how you wish to appear in the book - perhaps as an horrific alien entity or a moon or even something else entirely!
Editorial
My editor, Hal Duncan, posted something on Twitter after finishing his first edit and it kinda sums up his feelings about Rory Hobble and the Voyage to Haligogen:
He clearly has strong views about certain children's authors and some may or may not agree with that, but I appreciate the positivity he's reflecting on me, at least.
I was relieved to find that he has not made any suggestions for sweeping structural changes, such as removing a character, rewriting segments of the story, etc, which is always the fear during this stage of the edit. Instead, he has recommended one straightforward but time-consuming change, and that is to switch the novel from present tense to past tense. For those of you interested in the nitty-gritty of the craft, here is what he said to me:
I like the present tense a lot myself, and in third person limited or first person embedded (as I call it, as opposed to retrospective) I think it *does* give greater immediacy--absolutely. Like, the viewpoint being temporally embedded in the moment-of-action, moving through it, versus being temporally retrospective, moored in a discrete moment-of-telling, looking back on it, in first person, that gives you The Hunger Games versus To Kill a Mockingbird, Katniss's stream of experience versus Ms. Finch as an adult telling of her experiences as a kid, Scout. In third person, it works bang-on with limited, which is still rendering action as experience--perfect for thrillers and action/adventure. The whole point of third person limited, IMO, is to give us that immediacy of action-as-experience. Hence as third person limited has really taken over in genre fiction from the mid-20th century on, we've ultimately seen a shift from the past tense inherited as a convention of traditional omniscient to a present tense that fits all the better with the paradigm.
I think in omniscient though, where the narrator is an inherent mediation of the action, past tense is such a convention it becomes invisible, and if the narrative voice of that tour guide to the story has just enough personality to charm us, not so much "personality" that it just grates by being overbearing, *that's* what tends to cast the spell, get us gripped. It's a bit like "said" being invisible, unregistered in the reading, letting the import of the dialogue do its own job, versus all those said-bookisms of "declared" and "exclaimed" and so on, which actually foreground themselves in the reading and backfire, make the import of the dialogue feel forced. Theoretically, "declared" should give the dialogue more urgency, but in reality "said" gets out of the way, lets the urgency of the dialogue speak for itself. If that makes sense? I mean, the present tense is by no means that *level* of backfire, but I think here it's kinda getting in the way of letting the *narrative voice* cast its spell.
One thing relevant here that jumped out when I read on last night is the end of Chapter 2, very last paragraph. Note the "that" versus "this" in the "that night", setting the night as distinct, separate, distant in time. You're then going into a hypothetical scenario in what I *think* is called "past unreal conditional". (My grammatical terminology is hit and miss, but that's what Google tells me from noseying about.) It's how things *would* have panned out *had* there been someone observing. So it's inherently approaching that action as *not* in fact *having* panned out that way. I.e. past tense.
It could be converted to present conditional--"*were* any intruders to peer... what they would see is... But were they to turn... they would see... would be... "--so it's not a problem for keeping the tense of the narrative as is. It'd just be a matter of fixing that. But that instantly jumped out for me as exactly the sort of feature of the omniscient narrative that brings in that charm, the tour guide to the story stepping in from the sidelines momentarily to mediate the action in the way that works a treat when done right (as here) but will become grating if a writer lays it on too thick. And it instantly jumped out at me that it was clashing with the narrative around it tense-wise.
I'm a huge believer in the narrative knowing what it's doing, so to speak, in writer's backbrains of intuition and instinct producing narrative the way it feels right even when they've taken a path in which that's nominally "wrong". I.e. a whole lot of time when I see a bug like this, a slip into a different mode entirely from that adopted for the narrative, I think it *can* be the natural mode of the narrative asserting itself. It's always worth asking if it's a *feature* rather than a bug. Is it the narrative knowing what it's doing? Is it the writer's backbrain producing material best taken as a flag marking out the right path?
It's interesting to get this level of insight into an editor's thinking and I agree with him, so am changing the book to past tense. As I said, this is very straightforward but it is a time sink. I hope to get the book back to Hal by Wednesday 29th July and Unbound expect the final version to them by 25th August - to give you an idea of timescales.
Cover Design
Unbound have also sent me what is called the 'Cover Design Questionnaire' so I can give my input on what I'd like the front cover to look like. I think that, particualrly in children's fiction, the front cover is crucial and I'll be competing with some truly stunning front covers when Rory... is in the shops. My early thoughts are that I'd love to include some original artwork on the cover to reflect the story, so am looking into the possibility of that. If there are any illustrators among you then, again, reach out to me if you'd like to get involved. I also need someone to draw a 'map' of the Solar System as it exists in the book, and also to provide some tonal illustrations which will be featured in the book itself.
Here are some other artwork ideas that I like and may wish to see the front cover capture:
As you can see, I'm looking at a retro sci-fi style as I think it would fit the tone of the novel while also standing out on a book shelf. I also love the artwork produced on an Etsy store (found here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/398320881/it-came-from-croydon-a2-a3-poster-print), which incorporates Croydon. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please do contact me.
Well, that's quite enough for now, but it is a great feeling to be at the heart of ongoing activity for the book now and fingers crossed Unbound can find a way to bring the release date forward.
Speak soon!