New Spring

[DojoToad]

Reading the prequel for the 3rd time. Does anyone else find the White Tower chapters slow going?

[dexterryu]

Regardless of the series, I find most things White Tower related slow going.

[DojoToad]

I find the political currents and various schemes in the White Tower interesting, just seems that it could all be written in about 1/3 the words.

[szilard]

I didn't like the original novella, so I was very happy when I bought the "full book" back in 2004. It was a gigantic disappointment, but after a decade, I can say that I've mellowed over it.

 

It's a beautiful slim hardcover (its colour, green, looks so good on shelf), good typography.

 

Lan's chapters are so-so, but seeing thw world from Moi's pov is so funny, so heartwarming. (I like her.) Maybe the book could have been longer, because it still feels like a bare bones edition.

[DojoToad]

Guess it is just a matter of taste then. I like the Lan chapters way better.

[szilard]

My expectations from him were very high, but I was left unsatisfied. He is cooler from the outside or something along those lines.

[mb]

from what I recall from my 2 times through it, I liked the prequel both times.

have not yet read the novella.

[Orderofolde]

I find the political currents and various schemes in the White Tower interesting, just seems that it could all be written in about 1/3 the words.

Don't forget that a lot of writers are paid per word.   I think that RJ was under contract for between $0.15-$0.35 per word depending on his early or later success, obviously the contract rate improved as the series took off and the rate increased, and then there are royalties.  So for 100,000 words he got between $15,000-$35,000 from TOR, plus a basic contractual fee to actually write the books(an advance or an actual amount up front per book on his contracts), an undisclosed amount as far as I know, probably early on in the same range per book, and then there are the royalties.  Most of the author's money comes in royalties for the volume of sales which is where J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer got their main money for the Harry Potter and Twilight books.  I know that RJ had a few contracts unfulfilled that he received advances for that were satisfied with the Companion.    

 

RJ had a penchant for his world building and elaborate descriptions and a lot of criticism for his "bath scenes" and the annoying, unnecessary filler scenes that dragged the story out and slowed things especially in COT which might be explained as an attempt to maximize his income, or it was simply his writing style.  However, I find myself going back through my chapters several times through the writing process and adding more description, fleshing out thoughts, and adding in the adverbs and adjectives I tend to to leave out in the initial creative process so I find no fault in all the "fluff."

[szilard]

Don't forget that a lot of writers are paid per word.   I think that RJ was under contract for between $0.15-$0.35 per word depending on his early or later success, obviously the contract rate improved as the series took off and the rate increased, and then there are royalties.  So for 100,000 words he got between $15,000-$35,000 from TOR, plus a basic contractual fee to actually write the books(an advance or an actual amount up front per book on his contracts), an undisclosed amount as far as I know, probably early on in the same range per book, and then there are the royalties.  Most of the author's money comes in royalties for the volume of sales which is where J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer got their main money for the Harry Potter and Twilight books.  I know that RJ had a few contracts unfulfilled that he received advances for that were satisfied with the Companion.    

 

An interesting tidbit (almost a  f a c t) from 2001:

 

Terry Goodkind is high up on the bestseller list with his seventh and latest novel, The Pillars of Creation, and his agent, Russell Galen at Scovil Chichak & Galen, is determined to get him $10 million for his next three books. That's the total he asked for at a lunch last fall with Goodkind's editor and publisher at Tor Books, Patrick Nielsen-Hayden and Tom Doherty, respectively, when they sought to get a long-term commitment from the author. Galen actually received less than that from Tor, but has been working since, with foreign rights specialist Danny Baror, to get the rest of the way to the magic figure. Baror made a high- six-figures deal with Bertelsmann, the author's regular German publisher, and then switched him to HarperCollins as a result of an auction in the U.K. that brought in a sum "very substantially" into seven figures. The bid, by Harper's Jane Johnson, was not the biggest, but, said Galen, the publisher offered the best marketing plan. He's still a tad short of the magic $10 million, "but Goodkind is popular in 17 other countries. We'll get there."

 

And we know that RJ was their cash cow. (Goodkind was a very distant first/second runner-up.)

[Orderofolde]

This was in reference to his earlier books as to how little he made and how it likely impacted his writing in all the "filler" and "fluff" people find slow-going or not necessary.  I'm not understanding the response.  Perhaps an almost-fact on what he made rather than Goodkind would have been more appropriate, or quotes from RJ pertaining to his writing style or why he went on about certain subjects?  This was merely a general introduction as to his early contracts, and why he may have felt the scenes were necessary for those who don't feel that they belong in the books.  I thought it was obvious that it was meant to also reflect that Tor would have cut the "fluff" from the stories if they felt that it wasn't needed so as to avoid paying for it.  I guess I nailed that about as effectively as RJ thought it was "intuitively obvious" who had killed Asmodean.    Sorry about that.

[szilard]

I guess I nailed that about as effectively as RJ thought it was "intuitively obvious" who had killed Asmodean.

 

There was a reader who could figure it out. According to RJ.

 

-

 

You misunderstand me. I know that almost every aspiring writers listen to the rules (http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/word-count-for-novels-and-childrens-books-the-definitive-post) but but we talk about a whole new level here. That's why I brought up Goodkind. He sold est. 14-16 million books back then, RJ sold 50-60 million books in the first decade+.

 

(Foreign publishers love splitting RJ's books into many parts (2-3-4), so this move could also help a bit. )

 

And Goodkind, whose sales were only third of RJ, demanded 10 million dollars. RJ's salary had to be way higher. So, when we talk about this kind of money, they don't care about how many words are in the novels.

 

As for early contracts... Well, I think RJ was a very smart man. So I don't think that he accepted mere pennies from the biggest fantasy publisher, who encouraged (expected) him to write 6 books at least.

 

And, you can see clearly from these interviews, that TOR does care about only money. RJ was his own editor, that's why "Team Jordan" (Oh my Rand!) did not get anything right.

 

On the fluff: his medical condition was not good in 1994, so the change was inevitable. (He run out of storylines too.) And I think his technical background and his pride too did not allowed to him to postpone books even one year later. (He did not care about the TOR agent at all.)

 

 

Edward Henry

How much editing do your books get? Does the story or your writing get modified?

Robert Jordan

The story does not get modified. Occasionally the writing is modified to this extent—a good editor tells you what is wrong, as another set of eyes. A good editor says, "I don't understand what you're saying here you haven't told me enough, you haven't made me believe that this person will do this or say this." And then I go back and work at making sure the editor is convinced. Remember the editor is the first reader. If the editor isn't convinced, I doubt the fans will be either.

 

SFBC

She (his wife) plays a really big part in keeping track of all your plot lines and characters?

Robert Jordan

No, no. I do that myself, but she's the first set of eyes. An editor—the first thing an editor does is tell you when you've failed. When you've failed to convince her that this person would say or do this thing. An editor is the person who goes in there and says, "You've told me more about this than you need to." Or, "here you didn't convince me." She has a wonderful instinct for it and for the whole rest of the editorial job, of course.

 

SFBC

I was looking through the manuscript and noticed the words "Revision 5" and so forth.

Robert Jordan

That's before it ever gets to her. When I make what I consider a major change in a chapter, I notch up the revision once. Not for small changes, but if you have a manuscript there, you'll notice that the revisions numbers get to be less as they go further into the book. That's because I am constantly re-writing, constantly thinking of a way I can do something better earlier on. I often go back and re-write things that I've done earlier.

 

Dragonmount

In addition, Robert Jordan himself filled us in on the reasons for the change in date:

Robert Jordan

I asked [Tor Books] to shift the book to January, a move we had discussed several months ago as a possibility. We have been working on a very tight schedule lately, with me hoping to finish the book by September 30, the positively absolute latest date which would allow for the original November 12 [publishing] date. I still don't know whether I will make September 30, and with Tor beginning to plan a November tour, I began to see the possibility of a huge explosion of disappointment if I was as much as a week late. That week would make it impossible to make November 12 and necessitate rescheduling the entire tour. Or more likely, canceling it, since there just wouldn't be time to reschedule. The only way to keep from getting ulcers over the situation was to reschedule the book, and that's what I told [Tor]. So, I am working away, and will finish as soon as I can. And maybe for once, my editor and I will have a little time to look over the book as a whole together instead of being forced to rely on the chapter-by-chapter as-I-hand-them-in sort of editing.

 

Wotmania

When publishing, a commonly accepted fact is that good editing leads to good results. How much of your writing do you personally edit out after completion, in general? How much and what sort of things does your editor usually edit out?

Robert Jordan

After I finish a book, I edit very little. While I am writing, however, I edit constantly, both in the chapter I am currently working on and in chapters already completed. Whenever I make a major change to a chapter, I save the new version with a higher Revision Number, and it isn’t unusual to have Revision Numbers in the thirties or forties. I once reached Revision ninety-six, but that was on a prologue, and those are a good bit longer than any individual chapter.

 

Robert Jordan

RJ had his first contract with Tor in 1984. He expected to write about one book per year, and would need five or six books to complete the story. In fact, it took him four years to write The Eye of the World, and 16 months to write The Great Hunt, and about 15-16 months to write each subsequent book until A Crown of Swords. Up to Lord of Chaos, Tor was trying to publish the books every 12 months. RJ turned in Lord of Chaos in August of 1994 and the book was published in November of that year.

 

During this period of trying to maintain Tor's once a year publishing schedule, RJ said that Harriet was doing what he called "drive-by editing." That is, RJ would give Harriet chunks of chapters as he finished with them, and she would basically edit them on the fly. Once a book was finished, they would slap it together and send it to Tor for a barebones editing process and publication.

After Lord of Chaos was published, RJ informed Tor that there was no way he would be able to provide them with the next book in time for a November 1995 publication, and Tor told him that he could take two years for the publication if he needed it. About a year after that, his Tor contact (Sorry, I didn't write down that name) came back to RJ and said something to the effect of, "We agreed you'd be done in 16 months, right?" RJ remained adamant about the two years for A Crown of Swords, however.

RJ then talked a little bit about Knife of Dreams, saying that he was done writing at the beginning of April, which apparently means the end of April in author-speak. Which also apparently means in the middle of May in author-speak. That bit was fairly confusing, but I got the impression that he was basically finished in April, but Tor didn't really get the book to begin their editing process until May. Once Tor had the book in hand, they tried to push up the publication date to August, but RJ refused and insisted on the full editorial review and publication in October. RJ then said the result of that fully editorial was to add a single sentence to the book (This was actually quite funny and drew some considerable laughter from us in the audience.)

 

 

 

 

[Kesiera_Sedai]

I didn't like the original novella, so I was very happy when I bought the "full book" back in 2004. It was a gigantic disappointment, but after a decade, I can say that I've mellowed over it.

 

It's a beautiful slim hardcover (its colour, green, looks so good on shelf), good typography.

 

Lan's chapters are so-so, but seeing thw world from Moi's pov is so funny, so heartwarming. (I like her.) Maybe the book could have been longer, because it still feels like a bare bones edition.

[Kesiera_Sedai]

I loved New Spring...I always like magical stuff and am constantly intrigued by the One Power and the fact that it is based on the Laws of Thermodynamics. Loved how they struggled to learned to weave under pressure because it gave me much better understanding as to why most Aes Sedai were awed by Nyneave, Egwene, and Elayne... showed that channeling wasn't nearly as easy as they made it look.