By Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner
CHARLAINE:
When Marty Greenberg approached me about editing an anthology, my first thought was, ‘Only if Toni Kelner can do it with me.’ I’ve always respected Toni as a writer, enjoyed her work, and admired her stellar skills as an editor. I can say, ‘There’s something wrong with the last paragraph of this story,’ and Toni can say, ‘Yes, this is what’s wrong with it and here are ideas on how to fix it.’
Wolfsbane and Mistletoe
I don’t know what Toni will say, but I’m going to jump off the deep end here and tell you how easy she is to work with. We have an amazing time making up our ‘wish list’ of contributors, and we wait for the RSVPs to our invitations with great suspense. When the stories start coming in, it’s just like Christmas to us.
Sometimes contributors make the mistake of thinking that we’re just there for decoration (‘cause we’re SO decorative). We do actually go over each story very carefully, both of us. We discuss what we think the writer might do to improve the flow or the punch of the narrative. But I like to think that we’re open to hearing the writer’s opinion on what we’ve said, and we’re open to discussion on the steps we think should be taken. Sometimes we even agree with the contributor!
We don’t have many issues with our writers because we pick such great people; right, Toni?
TONI:
Charlaine is, as is usually the case, absolutely right. One, we do pick some really great people and two, we are amazingly decorative.
I think we both honed our editing style by workshopping each other’s stories and novels (we later added our pal Dana Cameron to the mix, which only made it better). When Charlaine invited me to edit an anthology with her, we fell into the same pattern we use for workshopping. We try to be polite and to make suggestions instead of corrections, and if the author of a story says, ‘Nope, I like it this way,’ we leave it that way. The joy of picking great contributors means that we can trust them.
In some ways, editing Wolfsbane and Mistletoe was even better than our first foray. With Many Bloody Returns, we were still feeling our way through the process. We had a lot of fun, but we were a little nervous about whether or not we were doing it right. I don’t think either of us was thinking about doing another. Then, after Many Bloody Returns was finished, Marty Greenberg took us to brunch and suggested we edit a series of anthologies. We nodded gravely and said, ‘That might be something to talk about.’ Then he escorted us to an elevator, and as soon as the door closed behind us, we started giggling up a storm. We were going to get to play again? Yee-haw!
Ten seconds after that, we started brainstorming our list of contributors. If getting the stories is like Christmas, putting together the list of people to invite is like writing a letter to Santa Claus – and Santa has been very good to us.
PS – If Charlaine will forgive me for editing her half of the blog, then I just want to point out that no matter what she says, she is a terrific editor, as well as one of the most powerful writers I’ve ever read.
Toni L.P. Kelner & Charlaine Harris
November 2010
