Shadow of the Wood

It's all about Jeff this month. Jeff Gerke. The Man of CSF, and his new adventure--one of many--Where the Map Ends.

This guy is really the one to talk to about Christian Sci-fi and Fantasy. It's his passion, and he's been pivitol in getting many books of the genre on the shelf (ie: The Realms line and more books still to come--which I believe we'll be featuring very soon). He's also an amazing writer in his own right. Check out his author site under his pen name Jefferson Scott to find out which of his books you should read first--cause you should definitely read one. On Wednesday I plan on blathering on about how you need to let him edit your WIPs so you can become famous...stay tuned for that little gem. :)

But for now....I got to e-hang with him a bit and prod his brain for all those little tidbits of knowlegde we've always wanted to know (Mir has a bunch I didn't get to, so go check hers out tomorrow--her B-day. :D Plus, she's got a contest to go--darn-it! I wasn't going to say, cause I wanted to win. So just pretend I didn't say anything okay...)

So, here's part one of the interview with Jeff (The Man):

Okay, the question everyone always asks, but I still want to know: What’s your absolute, all-time, favorite book?

I hate sounding like a poser, but I’d have to say The Lord of the Rings. When I discovered it, in college, it suddenly showed me what fiction could do. From that moment on, I wanted to be a storyteller.

I also have to give props to two novels by Stephen Lawhead. I think Taliesin was the first overtly Christian fantasy I’d ever read. I still see some of those scenes playing in my head today. And Lawhead’s Byzantium is, I think, the best Christian novel I’ve ever read.

One more: Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Talk about gripping drama and brilliant insight into human nature. With a Christ figure thrown in, to boot.

Lord of the Rings! Shocker! :D Oh, but I do love Lawhead. His new adventure Hood is wonderful. As an editor what’s the most frustrating thing you see in fantasy manuscripts, above and beyond POV violations, passive voice, and misplaced commas.

Well, seeing an author who has not taken the time to learn his craft and yet expects to be published is pretty frustrating. Check out my January 28 blog called “The Three Biggest Mistakes” for more on that topic.

But beyond matters of craft, I’d have to say the biggest frustration is when I can’t tell the characters apart. The king feels like the peasant, who feels like the wizard, who feels like the princess. When I see them all sounding and feeling like the author, that gets pretty frustrating. So much so that I’ve developed a system to help authors create rich, differentiated characters.

Actually, those things don’t really frustrate an acquisitions editor. They make his or her job easier. Manuscripts with that kind of glaring problem are simple to know how to deal with. It’s the ones that are 75% “there” that can be frustrating because you don’t always know which way to go on them. But the committee process pretty much solves that…

Yes, the Powers That Be. So, what was the most frustrating thing about trying to get the fantasy manuscripts past the publishers?

I’d get frustrated when stories I liked would get shot down in the committee process. Some of them I would shoot down before taking them to committee, knowing they’d never make it. Most would get shot down in the editorial committee. A few would make it through to the publishing committee, and most of those would be shot down. (But not all!)

However, I never really got upset when those projects got shot down. These committees are tasked, after all, with doing what is best for the publishing company. Agreeing to publish a novel that is almost guaranteed to lose the company money does not qualify as what is best.

I think what troubled me was when I had the realization that the CBA marketplace for fiction seemed to be focusing on reaching one demographic and one demographic only. Check out my fuller discussion of this in Tip #16 at my Fiction Writing Tip of the Week column.

If my theory is right that this group (white, American, Evangelical women of child-raising or empty-nest age) is the main demographic the CBA industry reaches with fiction, then Christian speculative fiction is going to have a hard row to hoe.

Time and again the speculative novels I was trying to get through committee would be shot down because the group would say (rightly, I might add) that the book in question would simply not appeal to the market the publisher reached. If your target market likes one thing and has proven time after time that it doesn’t like other things, you can’t persist in giving it “other things.” CBA publishers are right when they focus their marketing money and efforts on the audience they know they reach—and by publishing the kind of books they know their market wants.

I was frustrated about this for a long time. Then I started thinking about alternate methods of publishing. Where the Map Ends is a direct result of that thinking. I’m much more relaxed now!

You can’t deny the factor of money—no matter how unromantic it might be. I do think the reason readers tend to be in that majority, however, is due to the quality factor. The more serious readers go someplace else to find their fodder since the CBA isn’t feeding their needs. I see this getting better, though. Quality has sporadically risen over the last few years. What are some of the great things that have come out of your freelance career?

I love being able to help the individual novelist. When I was an editor on staff at a publishing company, I used to take way too much time giving detailed feedback letters to the novelists I was rejecting. As an author myself I sympathized with their plight, and I never wanted to send off generic rejection letters. Sometimes this would leave me behind in other work because I’d taken too much time on such things.

As a freelancer, I can be completely accessible to the novelist, especially the aspiring, unpublished novelist. Of course I ask to be paid for my time now [grin], but I do offer a lot of instructional information for free on my Web site.

I also love the opportunity to concentrate on the actual editing process. I like the feeling that this author and I are getting into this novel to work on it, kind of like two surgeons operating on a patient. I’ve enjoyed the other parts of publishing besides editing—working with teammates, getting to talk with agents, brainstorming on cover designs and marketing plans, keeping in touch with an author base, etc.—but it’s also fun to step away from all that and just be an editor.

Have you seen some gems cross your lap lately? Must be nice not having to decide how best to say “yes” or “no”.

Yes, I’ve seen some great ideas. I’m working on a couple right now that are so good I would’ve immediately taken them to committee, were I in that position.

But yes, it is wonderful not having to tell a hopeful novelist that I tried but just couldn’t get the thing through committee. However, I still sometimes have to deliver bad news, but at least it’s just related to the editorial, not the publishing, process.

More to come tomorrow. We'll get to hear all about his new and exciting collaberative project, and how we can get in on it.

In the mean time, go check out the rest of the excitement on the tour.