I don't know if anyone can help us with this. I've been working with a young Indian first-time writer who, having been through a bad experience at the hands of the police attempted to write a novel about it. She sent it to a publisher who was already known to me and who liked the story the writer had to tell so much that he put her under contract instantly. [The publisher has only recently been involved in fiction publishing, so he is new to the business]
Then he asked me to work with her to create the novel. Out of 44 thousand words of the original novel, only 26 thousand were useful.
So we set about the task of making a novel out of it and handed in the finished work at 71 thousand. I have to say that the publisher's first language isn't English and so in terms of any subtleties of language he would be relying on other people to guide him. I don't know who else has read the novel, but shortly after saying that the novel was enormously improved from the original, he suddenly emailed the young writer,{I'm not supposed to know this, as my job is supposed to be finished, but she's frightened of him and doesn't know what to say back, and so is forwarding his emails to me and I'm looking after her from the side} 'The story is there. It is more a narrative than a novel. In reviews, it will get less than satisfactory comments.'

Can anyone tell me what the difference is between a story and a narrative? I think someone has told this phrase to the publisher and he is quoting it. I'd be tempted to say to him that a narrative is a story and a story of 71 thousand words divided into chapters is a novel and novels using a first person narrator are common, [that is if he has been told that 'a narrative' is a way of telling a story in the first person]

It's all very perplexing, like trying to box shadows. I don't know where he's getting his info. from, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have proper literary advisors [sp?]. He's suggesting also that the novel 'is barely publishable by our standards,' yet he's still going to publish it. He's published a couple of romances and a couple of thrillers before and they were probably very conventional in structure. The young writer has done her very best, and I've done my very best with her, and here we are...
Becca.

Becca, this is so tricky - it does sound like lack of experience in the publisher, as well as lack of English.

Also, different English-speaking cultures do have different narrative traditions - for example, I gather that what's considered good journalisting writing in Indian English is very different from what's considered good over here - different traditions, different norms....

I agree that I don't understand the distinction he's trying to make - although I can imagine it's a clumsy way of trying to describe something which he sees as a genuine problem.

It could be that your writer has concentrated on writing an honest and well-written account of the facts that definitely happened, whereas the publisher was imagining receiving something much more 'novelistic' - something which re-imagines the events and characters - re-creates dialogue and action - and uses many more of the techniques we associate with fiction... even if that seems to your writer as 'inventing' things in a way which he doesn't feel able to do, or didn't think to do because that wasn't what he envisaged the project as being.

It seems to me that you need to know a whole lot more about the problem he sees, and in a form which means the writer can actually work with that insight. This is the kind of thing that a publishers' editor would normally be providing: a to-and-fro and to-and-fro about this would be absolutely normal.

One thing: the publisher contracted this book unwritten - that was his risk to take. The writer has every duty to turn in a good book, but the publisher has every duty to help... which might include paying for a pro editor. That's the publisher's bill...

Hi Emma,
yes, the writer, a young woman, has written more or less the story that happened to her, with some pure fiction mixed in along the way to increase the word number. But as far as both of us knew, that was the story the publisher wanted ... a fictionalised account of what happened to the three educated Bengali girls who were imprisoned.
Apparently there have been emails passing between the publisher and her that I haven't seen, she's kept them from me, quite nasty ones on his part, I've asked her to show me them. I'm in this now, I can't just leave her to fight by herself, if fight it be, particularly as he said to me at the beginning of this project that 'she is just [an ignorant, by implication]Indian girl, she'll do what you tell her.' A statement like that from any man about any woman means I've got my warhead on and I'm up for it.

I think she [me in the background] has to try to get him to explain more fully what he means by narrative and explain what she has to do to make it come up to his 'publishable standard.' Then she has to say she will work on the book if he can make it clear what needs doing. I know for a fact that he won't spend any money paying an editor to work with her, he's already paid me five quid to work with her, and he has no intention of shelling out more money on it.

Yikes, sounds very tricky. Always difficult with a non-pro author and a publisher who wants their material but not their professionalism.

I confess it makes me wonder about the contract...

I did ask her about the contract, but of course I have no way of seeing it.

If I were reading that comment flat, I would think that he meant that there's not enough feeling/insight.

That basically the events/plot are on paper, but the personal connection with the characters is not established.

Implying, as Emma says, that basically the leap from NF to novel has not been successfully achieved.

But crikey - what kind of way is that of working with an author? I take it she's got no agent who could fight her corner?

NF meaning non-fiction? No she has no agent. I'm fighting her corner, but he doesn't know it. I think for a totally inexperienced writer it would be extremely difficult to be able to write good and in-depth characters, although she's learnt a huge amount working alongside me over seven months. But her characters aren't actually bad at all and the dialogue is good and the novel is muscular, not a single waffling phrase or sentence, [my background being short story]. He sees none of that.

Oo dear - how awkward. Yes, sorry, I meant non-fiction.

I guess all she can do is get him to spell out his problem in a more detailed/constructive way. Is there any way they can have a phone conversation or a face-to-face? Sometimes it's easier to thresh out complicated issues like this.

At the end of the day, it seems to me there are two issues here:

1) What are his actual issues with the text? We're all guessing in the dark here.

2) Are those criticisms correct/addressable? A separate issue, really, and one that's perhaps best addressed separately after she's disentangled what he actually wants from her.

He sees none of that.

No - he just feels that it doesn't affect him as he'd hoped to be affected. One mark of his inexperience, I suspect: he's contracted a book from a first-time writer without the expertise to be able to help get the book how he thinks it will sell, and now he's no idea where to go from here.

Can she not email the contract to you? Not that it's in your remit, of course, unless you want it to be. Is it a contract under UK law? Could the Society of Authors help? If he's going to get to the point of repudiating the book, she'll need help. (And apologies for giving her pronouns a sex change, further up the thread!)

yes Flora, she'll have to get him to say clearly what he means, but she, with me coaching her from behind, will have to give him the kind of prompts that can help him formulate what he means. I feel like a puppet mistress. They are going to meet face to face in India where I won't be able to protect her.

Emma, I think you've got it in one. He can't articulate what he means, I think he's being fed his lines, just as I'm feeding the writer hers. She might be able to email her contract to me. I am unlikely to know if it's okay unless it's glaringly obviously bad, in which case I think she could've known that too. She's clever. I'm no longer a member of the Soc. of authors, their annual fees are pretty high if you don't use them. The only time I did use them I found the person I spoke to there so jumpy and unhelpful that it was a bad experience. I resigned this year. So I can't use them on her behalf. She can't join them, she lives in India. He lives here, the Soc do know about him, and they aren't in favour. They think he's difficult and not good news.

Becca, I can't add anything useful except to say that no happy outcome is likely for your friend in these circumstances.

As both parties seem unhappy, is it not possible for the contract to be cancelled? There seems to be little point in pursuing publication with a man who can't see the quality of her work - or her person - and is unwilling to provide any editorial guidance. Has any money changed hands?

From what you say, she would have no problem finding an agent and a more amenable publisher.

Hi Jan,
she's not a friend of mine but a young women the publisher set me up to work with to produce the novel, so money has changed hands, his to mine. He very much won't let her go, no. As far as he is concerned, the novel is his property.

I think it comes down to the wording of the contract. Although, if she has supplied a full length novel it would seem she has fulfilled her end of the bargain but if he hasn't paid for the novel, he has not. Until he pays, surely the novel is not his and she can get out of the contract or, at least, do no further work on his say so. If he is bullying her but won't show you the emails, I don't know how you can help her any more than you have done already.

Well I don't think payment comes into it exactly except that he will be annoyed at having paid me to be her editor and not then having received the exact book that he had in his own imagination. Money doesn't normally pass from a publisher to a writer, and didn't in this case. The whole business is on a more subtle level I am afraid to say.

I am at the moment arming her with the names of famous first person novels, in particular The White Tiger, as that has an Indian author, [her novel is in first person] as what he might be trying to articulate is that first person is autobiographical, in his [limited]view, and because he knows her story is based on a real experience he might be unable to see that she has now actually written it as a novel. Silly man. There are diary sections in it which work very well, so we are now looking for other novels which have used diary entries to show him that this can work. We just invented the idea in so far as one ever invents anything. But there must be examples in literature where writers have done this before. If anyone knows of any, I'd be grateful to hear about them. It might be very useful in pacifying this ... man.

Money doesn't normally pass from a publisher to a writer, and didn't in this case.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand this - there's no advance, then? Is it royalties-only?

But I agree with Jan, basically - it's hard to see this having an okay outcome.