San Francisco Book Review Lets Me Change My Ending

A couple Fridays ago I shared the last story I had published in 2011: Slow Trains Literary Journal published my short story “Late Lunch” from Tracks.

Now, I’d like to share my first story to be published in 2012. This one is a work of non-fiction published in the San Francisco Book Review: “Let Them Change Your Ending.”

The article tackles a question writers often struggle with: “what do I do if my agent or publisher likes my work, but wants me to make changes. Or, more drastically, wants me to … change my ending?”

It’s not a simple answer, unless you have a good sense of your novel and your characters as well as a good agent and publisher who understands what you’re intent is.

In my case, my agent loved Tracks, but offered some advice that didn’t just change the book—it improved it.

The dreaded editorial changes are easy to embrace if you can truthfully examine them and come to the conclusion that they are true to your story and your characters.

As I say in the article, “When I cut old stories, wrote new ones, and came up with an entirely new conclusion to the book, I saw that my agent understood the truth of my book even better than I did.”

Go ahead and let them change your ending. Learn how by reading my article published on the San Francisco Book Review’s “Back Page.”

http://sanfranciscobookreview.com/2012/01/let-them-change-your-ending/