Chapter Thirty-Eight: Violet
Introduction to the Author’s Extended Edition
Welcome new readers and fellow Fangsters, to the extended edition of The Dark Heroine: Dinner with a Vampire. I have to admit, I was very excited when my editor told me that we would be doing a “director’s cut” for The Dark Heroine, returning some of my favourite scenes to the story that didn’t made the cut of the final book during the edit.
For my long-term fans on Wattpad, I hope this is a chance to reread some of the chapters that had previously been cut for length and pace. For new readers, this edition will give you even more insight into life in the Varn mansion, and into the relationship between Kaspar and Violet. But why were these scenes removed in the first place? Let me tell you an editing story…
Frantic studying, taking your last exams, going to prom, gaining a boyfriend – pretty familiar summer territory for many teenagers. How about sitting in your local library in the blistering heat with an editor, about to edit your manuscript because you had been offered a publishing contract a month after you left school? Sound a bit like something out of a book?
Oh no. This actually happened to me.
I had been writing The Dark Heroine: Dinner with a Vampire on Wattpad for roughly three years under the alias Canse12, gaining 17 million reads and what I believe is the best fan base a girl could have – the Wattpad kind, of course. I was writing serially – posting a chapter every month or so (when I managed to find the time!) and learning so much from readers and fans as I went along. That brought me to the attention of my awesome agent, Scott, and I knew that at some point I was going to have to face the editing process.
So what is the edit? Simply put, the edit is comprised of three steps: a structural edit (usually a list of revisions to do with plot, characterisation, etc. sent to the author), a line edit (word changes), and a copy edit (spelling, grammar and punctuation). The first two are the stuff of nightmares for writers. Being told you have to cut, add to and alter your precious, precious story (think Gollum from Lord of the Rings here) is something none of us want to do, but inevitably have to. And for me, it was going to be really, really hard, because:
1 The turnaround for my book, from acceptance to eBook publication, was two months. (To put this in context, contract to print, it usually takes years).
2 My manuscript was 200,000 words long. Yes, you read that correctly.
Therefore, things were going to be done a little differently: instead of an edit letter containing revisions, I got my actual editor, Amy McCulloch from HarperVoyager UK. Together, in my beautiful home country of Devon, we spent two days looking over her suggestions for the structural and line edit, drinking coffee and emailing revisions to each other at midnight. A week and an all-nighter on my part later, 50,000 words had been cut from The Dark Heroine. It made my history exam look like a piece of cake.
Now, I’m so pleased to be able to share The Dark Heroine extended edition with you all. It’s still been copy edited and proofread, but now contains even more Violet, Kaspar and Fabian…
Happy reading!
– Abigail Gibbs
