Byzantine Publishing – Editorial Indecision Resolved (Part 3)
Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 9:22PM “Okay, editorial and content, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Sire, I know you weren’t very happy with my late predecessors’ ideas,” Leonidis answered with a quick glance at the grisly severed hand rotting in a corner, “so I dumped everything and started with a blank page, so to speak.
“What we got here is essentially an anthology made up of ten or twelve separate stories about the same events. The idea has some merit, you know, a human interest play, lots of different takes on the same story. And each of the contributors has his own tale to tell with some variety and unresolved conflicts.
“A few chapters are monotonous, others almost spectacular. For example, the Gospel according to Judas is a true barn-burner. It’ll generate lots of buzz. It’s sort of an expose and it runs completely contrary to Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. Now the Gospel by James has a lot of insider stuff the others missed: family gossip about Mary and Joseph and how he got back at Mary with that tavern wench in Nazareth. James was Peter’s brother after all. Best of all it has a great climax with an escape, a chase scene, sex, and romance. And it’s the only gospel with a happy ending, figuratively for sure, but readers generally prefer endings they can relate to. Ascending into heaven on a beam of light? I don’t think so. Too mystical for this genre. Escaping with your girlfriend and dying peacefully in France: more accessible to the average reader. Upbeat.
“In the end it’s your call, your majesty, but with your determination to keep the Second Testament compact and marketable, we must consider what readers want.
“So I’m thinking we go with James, Judas, and Mary Magdalene, then throw in one of the others, say Matthew, and go with that. Just four gospels and whatever narrative we need to tie it all together. Completely drop all the stuff from Paul: frankly, he pissed off all our female reviewers. Add it all up and it leaves us with two hundred pages max.
“Then addressing one of the concerns Leo turned up in his focus groups, I figured we might open the Second Testament with a chapter from the first. Provide some continuity. As it stands, we open with all the depressing nonsense about Bethlehem, stables, mangers, and stuff. Well, Bethlehem is the city of David right, and David’s son was this badass King of Judea, so I suggest we insert the Song of Solomon as a preface or introductory chapter. Crank in some titillation right at the beginning. Great contrast with the virgin birth shit that follows.
“Sire, Leo, from marketing and I have talked this over and both agree this shorter, racier version will be a hot property. It’ll fly off the shelves and we’ll be into second and third editions within five years. It’ll top the best-seller list for thousands of weeks.”
continued in Part 4 of 5