I created and edited my first anthology, Thirty Days, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Shorts in 2020. The journey began after I wrote thirty fresh short stories over the course of thirty days. For the annual Literal Challenge: Like the Prose. Author’s feverishly write a story after being given a prompt. After thirty days you have thirty new babies to share with the world. I am a sucker for any challenge and knew that this would be a fun one. Thirty Days was edited and published within four months. It was quick unlike the Del Plazo project.

The Chronicles of Del Plazo: The Vallejo

This now massive fantasy anthology began as the Alexia Chronicles. My very first NaNoWriMo November 2019. I sat down on November 1st and set out to write a fantasy novel. It was going to have islands, monkey’s, magick, bad men, and more. November 30th I woke up and wrote 6,000 final words bringing my word count to 56,000. It wasn’t nearly finished and I didn’t have any idea on how to proceed. I shelved it.

Fast forward one year to November 2020. Riding high after finally publishing my very first novel (Thirty Days) I felt revived. As I was planning for NaNo 2020 I was writing down some ideas. Why not turn the Alexia Chronicles into a fantasy anthology. I already had a group of interested author’s, the content, and the drive to make it work. Del Plazo was born.

Creating the World of Del Plazo

Unlike Thirty Days, Del Plazo was massive to begin with. Fourteen islands that needed life. That needed a story. Most of the author’s from Thirty Days were on board and excited. I knew that trying to organise such a huge project would be a challenge especially around the holiday’s, but I was up for it and ready to take it head on!

It started out really well. The author’s were getting their stories in on time, and I was reading through them as they were coming in and also making sure I was getting my writing done. Christmas and New Year’s slowed things down a bit, but that was to be expected. I of course gave as many extensions that were needed (I needed some as well) I always try to be patient when it comes to deadlines. I know that life happens and always want to ensure that everyone’s mental health is taken care of.

Back to Production

After a month off I knew that I needed to kick things into gear if I wanted this to keep going. A little momentum had been lost, and I knew that If I didn’t jump write back in then it would go nowhere. I was ready to write and read again. That was one of the things that slowed me down during the process of editing the Del Plazo stories. I was also writing stories for Del Plazo. Massive ones at that. One of them is 9,000 words in itself. It’s quite hard to edit and write.

I knew that I would need to wait for all stories to be in the pot before I could truly read through them, format, and do minor edits etc. So I put editing off and concentrated on finishing my Del Plazo stories and ‘patiently’ waited for my author’s to get theirs in. With just a few stories missing the time had come!

Editing Process

Editing a fantasy novel is not for the faint of heart. I am certain there are over 100 stories and possibly 700 pages or more. They are all still in separate files at the moment as they each go through the final editing stage. With so many stories that intertwine and character’s that are used in multiple stories. Ensuring that we don’t have major time line issues has been the main project.

In June almost all of the stories were in place and ready for first round edits. I began at the beginning and worked my way through them. Formatting each, looking for minor grammatical errors, and other things that seemed off. By August 1st I had made my way through all of them. Now the time had come to piece them together and figure out the order. I had already determined the order the island’s should go in, but now to figure out the story order. Did I mention how massive this novel is going to be?

Puzzle Pieces

Like pieces of a puzzle the stories began to fit together some better than others. It’s like working through your box of puzzle pieces only to discover that their is a corner piece missing. Did it get knocked off the table or did the puzzle creator leave out one piece to drive you insane? Probably the latter.

Luckily stories can be altered pretty easily as long as all parties cooperate. I think the biggest thing with a fantasy novel in general is that there are rules that need to be followed (Samia one of my sub-editor’s did an amazing job creating, ‘Them’s the Rules.’ Rules that needed to be read prior to stories being written. Some of my author’s clearly didn’t read the rules, and that’s okay I found a place for them within the novel.

I have a feeling this is going to be the hardest part is determining the order. I am a choose your own adventure kinda’ gal, and would love to have that as the theme, but I also want to hear my team out and work together to determine what would be best for the reader.

Contributor’s

If you are contributing to an anthology. For all things good and holy please, please, please actually fix the mistake if it’s pointed out. Don’t just say you did it, and not actually do it. We know that you didn’t do it. At some point the suggestions are no longer suggestions and the fixes will be done for you whether you like it or not. We cannot put stories into the novel with mispelings in them. We cannot put stories into novel with grammatical errors, in them? Nor do they belong in this blog, but point made!

I think for most creatives, feedback in any form can seem heavy and critical. It can make you upset to think that someone didn’t just like what you had written. It’s almost like receiving a B on a paper that you believed should have been an A+. To that I will say that it’s not that the editor did not like what was written (I loved every story that was submitted) it’s the grammar, and the sentence structure that often needs revising. It’s not a bad thing in the very least. It’s also an amazing learning opportunity. For me at least. I also make mistakes and my editing team isn’t afraid to point those out to me, or are you?

Notes:

If you are writing/editing an anthology, patience is the key to your sanity. Your sub-editors and reading team may not be ever present and you can either be okay with it or fire them (kidding) don’t fire them. I can already hear the feedback I will be receiving from this post. xx The anthology will eventually be complete and ready for its debut. Don’t rush the process, but at the same time keep the momentum up. You may have to push deadlines and that’s okay. Breathe and remember that you have 100 other projects that you could work on while waiting on your sub-editors as they go through the final editing stages.

Thank You!

A huge thank you to all of my anthology author’s and editing team. Without you there wouldn’t be 100 stories. Del Plazo had already been created, but it would have been gathering dust on the shelf. I am so excited that we are getting to the end and soon I will be able to announce a tentative release date. Stay tuned…

And to my reader’s if you’ve read this far, thank you. As always please feel free to leave any comments including feedback.