What made Random House decide to buy the book?
Will Murphy, a senior editor, loved the story, and fought like a bear to get it purchased. He won, which is why we all love Will Murphy. How was the editing process? Surprisingly quick and painless. I was afraid that Will would ask me to trim 30% to 40% of the story, but I wasn’t asked to trim at all. We actually ended up adding three scenes. And to my eternal delight, not a single edit had to do with marketability, demographics, or other sales factors. The entire effort was focused on improving the story. And improve the story we did. What was the biggest change to come out of the editing process? In all my previous drafts, there was something in the Scott/Harmony dynamic that just wasn’t working. Scott was a little too ga-ga over Harmony, for reasons the audience just couldn’t see. So we fixed it up. I gave Harmony a lot more depth, and it all turned out ducky. Did you have any input over the design of the cover? There were four different jacket designs created, one after the other.
