Wicked Pretty Things Redux

[filkertom]

There's been an interesting controversy going on the past few weeks, which has led to a very cool offer by our own jimhines.

Basically, the forthcoming anthology Wicked Pretty Things had a submission including a male/male romance, and the editor asked the writer to change it to male/female. Which, of course, would have been an utterly different story. So the writer pulled the story from the anthology, and several other writers pulled their stories in support.

To find out more, and to see what coolness Jim has proposed, click here.

And don't forget about Jim's Fundraising for Rape Crisis Centers.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

If a story isn't acceptable for the book, all the editor has to do is say thanks but no thanks. Small changes are requestable. But yeah, changing a M/M story to M/F story is about as world-changing as making a M/F story into M/M for no good reason.

Kinda reminds me of how the movie producers behave.

"Yeah! We love your book. It's incredible. And with your name recognition we expect the legions of your fans to come see our movie. We just have a few improvements we need to make in order to bring it to the big screen. Little things that are necessary for adaptation. Okay, first, we are going to set it in space. Then we are going to have killer robots! And the protaganist is a space cowboy with laser six shooters. Zap zap! Little things like that."

"Um... my book is titled "The Velveteen Bunny"."

"Yeah, and we are going to need to do something about that title, too..."

[alverant.livejournal.com]

You mean like the "When Harry Met Sally 2" video Tom posted last week?

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

Just as a heads up, it just came out that Wicked Pretty Things has been canceled by the publisher.

http://twitter.com/#!/lisamantchev/status/57490211487223808

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's not completely unexpected, but dang. I wonder if this means another publisher can use the title.

[kengr]

Titles aren't copyrightable.

Heck, there are two novels titled "Oath of Fealty" if the SF/F field.

One is SF by Niven & Pournelle. The other is Fantasy by Elizabeth Moon.

[roman-mclaze.livejournal.com]

Sure, but I could see why not having multiple things by the same title floating around could be nice.It's annoying when you're trying to find a song/book/movie (or describe one to a friend) and you have to be super-specific. "No, not THAT The Illusionist, the other one. No, the OTHER other...wait, you actually expected me to be referring to an obscure Dutch comedy?"

Heck, you could make a whole mix CD out of songs called "Drive".

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

Here's the story from the Running Press publisher, who is, as he points out, an openly gay man: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/soapbox/article/46703-the-misinformation-age-what-happens-when-a-headline-goes-viral.html

So, I believe this was just communication gone fubar.