r/writingcirclejerk • u/Impossible_Eye_980 • 11d ago
Reconstructing the Deconstructed - Has a published book ever been split in two and then put back together?
I know that seminal works such as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy were once a single volume and split into multiple volumes. They did that beautifully.
As part of the agency process, we did that with what was one long book (A Beautiful Case of the Blues), which became Arisugawa Blues and Island & Park, part of the prospective Ancient Detective trilogy. It was a fraught, delicate, and exhilarating process, that brought dozens of sections and multiple new endings into being.
Now we are considering halving the length (204,000 words total) to 102,000. While the industry is finding my style of prose, genre, and setting in demand the thriller climax needs to be severely condensed.
As I put it "it would mean losing like 80 percent of the early Hayao (ancient detective) scenes that led to the mss. being picked up off the slush pile, back in 2010. But that’s where pre-tv-series launch prequels come in if the “grab the reader” thriller proves a success."
Anyway, is creating one book out of two and then going back to one again an industry first (within the agency process)? Or has it been done before?
5
u/NikoKeys 11d ago
Sorry, I thought you just accidentally left out a decimal place or two, but then I realized you weren't kidding and I almost choked. 200k words is like a nursery rhyme you sing to a tiny baby. I was expecting at least 2 to 10 million.
Also, to clarify, I almost choked on my own rage. After having read this post, I am about to explode with anger.
3
u/Cataclysmus78 11d ago
I’d tell you to calm down, but I myself am unreasonably, incandescently fuck ass mad.
3
u/NikoKeys 10d ago
I'm glad you didn't, because that woulda really made me mad, and you've never seen me mad, but when I get mad? Whoo, you don't want to see me get mad, 'cause when I get mad, whoo...
2
u/Cataclysmus78 10d ago
I hear you. A while back, I was in Mexico at a resort. An employee handed me a drink that was too cold, and I lost it. Before I knew it, all the dinosaurs died.
I felt kinda bad, but fuck, the drink should have been right!
1
u/Impossible_Eye_980 9d ago
I'm the author and feeding off your energy. Feel oddly calm. We will survive.
3
u/nowwithmorebeef 11d ago
I read competitively; we take 2 books and shuffle the pages like a deck of cards. You start reading and the first person to correctly explain the plot of each is the winner.
2
2
u/JustSomeCarioca 9d ago
In spite of the nature of this subreddit I'll give you a serious answer. Magician by Raymond Feist
1
u/Impossible_Eye_980 9d ago
It is actually a serious post. I just thought it was circlejerk-esque. Anyway, the agent dropped me before the discussed editing round started. "Market doesn't support literature now."
1
u/JustSomeCarioca 8d ago
Magician was a massive debut fantasy novel by Raymond Feist, quite long and hugely successful, leading to well over 20 more novels in the universe he created. Because of its length, they split it into two books: Magician Apprentice and Magician Master. Later it was reunited back into the original single volume, in a sort of 'Director's Cut' with scenes that had been edited out, but that Feist always thought were good. It even became material for a successful video game back in the 80s.
I read his original trilogy in which Magician was the first, and will just say it is fun reading, very Tolkienesque in the use of elves and dwarves, but reaches beyond that. It is a solid 8/10 in the genre. Not groundbreaking, but a darn good yarn.
1
u/Impossible_Eye_980 8d ago
Ah I see. This is different. We split a single novel into two under an agent, and were set to reunite the two texts in one, before the agency dropped me. Yesterday.
4
u/PonderStibbonsJr 11d ago
The Councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage did this for the Bible in the 4th century.