What happens at your first meeting with an editor?Utsudo first met her editor at CWT (a comic convention) in Kaohsiung. Besides receiving out-of-print works by an illustrator friend of his, they talked about her signed book that still hadn’t been published, and he suggested rewriting it in more depth. Back then she refused to compromise for the market — only later did she understand the value of his advice.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

My first meeting with an editor at CWT Kaohsiung

　　I remember that the first time I met my editor was at CWT in Kaohsiung.

　　He was there helping a friend run a booth. He told me about it and said that if I was free, I could drop by for a chat.

　　Meeting an editor for the first time! How exciting!

　　But I was a little shy back then, so I dragged along an old friend of many years (um?) to meet him with me.

　　In my mind, editors were skinny and flat, with thick, heavy-framed glasses perched on their noses, as if a gust of wind might blow them off into the sky. So when I saw Editor 77-Nougat-Chocolate, I was surprised — he seemed so tall and big to me.

　　Whether that was down to my state of mind or simply because I’m short, we’ll never know.

　　Side note: I was wearing a black-and-white lace headband that cost me NT$580 (plenty of people were in cosplay that day, so it wasn’t strange). It’s still in my closet. I fantasized about pairing it with a Lolita outfit for photos someday, but never realized that a headband of this level would need a Lolita dress costing tens of thousands, so I gave up on the idea.

　　I remember the price because it was a huge sum for me as a student QQ

　　That year I saw a super tall, super handsome priest cosplayer wearing an incredibly detailed headpiece, and those pecs — (beep)

 　　Ahem. Then I went to the booth to meet Editor 77 (for short). He gave me lots of out-of-print works by his illustrator friend — even a music CD! Truly amazing, an all-round illustrator XD

Talking about my signed book that still hadn’t come out

　　We then went outside for a walk and ended up talking about my signed book.

　　By then I’d been waiting about a year and it still hadn’t been published. Editor 77 said it might be due to the editor-in-chief or internal considerations — he’d heard there were some personnel disputes inside causing delays.

　　I didn’t really care about any of that, because it was out of my control, even though it affected me so deeply. All I cared about was when my book would finally come out, so, in a very chuunibyou way, I asked him with a dead-serious face: “Can I trust you?”

　　He hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

　　Then he lit a cigarette. That was probably the first time in my twenty years of life that I’d talked with someone while they smoked — quite a shock (huh?

Should you rewrite your work for the market?

　　He said he always smokes when he’s thinking. Then he asked whether I’d ever considered rewriting that signed book — he felt the second half was rushing through the main plot, and some parts could go deeper and be more interesting. But I’d finished it a year earlier and was already working on another series, so I shook my head.

　　At the time I thought that since the book had already been signed with a publisher, the current version must be good enough. I also wanted to keep the work true to “myself” and wasn’t willing to compromise for commercial reasons yet.

　　Later, before that series was published by another publisher, I did revise it as a compromise, resulting in the current version.

Professional advice I didn’t understand back then

　　Back then I wrote purely by instinct and had no idea what professionalism meant. Now I really agree with the techniques he described — I only wish I’d understood them then and had been humble enough to accept them.

　　I don’t really remember how that day ended — I only remember that the priest cosplayer was really handsome (hey

　　At that first meeting, I simply felt he was a warm, enthusiastic person who truly understood how to write good work. Having read countless works, he often used many of them (not just novels) as examples for guidance and reference. Because of him, I read the entire Harry Potter series, plus a pile of manga, novels and films — I learned a lot XD

　　There’s much more to write about commercial publishing, but that’s it for today.

FAQ

Further reading (in Chinese)

• Previous: #02 (in Chinese)
• Next: #04 (in Chinese)
• Start from the beginning: #01 — Utsudo’s debut
• Column introduction
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.

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