Gabriella Hewitt

When the manuscript for Dark Waters (originally Ice Predator) came across your desk, what did you think after reading it?

I’m pretty sure my first thought was… hmm. I’m hungry. I wonder if I have any ice cream. *grin* Really, though, Dark Waters holds a special place in my heart—it’s the first book I acquired at Samhain. When I read submissions, I start out with my reader hat on, rather than my editor hat. I’m looking for a story that will grab me, pull me in, and keep me captivated ’til the end. If, while I’m reading my editor self doesn’t poke me, pointing at grammatical errors, or giant plot holes, or character issues, then I know that this story has definite potential. When I finished DW, I just knew that this book was one I wanted to work on.

How long did it take to come up with a new title? And why Dark Waters?

It took a couple of weeks, I think. While I really liked Gabriella’s idea of having a series of books centered around a government agency team, I was a little worried that readers might not recognize that ICE referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and might think of the cold, which is definitely not the kind of thing we want people thinking when it comes to romance novels! So I asked Gabriella if she had any alternate suggestions. While she thought about it, I also took it to the other editors. We bounced some ideas, threw a couple of suggestions back and forth before we agreed on Dark Waters. What I like about this title is that it opens up a lot of possibility for more “Dark” stories down the line, and still relates perfectly to this story, which is set in Puerto Rico, on the water, and is a pretty dark and dangerous story, what with el chupacabra running around, causing havoc in Frankie and Rico’s lives.

Can you describe the arduous process a manuscript has to go through before it is published?

From the editing side of things, a manuscript goes through a pretty rigorous process. Once a manuscript is contracted, I format it in our house style and start my first edits. This is a pretty intense read-through, where I go through with both my editor and my reader hats on. While my editor self is looking for the grammar, the spelling, the formatting stuff, my reader self is going through and asking all the questions that come up—things that don’t really make sense to me or that I’m confused by… like character development, plot consistencies, story timelines, that kind of thing. Then I send it back to the author for her to make any necessary changes or revisions. Then I do it all over again. I find the second read-through catches the things I may have missed the first time around, and makes sure that the revisions work with the story. And it goes back to the author again. At this point, I give the manuscript a third read, and decide if it needs to go back to the author to fix anything that might have been missed the first couple of times. If it does, we’ll go back and forth until I’m confident that it’s is ready to go. Once the story is ready, I send it to a final line editor. The FLE goes through the manuscript twice, looking for anything we might have missed during the edits. Once the FLE is done, the author gets one last look at it to address any changes. Finally, I give it one last proofread, and I send it off to our publisher to get it ready for release.

Any last thoughts or comments? Say working with a major nit-picky author like Gabriella?

I didn’t find Gabriella majorly nit-picky at all. *grin* I think an author needs to be a very active part of the process. If being nit-picky means polishing a story until it shines before submitting it to a publisher, and working closely with the publisher’s team to make the story the very best it can be, then I’m all for it. It shows you have pride in your work and that you are a professional who is determined to succeed.

And I had a lot of fun working with Gabriella on this book. I hope we get to do it again, soon. J

Laurie M. Rauch, Editor

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
“It’s all about the story.”
www.samhainpublishing.com