So Bellions built on hope. And welcome to another episode of Red Youth Senior editor of Random House Worlds Del Rey Tom Holler Tom Hollar. Tom, how you doing today? Thanks for joining us?
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. How you guys doing? I'm doing well.
How you doing over there in Ilan of enchantment Puerto Rico? It's been a really day, but it's also hard. It's one of those days Yeah, you know, maybe in Florida. It's very similar to Puerto Rico So it was very hot in the morning, then it got cloudy all of a sudden when I decided to go out and just work from the backyard and started raining as soon as I came in, that something back out.
So I might be sweating a little bit. Right. Tom, you're doing okay? Yeah, I'm doing good.
It's a little chilly in New York today. I'm still pretty nice, but a little bit cooler. It's been really warm the last couple of days. So, inside all day doing work.
But yeah, pretty good. Pretty good. All right. Then we talked a little bit before we started.
You, thanks again for watching the show last week with Leah Kanch, who was very gracious for being here with us. Very nice things to say about it when we totally were joining us. When I mentioned to other people, my friend Maggie Lovett from Collider, I mentioned you were coming when we started a couple of weeks ago, a month ago, and she was, oh, Tom is crazy. I have a lot of fun.
So people out there do love you. So that's what I'm taking the time. That's very nice to hear. So thank you to all of them and everybody.
It's always nice to hear if people are happy or excited to talk to you. Yeah, I know. There has been hype, so no pressure. Okay.
Yeah, you're cool. I feel great. I feel great not sweating at all. No, no, you're right.
Yeah. You just said it's cool down there in New York. Yeah, exactly. All right.
As you're seeing, I'm going to make sure you subscribe to our channel and comment down below if you're watching this later on the replay of when you listen to listen to me when it comes out on all your format. And yeah, that's it. Subscribe, know that fun stuff. And we should, I mean, we will have our regular episode on Saturday this week.
So make sure to tune in for that. All day before, actually before you check in with the chat, I'm just going to show. I tweeted this out a couple minutes ago, but I don't know what it's going on. As you can see in my background, I take all my toys out of the box.
I'm out of the box guy. But my wife got me these 50 anniversary I can't really show you. Enjoy your beans. Oh, thank you.
Frozen show, which I think might be the first one I keep in the package because it's a very nice one holographic design, I might keep my job your bins in the package there so I don't know, I just wanted to show it. Cool figure. Yeah, it looks good. The packaging looks awesome.
It does and the figure itself is a very cool design for your job so. The mold is very detailed. Yeah, it's going to my rotation. Alright, I'll tell you who's out there in the chat before we start.
We have Quail, people, we have Dale as always. Hi Dale, we have the Blue Band Mama. Oh, Jacqueline, thanks for being here. We have Arzo over here.
Arzo. Jacqueline is actually unpacking grocery, so Good priorities, good priority. Yeah, we have Mo. Mo is in the chat.
Alright, before we officially start, Tom has actually been here before, even though I didn't know this. He was in the chat about a year ago. I had an episode with our friend, Alterin Reese, where I was talking about just canon books in Star Wars. And about a year later, as I was doing research for the episode we did about a favorite Star Wars book, just so I didn't repeat myself, I saw this.
Someone was in the chat. What did you see there? Tom Holler was in the chat and I missed him completely. So how embarrassing for me that I missed the senior editor of Star Wars books in the chat, but we're talking Star Wars book and I completely missed it.
So I'm sorry, but Tom, thanks again for agreeing to hear. Nothing to apologize for. I love checking in with this show with other shows and folks. We're talking about Star Wars books.
I want to be around when people are talking about Star Wars books. So I jump in and check in now and then I sneak into the back of the virtual rooms and what's going on. Yeah, it was very nice of you to be there. Alright, so if you guys already, I'm not ready, let's start Star Wars.
And today's all, we're at the same hall at the senior editor of Random House books. I believe it used to be called Del Rey. What was that change? Is it how Random House worlds now?
What is it? Yeah, so the team that does the adult Star Wars novels for many years, Del Rey, you know, our social media, Del Rey, Star Wars, etc. If you came to conventions, it'd be Del Rey Star Wars. But now it's Random House worlds.
You can think of it mostly a little bit like a Jersey change in sports, like it's the same game, all the same folks, the same people just sort of rebranded. There's a lot of kind of behind the scenes, not all that important reasons for that name change, but it's still the same folks, still all the same people working on it, it's the same way we make books. But yeah, it's technically now Random House worlds. If you go to look at your books now, the little icon called the colophon that's on the spine of the books is now Random House worlds.
So yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, it's a pretty cool design. Yeah, there you go. There you go.
It's official now. All right, are you ready to start us off? I am. I can't believe I have the first question.
It's the pleasure of the honor. Yeah. Okay, so Tom, we always like to start asking our guest about their Star Wars stories. Can you talk a little bit about your Star Wars story that you enjoyed from a young age?
Was it something you grew into? What was the first movie you saw? What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite character?
Just a few questions for you to check there. This is always a hard question for me to answer because I don't actually know what the origin of my story with Star Wars is. I can't remember. And it's very funny.
I've been asked this a few times and I've actually gone and asked my mom or asked other relatives. And no one can tell me, and I can't remember the first time ever so I am a child mostly of the 90s and born in the late 80s. I grew up in the 90s. And I do remember going to see the theater when the special editions came out.
They were really some theaters. I know I had seen Star Wars before that when I was much younger. I would imagine that a new hope was the very first Star Wars movie. I can't remember.
Which is kind of a shame. I always hear these amazing stories of people who can remember that exact first moment they saw Star Wars and they found Star Wars and I don't have that. So then I just get to say like well Star Wars has always been part of me. I was born and already know I'm Star Wars, already connected to Star Wars.
So I don't know a lot of the firsts with it. But it's always been a big part of my life ever since I was younger and it's always been a thing that I was deeply connected to through the movies and then eventually through books and through other media. Interestingly, until I got a little older, Star Wars was sort of a thing I kind of enjoyed on my own. I have some siblings and they like Star Wars and I have friends who like Star Wars but I wasn't really deeply involved in like Star Wars communities or like band communities until I was older.
For a long time as a kid I was like I just enjoyed Star Wars by myself. It was kind of my own little thing and that was just like me which was kind of fun but then it was great to find other people to actually like really chat with it about. Star is like a favorite. I don't really have a favorite.
I know that sounds a little bit like a cop but I don't really have a favorite Star Wars movie. I find myself gravitating to different movies at different times kind of in my life like or like in terms of like my mood or like what I want. I suppose if you really press me or like you know we're sending you to the desert island and you only get to take one Star Wars movie with you which one's going with you. Probably a new hope is coming with me though it might also be a return of the Jedi because when I was younger we moved houses and obviously we had the movies you know on VHS at the time and something happened during the move as always happens with during we lost the first two.
We lost a new hope in Empire Strikes. I couldn't find them and so for a long time I could only just watch Return of the Jedi because it's the only one we had so one of those two was probably coming to the desert eye with me and the same thing is true the characters like I don't really have a favorite character one again I find myself gravitating to different characters for different reasons at different times but also I love so much the interactions between the characters and the way that the characters relate to and engage with each other that at times it's difficult for me to like separate like Han from Leia because it's like the dynamic of Han and Leia together to me is just so incredible and other characters so I also have a hard time picking a favorite. I mean that's it. So go ahead Ollie.
You got the chance to watch Return of the Jedi and the theater? I did because when the when the special editions were released I kind of remember distinctly going with relatives and friends to see each of them and they got released so I did get to go see that in the theater. And then you go a couple weeks ago for the 40th anniversary? Unfortunately I wasn't able to.
I had a very good reason I was working on finishing some Star Wars books. I was doing some Star Wars things which prevented me from going to see the Star Wars in the theater so unfortunately I didn't. That's a good problem to have. Like you were just keeping it from Star Wars.
Exactly. We'll take that. I sympathize with the other reason that you remember Star Wars always being there but not the exact time. I usually say here that I was three years old when Return of the Jedi came out and my first memory is being three years old crying on my mom's lap when Jabba out came out.
But again I was three so I really don't remember but that's what I've created in my mind and my brother kind of confirmed it a little bit but it really didn't become part of my life till the special editions came out in the late 90s. So I was always there. I knew I saw that at some point. I knew the whole story.
We saw it at home in VHS when it came out on TBS or wherever but it wasn't until the late 90s when it kind of really took over. Exactly. Exactly. All right Tom I used to ask when they came in and I kind of stopped but I want to hear especially for people like us like we said we love Star Wars but it's kind of part of our life.
So every time something Star Wars happens people either give us weird gifts, have to call you during May 4th to tell you how happy Star Wars day. Has anyone given you or have you bought for yourself a weird Star Wars something and while you think if you have to think if you already have an answer I always say I was given a couple years ago a Hungarian version of The Voice Awakens a picture book you can see here it's in Ojongarren which I do not read. It has masks that you can take out, ray stormtroopers, there's a chuaca and a cagarin but the best part is that for some reason it ends when they get to the car. There's nothing else after that.
So the last thing or the more you have no idea what happened. So that's one of the weirdest gifts I've gotten. How about for you? So I've been very fortunate that because I go to a lot of conventions, I go to book conventions, I go to Comic Con etc.
that people are very kind and very gracious coming up giving stickers and buttons and things like that. I wouldn't say any I would not call any of those weird. I've always gotten really cool really fun little things. I'm looking over I'm kind of looking off screen on my bookshelf and there is there is a book that I can't reach because it's very number of other books but if folks will remember there was a book that came out a few years ago called Star Wars Made Easy by Christian Brevel.
It's a I believe it's from DK the publisher, Christian's A Friend of Mine. He's great. It's a great book. It's one of those great books that you can give to people who, particularly younger people who might be coming to Star Wars for the first time or people who are looking for one of those books.
That's just like a big great kind of cool reference Boralie Easter Eggbook and what makes it unusual is the book is unusual. The copy that I have is in Icelandic. And I found it in Iceland. I found it in Reykjavik in Iceland and I bought it and the reason why is well two reasons.
One, Christian's A Friend of Mine and I was like, oh my god, Christian's book all the way here in Iceland, I need to buy it. But the second reason is that Iceland is a relatively small country and Iceland does not have a massive population. So the number of people who speak Icelandic is pretty small. And so a lot of books for a book to actually be translated into Icelandic since most everyone in Iceland does speak English and learns English.
For a book to actually be translated into Icelandic, it's like pretty rare. So the fact that that book was translated to Icelandic makes it not weird but makes it unusual to make unique in some respects. I don't know that any other Star Wars book has ever been translated to Icelandic. It's possible that another one of the reference books has.
But the fact that that one was was just so exciting to me. I was so excited to see it. So that I would say that maybe is my most unusual or weird gift. I didn't get a whole lot of Star Wars gifts growing up.
Not because people were trying to make me a wood star. It was just one of those things that I didn't really get action figures as gifts. Even though I like Star Wars. It's just for whatever reason didn't grow up getting a lot of Star Wars toys or gifts or things.
And Iceland, that's one of those places every time I see a documentary or someone visiting Iceland. I just want to go over it. It is absolutely worth it. I love it.
My wife is from Iceland. So we visited some time that I visited this family. It is one of my favorite places in the world. I love going every time that we go.
Whether it's the dead of winter, where it's almost no sunlight and we go for holidays or during the summer where there's pretty much no darkness and it's daylight all the time. It's like three o'clock in the morning. It's a wonderful place. I totally recommend visiting it.
You've never been nice. Yeah, I might have to take some notes. So working at Random House Worlds as an editor was working on Star Wars books something that you always wanted or something that just happened. It was something that I always wanted and it was entirely the driving force for me to get publishing.
Publishing and working as an editor is my second career. I had a first career working in business, working in finance, working in accounting. And when I decided to leave that to go work in publishing, it was specifically because I wanted to go work as an editor and among other things, I wanted to work on Star Wars books. And I wanted to come work at Dalright, not Random House Worlds, but I wanted to come work at Dalright to work on Star Wars books.
And I can distinctly remember, I sat in my old boss's office after I had told them that I was leaving that job. And they asked me, what are you going to do? And I said the words. It sounds apocryphal.
It sounds like I've been doing the only in a movie. But I sat in a chair and I said to her, I'm going to go to Dalright and I'm going to work on Star Wars books. I said, it's exactly what it's doing. You got to manifest it.
I can put it out of the world. Exactly. I'm going to count. I'm going to count.
So hearing that story is like, wow. Yeah. So yeah, it was always part of the plan. It was always the plan.
It wasn't even part of it. It was the plan. There wasn't another plan. No plan B.
I was exactly. Exactly. I love that. I love that.
So Tom, for someone like me who's just an accountant and part-time like to talk about Star Wars and talks about Star Wars books as if I know everything, what's the job of an editor? Like, what do you do? Okay. So the sort of, there's two parts to being an editor.
And one part I think most people are familiar with. That's the part that is working with an author to take their writing and make it the best version of itself, to take their story and take their idea and help them cultivate it, provide the feedback, help them revise it, to make it ultimately the best version of whatever the author's goal and intent is. That's one part of the job. And I spent a lot of time doing that.
I love doing that. It's so rewarding to get to be part of the creative endeavor and to help an author bring their story to life and make it better. But the other part of being an editor, the other part of my job, and quite frankly, the thing that I probably spend the most time doing if we were just talking about like, what do you do day to day nine to five, like Monday through Friday, is actually it's a role of project management. I spend a lot of time managing the process of taking a book from a collection of pages in Microsoft Word on an author's computer to a finished book on one of your bookshelves behind you.
And a book has to go through a pretty long process, a pretty long journey through a bunch of different stages and has to interact with a bunch of different departments and other people in order to achieve all that. And it's the job of a book editor within a publishing house to shepherd the book through that process. So as a project manager, I'm connecting with all the other departments that help make a book, the production department, the marketing and publicity department, the art and design department, all of these different groups of people, the contracts department, I get to go on and on, like we could be here for a while just talking about departments. And it's my job to help put everyone in those different departments in the best position they need to be in order to do their part of the job.
So that might be providing them new information about the book, it might be providing them different sorts of files or different other bits of paperwork or just information. It might be sitting down with the sales of the marketing team to say, hey, here's what we think the five most exciting things about this book are that we can develop promotion around. And it's my job as the editor to kind of be the fulcrum of that process, to be at the center of that and to help everybody else, help manage the schedules, keep track of the deadlines. If one of the departments is making a decision that's going to affect one of the other departments, oftentimes the editor's job is to negotiate those things or notify the two departments.
Like, hey, we're doing x over here, that might affect y over here. So it's a big, it's a big challenge of project management. And I spend most of my day doing that. The editing part, the creative endeavor, the chatting with authors and looking at manuscripts and making notes, that's a much smaller part of the overall pie.
And I don't do that. Like for instance, today, I didn't read, I didn't read any part of any manuscript doing that because I had a whole bunch of other things I needed to get done. Tomorrow, I will probably do something. But today, for instance, I did it was pretty much all project management and other things.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's great to hear because at least like what he said, we talk about books here. But one thing we always say, we don't know how the process is made and all this behind the scenes.
So it's great to hear all the steps because you might think, or I might think, yes, you work directly with the author and that's it. That's 100% your job. I know there's all these other steps that other people don't think about. And you kind of touch up on it a little bit with this answer, with that answer, you're saying, but what's that process of working with an author when they come in with a manuscript?
Do you map out the story or how does it go on then specifically working with Harry Potter? There's so many authors, so many books that interconnect with each other, you know, which we don't miss anything. Is there a here? What we're gonna say here is gonna connect three books from down there.
How's that process of making sure everything stays connected and everything makes sense in such a big policy in kind of era right now with the Harry Potter? Sure. So something that we do with any of our books is we actually don't start with a manuscript. We start with an outline.
So we have an author sit down and put together an outline of the overall article of what's going to happen with the big events, maybe the big connections, the characters who are going to appear, if their original character is a little bit of info about like, who is this original character, what's their background, where they're from, what do they want, that kind of thing. The reason being that if you think about having to connect or keep a bunch of different stories really cohesive, if you start with an outline of like, here's the broadestrucks of where we're going, it's really much easier to evaluate, let's say, a seven page or even a 10 page outline and say, you know, the thing that's going on here on page two of this outline, that's either not going to work as it conflicts with another story or, you know, it's just not quite landing right, right? It's easier to tell an author, hey, why don't you revise these two pages of this 10 page outline versus getting a 300 page manuscript saying, you know what, you got to rewrite 200 of these 300 pages, right? It's just time, effort, all these things like, first of all, one of those is much easier than the other, one of those is much more doable than the other.
So we always start with outlines because that allows everybody to get on the same page about what are we trying to achieve in the book, how are we going to go about achieving it, if there's things that we haven't quite ironed out, like what are the trying to identify maybe the pain points in the story or the parts of the story that we think might need, more revising or just more attention during the editing process, you do all that during the outline stage, it's like practice, right? And then when the manuscript comes in, you already kind of know all I need to pay extra attention to these chapters of this thing. And in doing that, I'm always chatting, whether it's one book or a whole series, like always having conversations with my friends that Lucas filmed to talk about what other stories are going on, what other stuff's going on in Star Wars, one, so we can plan fun, connections, that's always fun, right? It's always great to read a book and realize, oh, my gosh, this can I get that book or that comic over there?
Oh my god, that's so cool. But also in order to ensure that the stories themselves, you know, compliment each other or that, you know, the stories are not crashing into each other unless you want the stories to crash into each other, in which case, we want to crash them intentionally. And so we're doing that for every single book, which means that then for something like the High Republic, it's like the same thing, but just more. It's the same thing that we always do here, it's just more of it, you know.
And so that's kind of the way we work is we really rely on outlines, we're always having tons of conversations and back and forth about just what's going on in stories, we need to change something or pivot something. It's just like the the thing that we always talk about, and it's very much true of publishing, it's true of many things, it's like communication can kind of solve almost every problem. So like, we'll just talk about it, we'll figure it out, you know, two things are conflicting or if something's not quite lining up, as long as we can identify and then chat through it, we can figure it out. And that's always kind of the goal.
And it's fun because it just means that you're constantly in communication with all these really great collaborators and really great creative people who have ideas and solutions and, you know, all sorts of things. So yeah, that's that's kind of the way that it works. Yeah, I mean, that sounds great. And it's time kind of daunting, especially working with so many people and going to Lucas, Lucas, and I want to add this knowing that they might say, you know what?
No, you can't. We don't know this all this stuff or you're a secret that you can know anything about, but it's great to hear that. Othy, who else is out there in the chat? I think that's the only people I've showed up.
People are floating in. Hi, everyone. Oh, yeah, you already showed up. Brian's here.
Brian. We also have Brandon, we showed up. Oh, Brian. Thanks for being here.
You have a lot of who's here? I don't know. We also have Amy Gere. Hi, Amy.
Hi, Amy. Yeah, it's a bunch of people. So Tom, I want to know, and I know the answer to this question is it depends. But I want to know more or less, what's the usual time from going maybe from an idea or from a manuscript all the way to the book being out there in shelves for people to buy?
You are correct. It does depend on the next question. So there isn't like a every book takes this amount of time. It does depend.
It depends on all sorts of things, like a million different factors. I will tell you that there have, and I'm not going to get specific for a reason that I explained afterwards, but there have totally been books that have gone from initial idea to on the shelf in a year, actually in less than a year. We have we have totally done that. That is unusual for publishing broadly.
That is actually not that unusual when you're talking about the kind of publishing that's always publishing is, which is called license publishing, or you might hear it called IP publishing in licensed or IP publishing, shorter overall development windows and publication windows are actually rather common. So we have totally done books in less than a year. It's really challenging. It requires everyone to be on the same page, everyone moving in the same direction.
Luckily, we have a lot of people who are really experienced with that. So we can do that and we have done that. And then some books will be in development or go through that process over the course of quite literally years. And so yeah, it really does vary.
It's a mix. Not every book is in development for multiple years, and not every book is done in figuratively speaking, five minutes. So it varies. And the reason why I don't ever really denote which books that is, is like, I feel like people could interpret that as like a referendum on like the quality of a book.
And really, that's not really the case. Like it is a challenge, but it's also kind of a practice of being able to develop a book in a shorter timeframe versus a long timeframe. And while having, you know, every book I've ever worked on, even the books that we've worked on for a long, long time, trust me, I would always love to have more time to work on every single book, every single one. But it's also a factor that like we totally know how to do it, if we need to and know how to achieve that.
So yeah, it does vary. Obviously, we always try to have as much time as we can, but there are totally moments that come up where we're like, oh, we could totally do a book. We don't have as much time as we would want, but that's fine, because we'll make it happen. So in that sense, could you like at times be working at different projects that are like maybe in different stages of production, meaning one that could be released within the year, one that could be released in two years, three years of ending?
Yeah, and I mean, that's sort of how editors work is that editors are never just working on one book at a time. So as an editor, you're always working on multiple projects. I would say that myself, I'm probably always working, I'm usually working on between four and six is probably my average. And those to your point are always at wildly different stages of the process.
So for instance, you know, the Lila Dawson's Inquisitor, Rise of the Red Blade comes out two months from tomorrow. So it comes out in two months. And that book is basically done going off to the printer, was just making sure that all the files look good and was doing the last little bits of, you know, ensuring all the last little proof reads got in and we didn't, you know, I didn't actually like key in a weird error to the book somewhere and checking for type modes one more time, that kind of thing. But then, you know, there's also, we've got from a certain point of view return of the Jedi coming out later in the summer and that is not quite at that stage, but getting to that stage.
And then we've got books coming out this fall and there's projects that people don't know about that. We're working on the next year that, you know, are in different stages. And so you're always working on multiple projects and multiple stages. Something might be in its outline phase, I'm sending material to an author or other outline.
Another book might be in its very first draft and I'm reading the first draft while another book, like I said, is in its sort of last layout and we're just taking last looks before we send it off to the printer. So that's always the case. We're always working on multiple projects. And because we want to give every book as much time as possible, you have to work as far ahead, right?
If I want to publish a book, let's say, you know, oh, yeah, I want you to write me a book and we're going to publish it in fall of 2025. Well, fall of 2025 sounds like it's a long time away from now, right? It's two years from now. But because, and this is true of book publishing overall is not just true of Star Wars.
But publishing takes some time. You need time to put a book through that process of going from again, Microsoft Word files to final book, you actually need a bunch of time and you need to layer in time to have revision and you need to layer in time for the author and the editor to talk about the revisions and then give feedback on the revisions. So because of that, you're always chasing and planning, you know, a year, multiple years out from wherever you are. So yeah, I've got, I've got things at every stage of the process right now.
I've got manuscripts in my, you know, on my desk, as well as outlines, as well as final things and everything in between. Okay, awesome. Yeah, I think we're getting that Ben Cuadeneros book. Oh, yeah.
Just for you. Are you ready? That's all. Hey, if someone calls, I have any book right there.
It just needs to compute and go. I'll say that inquisitive books comes out two days after my birthday. I'm just saying before there. Sorry when it's hit by two days.
I know. We know a related birthday gift. It is. It's funny that you say two years sounds like it's fine off, but it's not really.
I'm working something at work every three years. We have this big kind of inspection that comes out and with people that we're kind of start freaking out like a year in advance and like, why are you guys freaking out? We still have a year and this year I'm having to loop out so it and I'm freaking out with all the things I need to be done. So I understand that you have two years.
That's you got enough time. It comes at you really fast. It does. And it's funny.
I know you might be able to relate to this. When I was working as an accountant, oftentimes accountants are looking back in time. You're looking at what last year's numbers look like. What we're putting together are taxes for the previous year.
You're always living weirdly in the past. And as a book editor, I'm always living weirdly in the future. I'm never thinking about the present because by the time it becomes the present, whatever I was working on is already done. So I'm always weirdly thinking about a time that is other than now.
I totally get that because for me it's 2022 because with all my clients, with all my clients, it's 22 numbers. So it's like, oh, it's 23 already? Okay. Everything has a right idea.
Everything. All our birthday should be on Tuesday. It's really much with the book. That's true.
That's what it really stays. I'll make that happen. Okay. So with movies, they always say that the movies is the screenplay is edited three times.
When the author writes it, when it's shot, I want it edited. The same thing happened with books. The do story beats maybe sometimes dramatically change during the editing process. Could you be like, hey, I know you wrote this, but this isn't really working in the context of the story or what we're trying to do?
I mean, that totally can happen. Ideally, we'd like that not to happen. But it totally can. And again, that's one of the reasons why we start with an outline is that if there are initial story ideas that it just like, this just doesn't work.
Because again, maybe it's conflicting with something. Maybe the story just not quite coming together. It doesn't sound plausible. It's just, you know, it's just, you read it.
It's just like, it's not, it's not there, right? Ideally, we try to work as much of that as we can out in the outline so that when the manuscript comes in, it's like the overall arc of the story we know is going to work and we know is what we want and is going to achieve the goals that the author has and you know, is going to hit the themes that we want to hit, et cetera. But then maybe exactly how we get to that journey. We're like, oh, you know, we're actually missing one more scene.
Oh, you know, we don't have enough scenes of these two characters chatting and because we really need their final moment to resonate, we need another moment like this. A good example where something that happened is in the Therana Senes' series that I got to work on with Tim Zahn. In Les Arivel, the third book, there's this character, some people might be familiar with named Thorass who has a particular relationship with Thrawn and the book is in part about the arc of that relationship. And in the process, you know, that was part of the outline.
We totally know that was going to be part of the book. But when we were working on the manuscript, when the drafts came in, we were looking at it and we were looking at revisions and stuff, one of the things that we all agreed on was we were like, we need one more scene with Thrawn and Thrawn. We don't have enough of them. We need one more scene where it's kind of just the two of them, not in the middle of like a mission or anything like Super Plot Heavy.
We just need another kind of quiet moment of the two of them engaging with each other early on to really punctuate the building of their relationship and the building of their rapport together. And so in that case, we actually added another scene that wasn't originally planned to be part of the book because that book needed it. And that happens quite a lot where we'll say, you know, the arc of what we're trying to achieve here still totally works, but because maybe the pacing isn't quite right or, you know, we haven't really earned the big final battle yet, we haven't earned the big theme or the big stakes. Hey, we need another moment of these two characters.
So we need another moment where we remind readers about this particular conflict. That happens quite a bit because for as much as you might pre-plan things with an outline and as much rigor, you might do with an outline until you actually put words on the page and see the story playing out in real time. That's really when you see exactly like, oh, is the pace correct through the book? Is the character arc full and complete and all that?
But ideally, what we try to avoid and what we're usually pretty good about is, you know, I mean, any script doesn't come in and you say, oh man, none of this works. We don't start at scratch. We don't usually have time to scratch. But that again, the work of the outline phase is, you know, helps to solve it.
Every book goes through the editing and the revising process and gets added to or subtracted to, in some respect. That's not because the author hasn't achieved their goal. That's not like a failure of the author or anything like that. It's just because that is an intrinsic part of the creative process of Storytelling is looking at the story, thinking about what the story is trying to achieve and saying, is there a better way to achieve the same thing?
Can we take what we're trying to achieve? Is that seven? Seven's great. Can we make it nine?
Can we make it 10? Can we get 11? You know, can we can we dial it all up even more? So yeah, that happens with every book, another example that I'll get.
It's going to be a little more of a bleak example. But I think it's keen. I'm interested for people to see it is that we're just talking about Rise of the Red Plate, which comes down in July. And I can tell you that when you open up Rise of the Red Plate and you read Chapter One, that was not originally Chapter One.
There, a different chapter in the book was Chapter One. And as we started to revise and started to go through, I was talking to Delilah Dawson, the author about it. And we were talking, we're like, you know what? We think there's a better place to start the story, giving some of the things that are going to happen later in the story, actually, it'd be really cool if we did X at the start of the story.
And so we added a different, a new chapter as that became Chapter One, and people will say, and that happens too. We oftentimes, the place where you think you want to start the story is sometimes I think the thing that changes will add a prologue, we'll back the story up five minutes, we'll push the story forward five minutes. That's a common thing that tends to happen not with every book with some books. So yeah, every book goes through revision and editing and things change, though I would say by and large, we don't start making a book about something and then decide, oh, actually, this book should be entirely different.
This book about Thai pilots should now be about an Inquisitor. Like, you know, that doesn't happen. That happens in the movie sometimes. That doesn't happen because again, we start from this outline phase and really, we try to work through all of those questions and challenges in the outline phase, because like I said, it's so much easier to go to an author and say, hey, why don't we revise this one page of the outline versus 100 pages, completely overall 100 pages of the amazement.
I love hearing that collaborative relationship between the author and the whole group, because well, you also TV shows a movie, oh, I sent my manuscript on editor and just read notes come back. And then that's all, it's not this how much care there is between all parts of it. I can't wait to revise the race. Recently, I've been on a Sith and dark side kick and they like to write some weird great stories.
I can't wait to get that. Hopefully, at some point, we'll learn what was the original first chapter just so we can go back. So it's still in there. And I think many people will be able to guess what we have on guests, but you're right.
I just wanted to punctuate that like the best part of this job and the best part of what I get to do is getting to not just like mark up a manuscript and send notes back to an author, but like getting to build a relationship with an author and getting to have conversation with the author about their stories and what's important to them and the kinds of themes and characters and just experiences that they care about or they've had and they're trying to convey that is by far the absolute best part of what I get to do and the reason why I love doing it is you're right. It's so much more than me just typing some trap changes or comments in the Microsoft Word, sending it back and being like, send me the next draft. I will we will sit down sometimes and have like hours long conversations about books about the books about the stuff. And then those conversations will often dovetail into being like talking about our lives, talking about like what's going on in the world, talking about just like how we're feeling because your experience, your core experience as a person is intrinsic to how you would write a book and is intrinsic to the process of you being a storyteller.
And so it's almost impossible as an editor for you not to develop that sort of report with an author when you're engaging with their storytelling because it's the best way that you learn about the kind of storytelling that they're trying to tell and how to best help them achieve that. It's so much fun. And I say, it's a little bit with something that Lydia can tell us last week is when they sit down to a rather star was book, people can kind of think, oh, it's Star Wars, you're just gonna sell, so I'm just gonna phone it in. But no, there's that relationship and that importance of you guys put behind everything that you're doing and shows in the books that come out and just how open and how happy everyone is with everyone that was in that team is great to hear that also.
Talking about sitting down with, sorry, sorry. No, I was gonna say that what's also important about that is like when we bring when you bring an author on board to write a star wars story, there's not like you hand them like here's the Star Wars voice and this is the voice in the text. You bring an author on board to write a star wars story because it's like, Odie, I need your star wars story, Alberto, I need your star wars book. And so you want and you need that author to bring their experience and their voice to the story because if not, you would get someone else to write that story.
You're not trying to write the generic version of a star wars story, right? You want that person story, the story that only you, Alberto, only you, Odie could write. No one else could write the Star Wars novel that you offer because no one else has your experience, your voice, your background. And so Leo's entirely right.
There's so much intentionality put into it by the authors who come to write these books, which is what makes them awesome. That's what makes them great. That's that secret sauce sort of intangible thing. It's the authors.
It's them. I agree for me. Every time I have to read a Clutter Great book, yes, it's a Star Wars book, it's a Clutter Great book. And I'm very excited about that.
So all the women's writers, so it's happy to hear that. Yeah. So speaking about Clutter Great and sitting down with authors just to kind of work out the book, Fallen Star is my favorite of the Random House books that have come out recently, Fallen Star is my favorite one. I can't tell how many times I cried in the last 100 pages because Clutter Great is the greatest out there.
Any stories, any interesting story of working with Clutter writing Fallen Star, which is this last adult novel for phase one that's closing out this big phase one, any interesting story that came working with there for this book? I think what the most interesting story about that particular book is that because it's the end of phase one, it's really like, man, all these different threads that we've been building, threads that have been built in some of the comics or some of the other stories that have woven through everything, a lot of those are coming to fruition in the Fallen Star. And it's like, you got to stick the landing, right? It's great to have all these stories and all this interconnectivity.
And it's like, but that stuff really only works if when you bring it all together, it lands and it works. And because we knew what was going to be happening in the Fallen Star, and the let's say big events for in case anyone has not read the Fallen Stars and I got in there in their High Republic journey, I will remain a little oblique. Some big events happen. Oh, sorry.
This is really, you know, some story, some really story shaking and changing events. And there's a, to finally see that stuff on the page, we talked about it. There's a difference between seeing it in outline and being like, okay, this is what we're going to do. And then seeing it on the page and seeing it play out and being like, did we earn it?
Does it resonate? Do you feel that emotion on the page? And when you do, do you feel like, yes, it worked. Obviously, that's in large part because Clutter is just an absolute phenomenal storyteller.
So that's the thing that sticks out to me about that book, because it was really like all these other stories and all these other things that have been planned and then executed now are kind of all coming together for the first time in Fallen Star, right? Yeah. So you got to talk a little bit about that big landing, big moment. I find that book to be even with the Dark Tones to see a very hopeful book.
So it's all my favorite Star Wars book, a very dark book called The Rising Storm. Any interesting stories about that one? Yeah, I mean, what's nice is every book that we work on has amazing stories. But for the Rising Storm, it's similar to Fallen Star, though obviously a little different because that is the middle book of its own trilogy and also was kind of in the middle of phase one, right?
And so really what books like The Rising Storm, there's two things that stand out. First, the big picture thing is that in the first books of the High Republic like Light of the Jedi and others, it's sort of like you're establishing the era, you're sort of laying the groundwork for this new place where you're going to tell stories, you're introducing a bunch of characters and worlds and things for the very first time. So that's its own challenge. But The Rising Storm was really with that book and the others in the middle phase of the middle wave of phase one was the first time that again, you're sort of testing that thesis of like, can we really interconnect this many stories and mediums?
Can we interconnect this many books and this many comics? Can we really do it? And The Rising Storm is one of the first books where you're putting that to the test. We're going to draw in characters that we're in a different medium, we're going to have characters dovetail outwards, we're going to connect things that were in a comic and a book and bring them together.
It was really that first time of testing some of this stuff that we were all so excited about. And everyone was like, this is going to work, we know it's going to work, but again, there's a difference between saying that and it's on the page. So the first time that Kevin delivered that manuscript and was reading through and just seeing all the layering and just being like, oh my gosh, yes, again, it's a really uplifting thing. The other thing about that book in particular is you've got the big, the galaxy fair, right?
The big fair, which is like a little bit the world fair. There's like a little, there is definitely a sense of like a kind of theme park aspect. There's that song that's definitely got vibes of a little bit of like it's a small world, but the galaxy star wars, right? It was so much fun watching Kevin layer in all these details to the fair, not just because you know, you get a lot of these sort of fun reflections of the real world and fun, just fun.
It's totally fun to build a giant fair with all these cool things. But it was also really great to watch him do that because what you realize is going on is he's teaching you every aspect of the fair and every aspect of that location and creating this living, breathing place, because later on when he destroys it, everything is falling apart there, you have learned and internalized that place so much that one, the fact that it gets attacked, its destruction is resonant to you, but you also, the author has secretly taught you how to keep track of all of the chaos. But amidst all the chaos, you're like, wait a minute, I know where Elzar is and I know where this person is because all those early chapters about them wandering through were teaching me about this new place. And that like, I always get really geeked out when authors are doing things like that, and like, Kevin, that's an example of like that was just like a masterful thing.
So that stands out to me about The Rising Storm, which was so much fun. And you know, you said it was a dark book, and it is like bad things certainly happen in my gosh, those last couple pages. But there's also like some really great heroic and hopeful moments and seeing certain characters take a step forward and really sort of claim a moment of heroism or of hope or of pushing and growing beyond themselves. I know that Bell gets put through the ring in that book, but there's really a couple moments where you really are just like cheering for Bell.
You're seeing Bell, you can see the Jedi that Bell might one day become because you can see it coming out in bits and starts in The Rising Storm. That's just great to say. I love that book. I just want to mention and shout out to Mark Thompson, who does the audiobook because he had to read to sing that song.
I usually do the audiobook and the book at the same time. And when we got to that, I was like, is he gonna sing it? Oh my god. Knowing Mark Thompson a little less I do.
First of all, he's absolutely wonderful. And his obviously is talent as a he was actor and narrator is incredible. I I've never asked him about this, but I cannot I am certain that he had so much fun. I'm absolutely certain he did.
So speaking of songs, usually when a book comes out, I'll talk about which is something you go on Twitter and say, this is my soundtrack or this is my playlist that I use for editing this book. And this is something new for me. I know I find out now people use playlists from their writing books, when they're editing. Is there a criteria that you use, which type of songs are going to go in this playlist, depending on what type of book you're doing?
How do you come up with this soundtrack? So it's kind of esoteric and weird. So I'll start with like, why do these things exist and how they exist? So this is just one of my only talents or superpowers is that I can read a book and listen to music that has lyrics at the same time.
And I don't get lost reading and I don't lose this for some reason. I am able to compartmentalize those things. I know some I know playing books are like, I can't do that. I can't listen to music and read at the same time.
And I know playing people as well who are like, I can listen to music as long as it's like instrumentals. Like I can listen to the Star Wars, you know, listen to some John Williams on reading a Star Wars book, but like I can't listen to music lyrics. But I can. So and that came out of you know, I work from home.
You guys are seeing this is my home office. This is where I work every day because I work from home permanently. But when I worked in the office and I'd be trying to like, hey, I need to sit down and read this manuscript and I'd be sitting in my cubicle in the office, you know, trying to shut out the rest of the noise of the office and trying to concentrate, you know, you listen to music, you try to put yourself on task. And so I started to do that to focus like that.
And what will happen is I would just put my music kind of on shuffle and just let it play like kind of whatever, like not, not supposed to go like I've got to listen to just this album and let it shuffle. And what I would find would happen as I'd be reading a book is every once in a while, a song would kind of pop up and I'd be like, that's funny. That line from that song kind of reminds me of this character I've been reading about right now. Where you know, that song title is like this kind of funny inside joke for like this arc of this book or something like that.
And so I would just start to as those little strange connections would happen, I would just take the songs and I'd start to throw them into a playlist. And as I was editing a book and editing is a process of like you were reading the same book multiple times. It's not that I read a manuscript once. Okay, all my comments and edits and that's it.
I never really read it again, right? I will read a book five, six, maybe seven times throughout the life of it being developed. And I will do that pretty rapidly. It's not that I'm doing that over the course of multiple years.
I'm doing that, you know, back to back to back to back with some breaks. And as you can imagine, even for something that you really love, get monotonous at some point, right? Or fifth time you've read something, it's the fifth time in a couple of months, you might be like, I'm gonna not pay attention as much during this chapter. And I'll focus again.
And I don't want to do that as net because I want to make sure at each stage that you know, it's like, I'm checking to make sure that the tweaks of the author is made that the changes they're making, the suggestions that other people are making that, you know, we're improving the book at every stage. So I can't allow it to get monotonous. And having those playlists, having that music helps me stay energized. I will sometimes put a song on a playlist just because it's like really up tempo.
And I will put it at a part in the playlist that I know I will get to when I get to a certain part of the book in order to avoid that sort of monotony or to keep my energy up in order to, you know, give me that sense of kind of kinetic pace that maybe the story itself has just reflected that. So I use it for all sorts of different things. As far as the criteria, like I said, sometimes it's just like, hey, this is fun to edit too. So I'm putting the song on there.
Sometimes it will be because it reminds me of a character or again, aligning the song reminds me of something that's going on in the plot. Sometimes it's just because it's funny. Like for one of the playlists I made for one of the thron books, I just decided I was gonna put a ton of album music on there. What music do I think thron?
Do I think thron would like Abba? I was like, thron might be annoyed by it. So I'm gonna put a ton of this play. There's no reason.
It's just like a weird joke in my head. So I started, that's how I started doing it. And to be honest, I don't actually cultivate a playlist for every book. There are some books where it just doesn't happen.
Sometimes if I'm working on like three books at once and I've already got two playlists, I just won't make a third because I'll just be listening to this other two. And sometimes a book will come along that for whatever reason, the music that I happen to be listening to, it's just like none of it, none of it makes that weird connection. None of it snaps together where those little inside jokes or those little fun references from me emerge. And I try not to force it.
It's just like it happens, and it's fun and it's cool, but it doesn't. So that's the kind of weird criteria, the weird process. And what I found was when I was done with it, I was like, oh, I should share this with people. One, because I think it's a fun way to let people in a little bit into my process for working on the books because kind of explaining or showing people how you edit is actually a challenging thing to do.
And so I was like, oh, this is a fun way to get people inside my process. But I also always found it fun that after I put out one of my editorial playlists, because I don't explain why I'm going to go home to see people listening to it and then like coming up with like, oh, I think this song's on here because of this thing. And there's no right or wrong answer because it's fun to just see the way that people interpret the music and the same way that like the way the different people interpret a movie or they interpret a book or whatever. It's fun to watch people engage with the music that I've picked and pick out these amazing connections that I'm like, I never intended that.
That's incredible. Yeah. So that's that's kind of fun. And it's just another way to inject a little bit of fun and whimsy.
And see, what does I have to admit? It's already quite a fun and whimsical job. But just why not add more, right? Yeah, of course.
Yeah. Yeah. Like if it's likely like you said, I'm just gonna highlight real quick, Jacqueline said that she wishes she had that superpower. Me too.
Yeah, I don't. I really apologize. I wish I could like tell people how to do that. I don't, I have no idea.
It's just always something I've been able to do. I don't know like if I learn to do that some way, I don't know if it just comes from growing up and like multitasking a million different things at once as a kid. No idea. It's just one of those things that I could do.
You might have already with your answer this question might not be too relevant, but mentioning how I can, how that's it anyways, there are some that you haven't put on a playlist for whatever book that you just are waiting for that connection to come in or you just like you said, just kind of show so when it shows up. Yeah, it's more shows up when it shows up. There's not like, I don't have one specific or like a cadre of songs or like something that's going to be on a playlist. You know, there are different artists and different types of music that I happen to like more than others.
So, you know, I think if people like alternative rock and stuff like that, you'll probably find more of that on my playlists than other kinds of music just because that's a lot of what I listen to. You'll find a lot of music from the 90s and from the early ots because again, that was the music during the more formative years of my life and my teenage years. But no, I don't really keep, I don't really keep songs in reserve for the most part. Okay.
Okay. Tommy, you talked a little bit about the outlining process. Does that take away from any surprises that might come from, you know, reading and editing a Star Wars book for the first time? For example, with Oh, and Shadow of the Sith that moment where Luke sees Anakin's Force goes, was that like a surprise for you or is that anyway?
So yes and no. So the yes part is that obviously, you know, having gone through an outline, you know, a lot of, you know, this sort of broad journey of where a story is going. You certainly know all the major beats, the major events, the major conflicts, the major 20 appearing points. I definitely know an experience and I am looking for that because I need to evaluate that.
So to use Rising Storming as an example, I knew what was going to be on the last page of that book before I got to the last page. I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew exactly who it was going to happen to. I knew exactly what the reaction was going to be.
So that's where there's a yes. Now, the no has sort of two parts to it. The no, in terms of it not taking away surprises, even knowing all of that, that last page still hit me like a freight train. Because until you actually see it on a page until you know the exact words that the author has chosen for dialogue, the exact way that the author has described it, the exact way that they might have maybe taken the POV that was in the outline, but maybe tweaked it or altered it or layered something on top of it until you actually see it happen.
There is still that opportunity for surprise. There's still that opportunity to be taken aback to be like, oh my gosh, I legitimately knew that was coming in, did not expect it. There is, I will tease, there is something in the Lyla's book again, in Quizor Reisel Rebleed coming out in July. There is something in that book that again from the very first conversation that I had with the Lyla about this book from the very first outline from the very first everything was in that book and I knew it was coming.
And even knowing what that was coming, it absolutely just took my breath away, just took me off my feet. Because the way that it happens, the way that it plays out and the way that the Lyla executed it was just surprising. But the other part of the note is that while an outline does have all the major beats and has stuff, an outline is not like this thing that is just completely written in stone and it is the entire book and all you basically do is like add some page numbers and add some more dialogue. There are still moments in the author's process of writing the book and develop the manuscript where there will be things that were not in the outline that are still intrinsic to the story, that are still part of the journey, that are still part of what needs to happen in the story that I don't know where it's going to happen.
There will sometimes be a character cameo that we know can work and can make sense but happens at an unexpected moment or a conversation between two people that were just like, oh my gosh, I did not realize this was going to happen. And so there are still those moments in the manuscripts that happen for me and there are still those moments where I get to be as surprised and excited and sort of taken aback in the way that readers are. And that's an important thing because part of my job and part of the audience that I'm thinking about when I'm editing is I'm trying to think about as much as I can. How is a reader going to feel when they experience this before?
How are they going to feel when they get to this moment and trying to put myself in the head of the reader as much as I can? And so yeah, having those moments is still really important and it totally happens on every single book. It happened on the Lyla's book, happened with Adam Christopher, oh my gosh, it happened so much from a certain point of view because there's different stories, you know, a bunch of characters like, it happens all the time. And it's really great and it's really exciting and the most fun about that is that usually then I can send a message to the author and say, how dare you?
Or if that was amazing, or like, I just got to page 200, you are terrible, like, affectionately you're terrible. So I totally have done that, especially with some of the authors who I text with. I just got to this part of the manuscript, that was incredible. So yeah, totally still happens.
And it still happens even when I know it's going to happen. That's awesome. That's cool. I'm the luminous author, I'm sure they're used to people on Twitter telling them, you're, I hate you for killing my favorite every book.
We all know, everybody knows that when people will say, I hate you, but I love you sort of putting readers through anguished, we're making readers feel things. Like we understand how much that that is said with affection and appreciation. Right, since we're running short on time, I'm going to keep up with all the other authors. So if there's one sentence that you can save, a word of a sentence to prepare us for phase three, that please is not pain, something just to prepare us mentally and emotionally.
Well, all right, I'm going to, so I'm going to, this might be cheating. That's fine. So the phase is called trials the Jedi, right? Let's say we have light of the Jedi question.
So trials are there. So I think trials is probably a good word to lean on. I think there's a reason that that's the name of the phase. So there's really no trials.
All right, those are still hurts. Yeah, okay. So Tom, have you worked on other books in Star Wars? I do.
I presently work on other books other than Star Wars. Those Star Wars probably takes up, I would say, the majority of my time and I have in the past, and I'm sure will in the future. Is there any difference in your approach to editing those books, or is it your approach the same way? My approach in terms of thinking about the author and trying to connect with an author and work with them to, again, it sounds trite, but it's really the most basic truth thing that I can save on my job is like make their book and their voice the best version of itself.
That doesn't really change whether I'm working on Star Wars or I've worked with the folks that are blizzard on books, I've worked with the folks at Wizards of the Coast, I've worked with so-authors working on original novels in my earlier days. So regardless of who I'm working with, that doesn't change. And it doesn't matter if it says Star Wars on the front or it says something else. The only thing that really changes is just like the rules of that particular world.
The rules of that particular storytelling space, for instance, this is a very basic one, but it's a simple one. It's just like Star Wars uses the metric system. So I'm working on Star Wars, I know we got to use the metric system and I can't be using the words like miles or inches or even phrases that are like he inched forward, which isn't actually referring to inches but it's refers to inches. You can't say that right?
Because that's still referring to something that doesn't exist in Star Wars. So in every world, every storytelling world, whether it's an original author or another big brand like Star Wars, every world has those kinds of little rules or styles or kind of just pieces of world building that you have to keep in mind and bounce between. But otherwise, no, I try to keep my approach as consistent as I can because for the most part, the process of editing and working with an author and then being a project manager, that whole other side of the job, that's all pretty consistent. That's the same no matter what's going on really.
Okay. I don't know how much you can talk to this, but is there a Star Wars story that hasn't been turned to a book that you would love to see in that medium? It doesn't have to be specific. I know you guys are always working on different things, but anything that hasn't come up that you really wish at some point, it's the novels or YA or whatever.
Oh, I mean, I always have ideas for things that I think would make cool books, but I make a point of not sharing them because one day they might be books and everyone gets the surprise of seeing them. Also, then I don't have to make like a weird false promise of like, oh, I'd love to do X and then X never happens and someone asks me for, hey, you said you might do X and I guess so I keep those, I kind of keep those secret. But maybe one day people will get to benefit from some of us. I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question. Tom, have the Star Wars book made you appreciate any Star Wars character or Star Wars thing more than you did before? Yes, actually quite a bit. So I, this is, I mean, one of the things you guys probably have everybody seems to know and recognize that Star Wars is like in every Star Wars story, there is always a character who only exists for like one or two minutes that everyone just absolutely falls in love with.
Every single time, it was a book, a comic, a TV show, a movie, a video happens every single time, like clock words, it's beautiful and I love it and it's amazing. And books are not the only place. But books are often the place that those characters are sometimes able to have more screen time, no, no, you know, page time or whatever. And books are often the place where you can take a character who might only get five minutes in another story and give them more background, give them more of an art, give them another appearance, give them a third appearance, whatever, bring them back into a story in a surprising way.
And so being able to do that just gives me an appreciation for so many of the like, I'm going to say little characters, I don't mean that a majority way, I don't mean that a majority way, like, but characters who again do not have a ton of screen time. It also gives me so much more appreciation for the people who are like, this character only has five minutes of storytelling, but I love them so deeply and being able to see and understand the connection that someone makes with a character in just that short span of time is like this beautiful thing that working on these books for a while has given me a chance to experience and giving me a chance to connect with people about. So that's a great thing. And then the other thing is just I have the absolute distinct pleasure that I get to chat with people who are helping to make Star Wars in all sorts of different mediums in lots of different ways because I'm always chatting to them about our stories or other stories and just, you know, helping through the creative process and seeing the level of intention that every single person that I have ever talked to involved in Star Wars on any level has in trying to build stories and tell stories in this world is like, it's incredible.
It is fulfilling and it's inspiring. And like, I just love sitting down to talk to Star Wars people about Star Wars just because it makes me appreciate the world even more just listening to them doing some of those things. All right. I'm at King God and Sharp novel at some point.
I want to be visual. Maybe a comic book. Yeah. Tom, any tips for any aspiring writers out there?
I know there are a few in the chat, so anything. Oh, break into the industry. So break into the industry or to write Star Wars specifically because those are kind of two different questions. Oh, right.
Star Wars specifically. I'm quite a little bit. So let me start by saying that these are very big questions that I probably, I cannot answer completely. So one, anyone ever has more questions about this?
You can always hit me up on Twitter at darthanternus, which is under my name right there. And I always have any answer questions about this kind of stuff. But for people who are interested in breaking in the industry and eventually writing Star Wars in some form, first of all, I would say one of the best first things you can always do is just start by cultivating and working on your own voice as an author and your own stories, big stories, small stories, whatever it is, cultivate your voice as a writer and get reps and get experience writing as a writer for yourself and developing your own stories because what happens generally when we're looking for authors is in order to find a new author for Star Wars, what I go out and do is I go read books and comics and watch TV and I go experience storytelling. And then I find it on like, wow, this storyteller is awesome and their voice is incredible and their experience and their background.
I would love to see what they could do in Star Wars, but the primary way though that we evaluate someone in order to come write a Star Wars story is we read another story of theirs. And so building up and breaking in the industry in any way that you can in order to build up your own storytelling is a way to then make it easier for me to find you and for people like me to find you to help bring you then in to write a Star Wars story. And again, this is a larger question, but breaking into the industry as a writer, there's any number of avenues. There's, you know, everything from large traditional publishers, you know, the publisher that I work for, Penorano is a big traditional publisher, there's self publishing, there's in depresses, there are any number of different kinds of avenues and ways into publishing.