History ExecutiveMeddling / Literature

* James Gurney's third ''{{Dinotopia}}'' book, 'First Flight', is different from the others because the publishers wanted it targeted toward younger children than the other books. It didn't go over well with the fans and had some plot problems.

* Creator/UmbertoEco once wrote a humorous piece, "Editorial Revision", about (fictitious) editorial changes for the better in famous literary works; for example, "TheWasteLand" by TSEliot originally started like this (not exact quote): "April is the cruellest month. But March isn't very good either".

* The German publisher "Aufbau Verlag" loves meddling with their translations of classics. Most glaring example is [[VictorHugo Victor Hugo's]] LesMiserables - from somewhat about 1400 pages (in original length of the German translation) they left about 900. They cut out Valjean's theft on Petit Gervais, several of his MyGodWhatHaveIDone moments, a good chunk of Marius' backstory, the characterization of several important minor characters... and also quite a few of Hugo's [[AuthorTract Author Tracts]].

* Legendarily, RobertAHeinlein's ''StrangerInAStrangeLand'' was pared for both size and content to meet publisher demands. Thankfully, the editing was done meticulously by Heinlein himself, so the novel came out more or less as intended. Following his death, the unedited version was released by Heinlein's widow.

* this is why there are two versions of Stephen King's ''{{The Stand}}''. The publisher thought it was too long and asked him to cut it down. Granted, a few scenes, like 'the Zoo' and the gay rape scene between The Kid and Trashcan Man would never have flown in the seventies, but other stuff was just seen as making the story too long. He put back much of the cut material (save a few parts he thought belonged cut) back in for the Complete Uncut edition.

* this is why there are two versions of Stephen King's ''{{The Stand}}''. The publisher thought it was too long and asked him to cut it down. He put back much of the cut material (save a few parts he thought belonged cut) back in for the Complete Uncut edition.

* this is why there are two versions of Stephen King's ''{{The Stand}}''. The publisher thought it was too long and asked him to cut it down. He put back much of the cut material (save a few parts he thought belonged cut) back in for the Complete Uncutnedition.

* In probably one of the most heinous examples, L.J. Smith was [[http://www.tvovermind.com/the-vampire-diaries/vampire-diaries-lj-smith-fired-book-series/47708 fired]] from writing [[TheVampireDiaries her own series]]. The article speculates that this was because they didn't like the romantic pairing she was planning on going with in the ending, but as far as I'm aware, no reason has been officially given. Shipping: SeriousBusiness.

* Daniel Keyes' first attempt to publish ''{{Literature/Flowers for Algernon}}'' almost ran afoul of this; the editor he took it to demanded that [[CompletelyMissingThePoint he give the story a happy ending where Charlie keeps his enhanced intelligence.]] Fortunately, every writer Keyes asked about it told him to refuse.

** In an odd case, [=TSR=] told R.A. Salvatore to bring back Wulfgar, or they would do have someone else do it for them. What makes it odd is that Drizzt was clearly the [[EnsembleDarkhorse breakout hit character]], with Wulfgar as a mostly unneeded sidekick. Salvatore did the best he could, though, and in the end got some good stories out of it and wrote the character out again (this time much as he had written out the barbarian tribes the character belonged to shortly after the character's "death").

* Legendarily, RobertAHeinlein's ''{{Stranger in a Strange Land}}'' was pared for both size and content to meet publisher demands. Thankfully, the editing was done meticulously by Heinlein himself, so the novel came out more or less as intended. Following his death, the unedited version was released by Heinlein's widow.
* ''{{Harry Potter}}'': The first book, ''{{Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone}}'', was meddled with to become ''... and the Sorcerer's Stone'' in the United States. Executives argued that kids "[[ViewersAreMorons wouldn't want to read anything with 'philosopher' in the title]]". (Some even argued that Americans wouldn't know what a philosopher was.)

* UmbertoEco once wrote a humorous piece, "Editorial Revision", about (fictitious) editorial changes for the better in famous literary works; for example, "TheWasteLand" by TSEliot originally started like this (not exact quote): "April is the cruellest month. But March isn't very good either".

* {{The Twilight Saga}} was originally supposed to be two books long, going straight from Twilight to Breaking Dawn. (Then called Forever Dawn.) It was Stephenie Meyer's editor who suggested that Bella's senior year be drawn out, resulting in New Moon and Eclipse. (It was also suggested that Forever Dawn was "inappropriate" for young adult audiences, though.)

*** Later events made fans theorize that George Lucas realized that he had virtually identical stories for Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Solo (hope of the Jedi Order, deep connection with the Force, skill with technology, and oh yeah, a ''fall to the Dark Side that plunges the Galaxy into war, destroying a republic''). So in the end, they killed off Anakin Solo and gave his fall to the Dark Side plot to older brother Jacen.
* Legendarily, RobertAHeinlein's ''{{Stranger in a Strange Land}}'' was pared for both size and content to meet publisher demands. Thankfully, the editing was done meticulously by Heinlein himself, so the novel came out more or less as intended. Following his death, the unedited version was released by Heinlein's widow.

* A positive example: IsaacAsimov wrote a story in which energy beings come to Earth and purchase Jupiter from humanity to use as [[spoiler: an advertising billboard for their passing ships]]. Asimov titled the story "It Pays", but an editor, without consulting Asimov, changed it to "Buy Jupiter". Asimov, being the punster that he was, liked it so much he used it as the title for the paperback collection which contained the story.

* In an odd case, [=TSR=] told R.A. Salvatore to bring back Wulfgar, or they would do have someone else do it for them. What makes it odd is that Drizzt was clearly the [[EnsembleDarkhorse breakout hit character]], with Wulfgar as a mostly unneeded sidekick. Salvatore did the best he could, though, and in the end got some good stories out of it and wrote the character out again (this time much as he had written out the barbarian tribes the character belonged to shortly after the character's "death").
** In another case, Salvatore was told that he would have to kill off Artemis Entreri, as the game was eliminating the assassin class and all assassins in the setting were going to be killed off as part of a ritual to empower the dark god Bane. Salvatore, not wanting to lose a good character, countered that Entreri wasn't an "assassin", but a fighter/thief who killed people for money. [=TSR=] backed off. (Later, Wizards brought back assassins as a prestige class for 3rd Edition. Entreri had ''one'' level in it.)

* Legendarily, RobertAHeinlein's ''{{Stranger in a Strange Land}}'' was pared for both size and content to meet publisher demands. Thankfully, the editing was done meticulously by Heinlein himself, so the novel came out more or less as intended. Following his death, the unedited version was released by Heinlein's widow. {{Your Mileage May Vary}} on which version is better.

* The final book in the third ''WarriorCats'' series had its name changed from ''Cruel Season'' to ''Sunrise'' because [=HarperCollins=] felt the original title was too sad and not appropriate for the younger readers. Not only does this cause a lot of confusion with the final book of the ''second'' series (''Sunset''), but changing the title still doesn't change the fact that the book ''is'' sad. To make things even more mindboggling, [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar the authors were allowed to use the phrase "cruel season" in the blurb of the very next book]].

*** Later events made fans theorize that George Lucas realized that he had virtually identical stories for Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Solo (hope of the Jedi Order, deep connection with the Force, skill with technology, and oh yeah, a ''fall to the Dark Side that plunges the Galaxy into war, destroying a republic''). So in the end, they killed off Anakin Solo and gave his fall to the Dark Side plot to older brother Jacen. {{YMMV}} on which would have been better.

* Literature/TheJungle was subjected to this by Doubleday. The original edition published by the socialist newspaper ''Appeal to Reason'' was singularly focused on the hell the main characters, an immigrant family, go through because they are poor, are not fluent in English, and because the businessmen run everything and was obviously meant to make readers see the horrors of wage slavery. Doubleday, however, was a corporation, and it therefore didn't take too kindly to Literature/TheJungle's criticism of corporations and the ways in which they exploited their workers. They forced him to make the family less ethnic, amend some passages so that their lives were not so unfair, and make the passages about the tainted food more graphic. Most people read Doubleday's edition and they were singularly focused on the unsanitary conditions of the factories making food products and the book is now taught as an exposure of the corruption that led to tainted food. The only hint that American history textbooks will give as to the disparity between Sinclair's intentions and the public's response is his quote "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit its stomach."

** Gaiman has a long history of Hollywood stresses; in addition to the aforementioned Jon Peters run at ''Sandman'' (resulting in what Neil described as "the worst script I've ever read"), he was approached on an adaptation of ''AnansiBoys''. Y'know, the book where the main characters are the children of African deity Anansi, and thus they (and a lot of their acquaintances) are black. The first question asked was apparently, "[[RaceLift Is there any way we can make them white?]]"

* [[SwordOfTruth Terry Goodkind]]'s book ''Wizard's First Rule'' had at least one instance of the use of the titular rule scratched out by the editor. Maybe it was for the better, since we all know [[ProtectionFromEditors where]] [[AuthorFilibuster it]] [[ProtectionFromEditors went]] [[AuthorAppeal from]] [[ProtectionFromEditors there]]...

* In something of a case of TropesAreNotBad, The Andalites of ''{{Animorphs}}'' were originally RubberForeheadAliens, to make it easier on the inevitable TV series. However, Scholastic asked for a more imaginative one, resulting in [[http://www.daytec.net.au/kamm/OldSite/_borders/TheAndaliteChronicles.jpg this design.]] It also led to just about every alien looking bizarre. Unfortunately, Applegate was proven right, when the TV series only featured Andalites [[CoconutSuperpowers a few times a season with laughably bad animatronics.]]

** Another Asimov example features his most famous work, ''I, Robot''. The first story, "Robbie", was originally titled "Strange Playfellow", but was changed, and the collection itself had a different name until Asimov was convinced to make it ''I, Robot'' (there was already another work by another author with the same name, and he felt bad about taking the name, but his publisher convinced him otherwise).

* {{The Twilight Saga}} was originally supposed to be two books long, going straight from Twilight to Breaking Dawn. (Then called Forever Dawn.) It was Stephenie Meyer's editor who suggested that Bella's senior year be drawn out, resulting in New Moon and Eclipse. (It was also suggested that Forever Dawn was "inappropriate" for young adult audiences, though.)

* The Twilight Saga was originally supposed to be two books long, going straight from Twilight to Breaking Dawn. (Then called Forever Dawn.) It was her editor who suggested that Bella's senior year be drawn out, resulting in New Moon and Eclipse.

* The German publisher "Aufbau Verlag" loves meddling with their translations of classics. Most glaring example is [[VictorHugo Victor Hugo's]] LesMiserables - from somewhat about 1400 pages (in original length of the German translation) they left about 900. They cut out Valjean's theft on Petit Gervais, several of his MyGodWhatHaveIDone moments, a good chunk of Marius' backstory, the characterization of several important minor characters... and also quite a few of Hugo's [[AuthorTract Author Tracts]].

* The German publisher "Aufbau Verlag" loves meddling with their translations of classics. Most glaring example is [[VictorHugo Victor Hugo's]] LesMiserables - from somewhat about 1400 pages (in original length of the German translation) they left about 900. They cut out Valjean's theft on Petit Gervais, several of his MyGodWhatHaveIDone moments, a good chunk of Marius' backstory, the characterization of several important minor characters... and also quite a few of Hugo's [[AuthorTract] Author Tracts]].

* Jules Verne initially made [[TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea Captain Nemo]] a Polish aristocrat who was fighting Russians after his family was killed by Russian soldiers during the ill-fated January Uprising. His editor, Pierre-Jules Hetzel feared that this might cause diplomatic problems because Russia was allied with France at the time. With Franco-Prussian War looming on the horizon Verne was persuaded to make Nemo a mysterious stranger fighting the British and later (in ''The Mysterious Island'') he made him an Indian Prince while retaining motivation (family lost during the brutal quelling of Indian Uprising).

* UmbertoEco once wrote a humorous piece, "Editorial Revision", about (fictitious) editorial changes for the better in famous literary works; for example, "TheWasteLand" by TSEliot originally started like this (not exact quote): "April is the cruelest month. But March isn't very good either".

* A positive example: IsaacAsimov wrote a story in which energy beings come to Earth and purchase Jupiter from humanity to use as [[spoiler: an advertising billboard for their passing ships]]. Asimov titled the story "It Pays", but an editor, without consulting Asimov, changed it to "Buy Jupiter". Asimov, being the punster that he was, liked it so much he used it as the title for the paperback collection which contained the story.

* A recent example has caused the death of [[TopGear the Stig]], after [=HarperCollins=] Publishing wanted to write a biography for him. The ''TopGear'' executives said no, but [=HarperCollins=] took it to court and won, so the book is now being published. They called it [[TooDumbToLive "a victory for freedom of speech"]]. The mystery of who the Stig was was part of the charm of the show, not an attempt at censorship!

* In a minor example, Jim Butcher originally wanted to call the first book of TheDresdenFiles [[IncrediblyLamePun Semiautomagic]]. For whatever reason, the editor or publisher didn't like it, and so he called it ''Storm Front'' instead, creating the trend of two word titles with each word having the same number of letters.

* UmbertoEco once wrote a humorous piece, "Editorial Revision", about (fictitious) editorial changes for the better in famous literary works; for example, "TheWasteLand" by TSEliot originally started like this (not exact quote): "April is the cruelest month. But March isn't very good either".

*** They wanted to cut the troll scene for the first film as well, but Rowling refused to let them, arguing that it was integral to understanding how the trio came together.
**** The filmmakers also wanted to cut a minor character (namely [[spoiler:Kreacher, the Black family's house-elf]]) out of the fifth film entirely. Rowling told them that the character was going to become important in the final book, and they relented.

** In another case, Salvatore was told that he would have to kill off Artemis Entreri, as the game was eliminating the assassin class and all assassins in the setting were going to be killed off as part of a ritual to empower the dark god Bane. Salvatore, not wanting to lose a good character, countered that Entreri wasn't an "assassin", but a fighter/thief who killed people for money. [=TSR=] backed off.

* Writers in the ''StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' have editors going over work and vetoing what they don't think fits into canon. Some of them aren't all that bright. TimothyZahn, in a panel summarized [[http://gabri-jade.livejournal.com/105471.html here]], complains about editors claiming that R-2 can't fly Luke's X-Wing in [[HandOfThrawn Specter of the Past]].

*** The way I heard it, George Lucas realized that he had virtually identical stories for Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Solo( Hope of the Jedi Order, deep connection with the Force, skill with technology, and oh yeah, a ''fall to the Dark Side that plunges the Galaxy into war, destroying a republic''). so in the end, they killed off Anakin Solo and gave his fall to the Dark Side plot to older brother Jacen. {{YMMV}} on which would have been better.

* ''{{Harry Potter}}'': The first book, ''{{Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone}}'', was meddled with to become ''... and the Sorcerer's Stone'' in the United States. Executives argued that kids "[[{{Viewers Are Morons}} wouldn't want to read anything with 'philosopher' in the title]]."