Great works of literature can be discouraging for the novice writer. You labor for months to create something as enduring as Persuasion or Middlemarch, all the while suspecting that you’re not going to make it with your own book, Bread-Pudding Days.
But even the creative heavy-hitters made mistakes! Oh, they tried to cover their tracks, but by diligent sleuthing I’ve unearthed a collection of corkers.
A Christmas Carol
In Dickens’s first draft, Scrooge was haunted by the Toasts of Christmas Past (burnt and tasting of coal), Christmas Present (cooling in a rack), and Christmas Future (limp and pre-buttered, American-style). It was only when his friend John Forster said “This story hasn’t got the ghost of a chance” that Dickens saw the light.
Pride and Prejudice
A case of characters taking over. Elizabeth Bennet is proud because she talked Jane Austen into making her the clever daughter and not the halfwit who gets stuck with Wickham. And Darcy is prejudiced against his role. He pictured himself as the lead in Wuthering Heights, where he could brood a lot with fewer lines to learn. When told that Emily Bronte’s book wouldn’t be written for another 34 years, when he’d be too old to play Heathcliff and would be lucky to be cast as Lockwood, he relented, but his pique lasts through most of Austen’s novel.
Sometimes a Great Lotion
Ken Kesey was halfway through his account of a snake-oil salesman who accidentally creates a viable product — the “great lotion” of the title, which cures scabies, rabies, and the mange — when he decided to make Henry Stamper a company owner instead. In another inspired change, Kesey turned the salesman’s motto “You’ll outlive the itch!” into the catchier “Never give an inch!”
Return of the Nation
Thomas Hardy chose that title for a ripping yarn in which the United States begs to return to British rule, its citizens having discovered that taxation with representation isn’t that much of an improvement. The British would thus have acquired showers, orthodontia, and multi-ingredient sandwiches decades earlier, and the world would have been spared several “mission accomplished” wars.
But Hardy’s publishers argued that he would lose the all-important American market, so he re-named the book The Return of the Native and made it the story of a homecoming merchant who marries the wrong woman. Hardy also rewrote his last novel, which he’d intended to be the story of a happy, successful man. But Jude the Mature never saw the light of day, and what we got instead is a total downer.
The Bun Also Rises
His PR people kept it a secret, but Hemingway was heavily into baking. However, even his name couldn’t sell this cookbook, so he had it remaindered and tweaked the title for a story about expats and sex and bullfights.
Jeeves Makes Change
A couple of careless typos are responsible for P.G. Wodehouse’s greatest creations! Jeeves was originally written as a sales assistant in a tobacconist’s shop and Bertie Wooster was his dodgy, nicotine-stained boss. But when the typist rendered the title as “Jeeves Takes Charge,” Wodehouse scrapped the “man behind the cash register” notion and rewrote Jeeves as an omni-competent butler.
To Kill a Myna Bird
Harper Lee’s unpublished homage to both Poe and Hemingway concerns a foul-mouthed bird that annoys the hell out of everyone, including the reader, until it gets shot by a manly bullshitter bullfighter.
Downtown Abbey
Julian Fellowes intended to write a TV series set in Westminster Abbey, featuring a cartwheeling priest (Elizabeth McGovern), a virgin verger (Maggie Smith), a sexy sexton (Brendan Coyle), and the ghosts of dead poets, with Hugh Bonneville as Chaucer. Theme tune: “Downtown” by Petula Clark. When refused permission to film in the Abbey, he decided to take a different tack.
Magical Mystery Sewer
Yes, the Beatles were taking way too many drugs. This was a happy save by Patti Boyd, who pointed out that “tour” would make for more interesting scenery.
Back to Bread-pudding Days!
I hope I’ve encouraged you to go back to your manuscript. But may I offer a suggestion? Try a different title.
