The Best Bad Idea Ever
How We Begin, and What to Expect from this Cubicle
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” ~ Star Wars, frequently.
If I’ve learned anything as a book editor, it is that the worst ideas often lay the foundation for the very best stories. I’m hoping that over time, this newsletter falls into that category.
Welcome to the first dispatch from the Cubicle at the End of the Galaxy. A place for stories, essays, musings, and more about working in publishing, where everything is (often) fake and (often) in space.
To start, I want to tell you a story, the origins of the “best bad idea ever” that became one of the most fulfilling projects ever.
About a week ago, my team revealed the full list of 40 characters and stories in our upcoming anthology, Star Wars From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi. The anthology publishes on Aug 29th, completing a trilogy that began back in 2017.
It’s a remarkable full-circle moment for a project that began as a joke (no, really).
Ahead of the 40th anniversary of Star Wars in 2017, the Del Rey (now RH Worlds) team sat around trying to figure out how to celebrate the occasion. Across an hour-long meeting, we discussed ways to “re-tell” the film. At first, the thought was to find a single author to write essentially a new novelization, but something with a widely different perspective on the story we all know. Though a fun idea, our friends at Lucasfilm had done essentially that two years earlier, and it seemed unnecessary and duplicative. This all led to the following group exchange (dramatized):
“Whatever we do should definitely be from the points of view of characters, like droids or the background characters.”
“Well, what instead of just a single story, we did a bunch of short stories. We could have multiple authors, instead of just one.”
[JOKING] “Well, it’s 40 years. So why not 40 short stories.”
[Continuing the joke] “Yeah! And we’ll get 40 authors.”
[EVERYONE LAUGHS]
/Scene
The idea was so bad and foolish, that even contemplating attempting it was hysterical. The logistics, the timing, and the bandwidth of work to make even a handful of stories is hard enough. To do it forty times simultaneously? It all added up to pure comedy, a fantasy.
But then a funny thing happened. All the laughter died down. We looked at each other and knew we had to do it. A few moments later, the title, “From a Certain Point of View” came along, and we had our bad idea.
Five years later, we’re on the cusp of completing a trilogy that will encompass original 120 short stories, 108 unique contributors, approx 500,000 words, and over 1500 pages.
Just looking at those stats makes my head spin a little. But in that time, it has earned the “best” bad idea moniker for all the joy and surprises it has brought. Joys that we’ll explore in future newsletters.
Looking Ahead
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be diving more into the FACPOV series - as we’ve come to call it - with anecdotes about development, tidbits about the process, the characters/stories, and more. I’ll probably focus on Return of the Jedi, but there’ll be time and space for us to look across the trilogy as a whole.
Whether you’ve been reading these since the first book in 2017 and the sequel in 2020, or if this year’s entry will be your first, there’ll be plenty to discover.
Other Plans for the Cubicle
It would be weird to run a newsletter for just three weeks, right? Probably.
So, I’ve got ideas for lots of different stories/essays / deep dives into all sorts of topics related to publishing, and may also resurrect some previous content that was already posted and lost to places like Twitter.
Topics and ideas for avid readers, would-be publishing professionals, and everyone in between. Most of this will skew toward or center on Star Wars books, but I’m hoping this will be a space for anyone interested in books, regardless.
But if you have ideas or questions for things you’d like me to research and tackle, you can always jump on over to the “chat” and leave me a note. I’m a book editor after all, so I tend to thrive best when working collaboratively.
-Be Well. #MTFBWY
This was delightful to read. It's the craziest ideas and the following "wait, what if we actually did it" moment of silence that often create the best projects. I remember FACPOV: A New Hope being one of the very first Star Wars books I got in English. How cool would it be to someday have those collections for all the saga's movies? But in the meantime, lets celebrate this one, I'm excited for all your insights!
thank you Tom !