Executive Meddling/Literature: Difference between revisions

* Legendarily, [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'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.

** Heinlein's ''[[Podkayne of Mars]]'' originally ended with the title character killed by an explosion as a direct consequence of the plot and her personality. His editor forced him to change it to an ending where she survived, albeit critically injured and in a coma. The existence of the original ending was a well-known bit of Heinlein trivia but no one knew exactly how it had played out until the publication of a special edition with both endings.

** The British publisher did their own meddling on the first book. They were the ones who insisted the author go by [[J. K. Rowling]] since it was felt boys wouldn't want to read a book written by a woman. They also wanted to cut the troll scene where Harry and Ron save Hermione.

* Terry Goodkind's book ''[[Sword of Truth|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 [[Author Filibuster|where it went from there]]...

* The final book in the third ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' 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, [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|the authors were allowed to use the phrase "cruel season" in the blurb of the very next book]].