{"id":131,"date":"2023-02-11T20:47:08","date_gmt":"2023-02-11T20:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uantwerpen.be\/stephenking\/?p=131"},"modified":"2023-02-18T16:05:20","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T16:05:20","slug":"an-appreciation-of-chuck-verrill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uantwerpen.be\/stephenking\/2023\/02\/11\/an-appreciation-of-chuck-verrill\/","title":{"rendered":"An Appreciation of Chuck Verrill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve been writing about Chuck Verrill’s work as the editor of IT<\/em> these past weeks in my PhD, so I thought I’d take the time to express my appreciation here for Stephen King’s long-time editor, agent, and friend. Verrill passed away a little over a year ago, on the 9th<\/sup> of January 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King first met Verrill as the assistant to Alan Williams, King’s first editor at Viking, who edited The Dead Zone<\/em> (1979), Firestarter<\/em> (1980), Cujo<\/em> (1981), Different Seasons<\/em> (1982), Christine<\/em> (1983), and The Talisman<\/em> (1984), before leaving Viking for Putnam. Williams’ exit meant a promotion for Verrill at Viking, and I believe IT<\/em> might have been the first King novel that Verrill edited\u2014the first of many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

King later recalled meeting Verrill:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[W]hen I moved to Viking I had an editor named Alan [Williams] and his assistant was a guy named Chuck Verrill and at that time Chuck was answering phones and doing memos. He\u2019s like a boy, that’s how young he looked. Alan moved somewhere or retired, I can\u2019t remember which, and Chuck started to edit the books. There was some discussion at the time because he was young, and I said: \u201cChuck\u2019s OK.\u201d So Chuck and I have been together since about 1988 or something. It\u2019s going on 30 years now. So he\u2019s not afraid of me, he knew me when, so to speak, and he\u2019s a great concept editor and he\u2019s a great line editor.\u200b1\u200b<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So far, I haven\u2019t been able to find any details on when King signed a contract for IT<\/em>\u2014there were no announcements in the trade press to my knowledge\u2014but I believe it must have been in 1983. There is a photocopy at King’s archive of his first draft of IT<\/em> that has many handwritten comments by Verrill in the margins. I believe King sent the copy not long after Viking had bought the hardcover rights, because he wanted his newly appointed editor’s opinion before he undertook his second draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s obvious from Verrill’s comments that he liked the novel very much. There are edits and queries on 307 of the 1147 pages of the draft. Verrill flagged repetitions, redundancies, and overused words, phrases, and events; he questioned potential weaknesses or errors in the narrative logic of some events or of the characters\u2019 thoughts, emotions, and motivations; he pointed out opportunities to highlight themes; and he suggested cuts and trims here and there. He asked King some tough questions, why it is, for instance, that Stan Uris is the first person that Mike Hanlon calls. When King officially submitted IT<\/em> to Viking for publication in early 1986, Verrill went through the text (in its third draft form) with great attention to detail. IT<\/em> was a challenge, with its hundreds of characters and many dates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authors often have a love\/hate relationship with their editors, love turning to hate when they receive their text back from their editor filled with questions, comments and suggestions for cuts and changes. King talked about his collaborations with Verrill along these lines in an interview in 1993:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I want an editor that\u2019s fairly tough on me. I\u2019m in the process of rewriting a book now and I\u2019ve got a manuscript that\u2019s covered with line edits. The editor\u2019s name is Chuck Verrill. He\u2019s very very good and at this stage in the manuscript, I could kill him. [\u2026] He won\u2019t let me be Stephen King. That\u2019s the most important thing. [\u2026] He will not let me be a Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade Float, you know, a big, inflated cartoon figure. [\u2026] He\u2019ll change plot developments, and sometimes suggests that a lot of stuff should be switched around. The most valuable thing, from my standpoint is: he will cut what I\u2019ve written. Because I have a tendency to write long. [\u2026] [Making the cuts] always hurts. It always<\/em> hurts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The complete interview is available on YouTube: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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