Getting the builders in

Being a Big Boss, you often get to tell at your legions to Jump.

"How high?" they will say. Or more often, "How many words, by when and what is the money?"

One thing I've tried to do with Benny is give clever authors a bit of a framework in which they can invent and build. On the Benny books, this has basically meant coming up with a frame that requires no linking material on my part. I come up with the rough sort of wheeze and the authors go off and do the hard bit.

Which is like being told "Jump" and going off to construct a complex network of interlacing trampolines. And then watching in horror as I tear through the springy mesh with my unflinching, unforgiving red pen.

Two such eager swots are Nick Wallace and Phil Purser-Hallard, who really went overboard in contriving Collected Works. And all to it's benefit, of course.

Phil has just posted the Quire background material he and Nick worked our between them. Surprisingly, it's chock-full of them spoilers.