I have always enjoyed the interaction with an editor in the publishing process of a book or story. We are both committed to producing the very best telling of the story, but come at it from different directions.
Every editor I've worked with has been different and I've learned from each of them. It was my initial purpose in seeking publication, gaining the services of editors to help me learn to write better. The current book is no different.
The cultural difference between the US and Australia are fertile grounds for editors and Coasting has produced some classic examples like Smoko and Larrikin.
Other differences are more subtle. Handguns are not readily available in Australia and were even less so in 1974. So a hit man who patiently modifies a cheap, more readily available, .22 calibre rifle for each kill, disposing of the parts afterwards, seemed strange to my American editor. Especially when he compensated for the lightweight, hollow point, projectile by turning the cut down and silenced rifle into a machine pistol that emptied the fifteen shot magazine at the squeeze of a trigger. (I admit to having done the same modification when I was young, just to prove it could done and not to kill fellow humans.) It is a brutally effective and discreet killing weapon, inaudible except at close range. Its design facilitates breaking it down and scattering the parts afterwards--a valuable asset for the careful hit man.
It's all part of the fun of writing.
