Editing David Eddings (section)

== Literary career ==

=== Early literary career ===
Eddings had completed the first draft of his first published novel, ''[[High Hunt]]'', in March 1971 while serving his jail term.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gifford.mla.hcommons.org/2020/02/03/on-reading-monsters/#13n|title = On Reading Monsters – James Gifford| date=3 February 2020 }}</ref> ''High Hunt'' was a contemporary story of four young men hunting [[deer]]. Like many of his later novels, it explores themes of manhood and [[coming of age]]. Convinced that being an author was his future career, after a short period in Denver, David and Leigh Eddings moved to [[Spokane, Washington|Spokane]], where he relied on a job at a grocery shop for his funds. ''High Hunt'' was published in early 1972 by [[G. P. Putnam's Sons]] to modestly positive reviews.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/david-eddings/high-hunt/|title = HIGH HUNT &#124; Kirkus Reviews}}</ref>

Eddings continued to work on several unpublished novels, including ''Hunseeker's Ascent'', a story about [[mountain climbing]], which was later burned, as Eddings claimed it was "a piece of tripe so bad it even bored me."<ref name="auto1">David and Leigh Eddings, ''The Rivan Codex'', {{ISBN|0006483496}}, p. 11</ref> Most of his attempts followed the same vein as ''High Hunt'': adventure stories and contemporary tragedies. None were sold or published, with the eventual exception of ''The Losers'', which tells the story of [[God]] and [[the Devil]] cast in the roles of Raphael Taylor, gifted student and athlete, and Damon Flood, a scoundrel determined to bring Raphael down. Though written in the 1970s, ''The Losers'' was not published until June 1992, well after Eddings' success as an author was established.<ref name="starlog210"/>

===Success in fantasy writing===
Eddings doodled a fantasy map one morning before work. According to Eddings' account several years later, when seeing a copy of [[Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' in a bookshop, he muttered, "Is this old turkey still floating around?". He was surprised to learn that it was then in its 78th printing. He had, though, already included Tolkien's work in the syllabuses for at least three sections of his English Literature survey courses in the summer of 1967 and the springs of 1968 and 1969.<ref name="themodernistreview.co.uk">{{cite web |last=Gifford |first=James |date=2016-09-30 |title=A Frightful Hobgoblin Stalks Through Modernism? |url=https://gifford.mla.hcommons.org/2017/08/26/a-frightful-hobgoblin// |access-date=7 October 2016}}</ref> He began to [[annotate]] the map doodle, which became the basis for his factional country of Aloria.<ref name="auto1"/> Over the course of a year, Edding [[worldbuilding|detailed]] around 250 pages of kingdoms, races, characters, theologies and a mythology.

As the ''Lord of the Rings'' had been published as three books, Eddings believed fantasy in general was supposed to be published in trilogy form. He initially laid out ''The Belgariad'' as three books, until his editor, [[Lester del Rey]], advised him that booksellers would refuse to accept books of 600 pages. Del Rey suggested the series be published as five books. Eddings at first refused, but having already signed the contract, and with Del Rey's promise that he would receive advances for five books rather than three, agreed to the arrangement.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~cjwatson/eddings/interview.html |title=Guardians of the West: An Interview with David Eddings - Chiark |access-date=2018-10-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181012083706/http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~cjwatson/eddings/interview.html |archive-date=2018-10-12 |url-status=dead }}</ref> ''[[Pawn of Prophecy]]'', the first volume in the series, was issued in April 1982. The next four novels where published between then and 1984. The series was popular. Eddings continued to produce fantasy novels for the rest of his life, usually producing a book every year or two.

From 1995 onwards, the novels were credited jointly to Leigh Eddings; Eddings explained in a foreword that their working together as authors "had been the case from the beginning." This is generally accepted as broadly accurate,<ref name="PWrivan">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of the Belgariad and the Malloreon.|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-345-42402-0|access-date=25 January 2021|website=[[Publishers Weekly]]|language=en}}</ref><ref name="dammassa">{{Cite book|last=D'Ammassa|first=Don|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FdS-zQEACAAJ|title=Masters of Fantasy: Volume II|date=11 August 2020|publisher=Independently Published|isbn=979-8-6730-5251-8|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Palmer-Patel, Charul|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1125007425|title=The Shape of Fantasy : Investigating the Structure of American Heroic Epic Fantasy|publisher=|year=|isbn=978-0-429-19926-4|edition=|location=[New York]|page=171|oclc=1125007425}}</ref> although Eddings scholar James Gifford notes that collaboration would have been "impossible" with ''High Hunt'', as David Eddings' own notes show that the first draft was completed while he and Leigh were both in separate jails, about half-way through their terms.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gifford.mla.hcommons.org/2020/02/03/on-reading-monsters/#13|title = On Reading Monsters – James Gifford| date=3 February 2020 }}</ref>

The Eddingses' final work, the novel series ''[[The Dreamers (novel series)|The Dreamers]]'', was published in four volumes between 2003 and 2006.