Comparison: The Book's Narrative Structure.
During our editorial process, the structural decisions about the writing of "Emperor" were complicated by the great wealth of primary sources, mostly emails. Turin, it turned out, had kept huge amounts of correspondence offering first-hand glimpses into his creation process. But how to use them. What style to take in the book. My instinct is always documentarist: Give pure info, shut up. The journalist James B. Stewart once told me "You're the only writer I know who has to tell more and show less," which made me rather proud until both my agent, Eric Simonoff, and my Random House editor, Scott Moyers, took Jim literally. Below are two versions of a passage from the book, one I did my way, and one I did Eric's way, which is to say with a narrative that synthesized more information and used a clearer authorial voice. Eric ultimately won.

VERSION I: Chandler's Version He set about cracking the mystery of Guy Robert's alternating smell aldehydes. He fed the Chanel 5 molecules into CAChe and set the program to calculating electron bonds. And lo and behold under "Subject: amazing!!!" : "Guess what!!! I suspected that aldehyde group rotation *vibration around the Carbon-Carbon bond might be hindered differently in the odd or even aldehydes *and*.... IT IS!!!! The [even] aldehyde rotates much more freely: you can eyeball it in the molecular dynamics rotating in the even (8, 10, and 12) carbon aldehydes, but remains confined to a plane +- 20 degrees in the odd ones. Wow!! another mystery explained." He added, "By the way, I phoned up Olivia Giacobetti, young perfumer genius and she confirmed that the odd and even had systematically different smells, said it was self evident to anyone who smelled them. I'm really glad about this one." The modeling program reported that the odd aldehydes moved differently from the evens in a way that changed their vibrations. The waxies had one combination of vibrations, not identical but quite similar, the citruses another. These combinations altered back and forth, even/odd. (And their shapes, meanwhile, thank you very much, did *not.) Stewart, who was never an easy scientific lay, was being as skeptical as ever. "Quite hard to credit the story about the odd and even chain lengths," he wrote, bulldogged. "What *exactly* is the source of this info? I'm real curious! How solid is the finding, do you think??" Turin : "Which info? smells or dynamics ? Dynamics utterly reliable, *clear* difference in the short simulations so far, I'm running longer ones as we speak. Put it this way: the program does not 'know' to count carbons, so even if it's the other way round in reality, it is still a property of some sort related to chain length. I'm damned if I know what, though, I can't *see* it in things like partial charges, bond orders, etc." No, no, Stewart had meant the smells: "Did Olivia describe the difference in smells to you??? Have you smelled them yet??" Turin: "She said that it was citrus vs wax respectively for even and odd, just like Guy Robert had." But again Stewart: "OK, here's my question: *what* exactly does the modeling program spit out?? Are you doing this by eyeballing a simulation, or does it print out some sort of values?? Extremely curious about this." "So far, eyeballing," Turin replied. "Using standard parameters in augmented MM2, a piece of software inside CAChe that takes into account everything xcept the moons of Saturn." Stewart "Roger on citrus vs wax, that sounds consistent. Aldrich sell these guys????" Stewart meant C6, C7, C8, C9, C10, C11, and C12. "Yup," Turin wrote. "I'm ordering them today from Aldrich." He added "Guy Robert warned me about two things: first of all, the things age ungracefully, and secondly the perfume suppliers actually supply impure ingredients *on purpose* to personalise their supply and make it smell better !! (Aldrich does not, to my knowledge)." (Stewart wondered if he was being maybe a bit too bulldogged a critic. "Tell me if I'm missing the boat here..." he emailed doubtfully.) "No, no!!" Turin replied quickly, "all good and useful comments.") The aldehyde finding was only getting stronger. Mopac and CAChe were whispering that the odd aldehydes danced differently from the evens in a way that affected their vibrations. The waxies had one vibration; the citrusies had another. He set about cracking the mystery of Guy Robert's alternating smell aldehydes. He fed the Chanel 5 molecules into CAChe and set the program to calculating electron bonds. And lo and behold... "Amazing!!!" he emailed Stewart. Just as he had suspected, it looked like the aldehyde group rotation *vibration was different in the odd or even aldehydes. The evens rotated much more freely. He could even eyeball it, the molecular vibes huge in 8, 10, and 12 but minimal in 9, 11, and 13. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "another mystery explained." Oh, he added, he'd phoned up Olivia Giacobetti, a young perfumer he considered a genius, and she'd confirmed that the odd and even aldehydes had systematically different smells. He was thrilled. The waxies had basically one vibration, the citruses another. (And their shapes, meanwhile, thank you very much, did *not.) Stewart, who was never an easy scientific lay, was being as skeptical as ever, what was the source of the information, how solid was it really, etc. Which information, asked Turin, smells or dynamics? The dynamics utterly reliable, in his view, a clear difference in the short simulations so far, and he was running longer ones as they spoke. Put it this way, he said, the program didn't "know" to count carbons, so even if was the other way round in reality, it was still a property related to chain length. No, no, Stewart had meant the smells. Had Olivia described the difference? Had *Turin smelled the difference? Turin replied that Giacobetti had described their smells exactly as Guy Robert had, that they were citrus vs wax respectively for even and odd, but Stewart then simply attacked from another angle, asked what *exactly the modeling program was spitting out. Was Turin eyeballing it or was the thing printing out specific number values for him? He was eyeballing it so far, said Turin. Using a program that took into account everything except the moons of Saturn. He was ordering the molecules from Aldrich that day (slightly weird piece of information from Guy Robert, apparently the perfume suppliers actually supplied impure ingredients *on *purpose to personalize their products and make them smell better; Aldrich, to his knowledge, did not)." The aldehyde finding was only getting stronger. Mopac and CAChe were whispering that the odd aldehydes danced differently from the evens in a way that affected their vibrations. The waxies had one vibration; the citrusies had another.

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