Cut It Out!

[Peg Herring]

Got an enthusiastic response to a query yesterday, which is cool, but-- (There's always a "but," isn't there?) The publisher has a word limit, and my story is (get this) 12,000 words over it. So the question from them is "Can you pare it down to 70,000 words?

Yeah, sure, if you'll publish, I'll pare.

So the work begins. Do I cut out "things," e.g. whole scenes or chapters, or do I do words, eliminating prepositional phrases, descriptions, and adverbs? I decided to go for the latter for two reasons. First, I think it tightens up a piece of writing to force yourself to look for ways to say what you've said more succinctly. Second, in a mystery it seems to me that all the scenes need to be there, and it would be hard to remove one if you've constructed it correctly.

I figured it out; it's 34 words/page that have to go. So today is slice-and-dice day. And probably tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It may be a petty pace, but there is a tiny light ahead, and I'll move toward that.

[Peg Herring]

I know what Dana means. I like the historical asides (this book concerns who wrote Shakespeare) and extras, so I'm being careful, but as D.R. says, I see sentences where I just repeated what I said the sentence before, with maybe one additional idea. I'm combining those. Also chopping a lot of "he said" and "she said" stuff where it's plain who said what.

[B.R.Stateham]

That's what I meant by making sure you don't tinker with the plot and/or character personalities.

[Dana King]

I agree, with one caveat. Paring articles, some descriptions, etc, could affect the voice you're trying to get. I love the writing of both James Lee Burke and Adrian McKinty, but trying to cut a Robicheaux book to the length of Fifty Grand by trimming words here and there would make it an entirely different book.

[B.R.Stateham]

You can always cut, like D.R. says. There's always a scene or two--some descriptive clutter--that can be sliced out. As long as you don't change the basic plot and/or the basic characters.

[D.R. MacMaster]

I think you'll be surprised how much cutting needless words will save you. Just last night I took a short story that I already thought was a pretty lean 5,000 words, and still managed to cut over 500+ words to get it to fit a submission guideline.

Good luck, and I hope it sells.