Grrr, I say. Grrr.

[kriadydragon]

Ugh, why do I have to be so wordy and love writing really, really long stories? To up my chances of getting my book considered by an agent, I need to cut the word count from it's current number of +160,000 to somewhere around 80,000.

Yeeaahh, not fun. The easiest way to do this would be to cut out whole chapters, except every chapter contains something vital to the plot. So it's going to have to be chunks, instead, with possible rewrites in some sections.

Which... okay, I don't like it, because it's not going to be easy, but I do have to admit it's been good for me. Like I said, I can be very wordy and long winded when it comes to my original fic, and I need to stop doing that. Since I started doing major cuts, three chapters into these cuts and I managed to get the story down from 260 pages to 257, so I'm hoping this means there is hope for me to get this story down to the appropriate word count.

Still, I hate specified word counts, because I hate being limited like that. Plus I've read plenty of young adult books that no way are they 80,000 words. But the consensus seems to be that when first starting out, the shorter you can make your story the better. So... *breaks out giant metaphorical scissors*

Comments

[black-raven135.livejournal.com]

".....easiest way to do this would be to cut out whole chapters, except every chapter contains something vital to the plot..."

NO, don't do that..........because as you say EVERY chapter contains something vital to the plot
Is there no other way?

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Well right now I'm doing a lot of tightening up and it is making a difference. It's a very small difference, but I managed to remove about 3,000 words thus far in about five chapters, and there's plenty of chapters left to both read through and go back and tighten up. I'm seriously hoping that as long as I keep cutting the fat then I'll be able to get to a more decent word count without having to make drastic changes.

[black-raven135.livejournal.com]

tightening up yes but deleting now....

[sholio]

I was completely disgusted to find out that having to cut out a bunch of words to get down to a lower word count made me a better writer. *g* It really does teach you to tighten and eliminate word-baggage. I rarely cut something out and then put it back in later. Usually I fret and agonize about cutting things, only to discover that the story reads better without it.

But that's mostly on the level of cutting out, say, 1000 words of a 10,000-word story, not halving it. I would say that while lowering the word count is important, don't sacrifice the story for it. Short story markets are pretty firm about their word counts (if you send them a 15,000-word story when the limit is 10K, they'll just send it right back) but there's a lot more wiggle room with novels. A novel that's above the "target" word count will probably be a harder sell to agents and publishers, it's true, but it won't sell at all if you cut so much out that the story is made weak or incomprehensible.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do like how the story is tightening up. Right now I'm hoping to at least get it down to 100,000, because if I can't get it to 80,000 then I'm hoping that 100K will be considered the lesser evil. Hopefully this will teach me not to be so wordy :P

[karri-kln1671.livejournal.com]

Can you find a way to split it into two books?

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I have considered that but it'll depend on how much I cut out of the story. Right now a lot of what I'm cutting out is just excessive descriptions and words, and the book might end up being just the right amount of short to make it hard to divide it up.

[areth-lovejoy.livejournal.com]

The publishing industry is really shooting themselves in the foot with this idea. One of my favorite books in recent years for the YA genre, Brightly Woven by Alex Bracken, is great but a mess. There are so many unexplained things and backstory and crucial bits and I was wondering why such a hot mess? Turns out the publishers had the author cut out nearly half the story resulting in not enough page time to fully account for this brilliant world and its characters and then in turn they refused a sequel because the first did not perform as well as they liked. A)Had they allowed her to write the book her way it would not have needed a sequel. B) Had they allowed her to leave that stuff in more people would have liked it since the missing/vaguely incomplete stuff was one of the major critiques from all readers. I loved it, but I weep when I imagine what it could have been.

I do not know what agents and/or editors you have been researching, but there are a great number of novels being published, including debut authors, with well over an 80,000 word count...

But good luck with the editing!

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, word limits are just so... not too bright. I get wanting to keep people from churning out some 300,000 word piece but to cage an author with word counts runs the risk of not getting a top quality story.

I don't think I can get my story to 80,000 words so I'm trying for 100,000 and hoping for the best. Most of what I'm cutting is wordiness, anyway, and nothing actually crucial.

turns out the publishers had the author cut out nearly half the story resulting in not enough page time to fully account for this brilliant world and its characters

This is what makes me a tad nervous about getting published professionally. I'm cool with making changes if asked, but it depends on the changes.