Don't Let NaNo Ruin Your January

There is a board on the NaNoWriMo forum dedicated to reaching 50,000 words. A noble goal: after all, isn't that what we're all there for? But some of the suggestions that I've seen (not necessarily in that forum) seem counterproductive at best to me. What I love to see in that forum are threads for encouraging one another,

We've reached the final stretch of NaNoWriMo, the last seven days in which everyone will write like crazy, trying to reach 50,000 words. There's even an entire section of the NaNoWriMo forum dedicated to reaching that elusive 50k. However, I've seen suggestions there and elsewhere that seem counterproductive at best. Sure, they'll get you closer to that beautiful purple bar on your profile, but will they really help your book?

Tricks that Almost Never Work

Spell out all your contractions

No, just don't. It may add lots of words to your word count in a semi-legitimate way, but it won't be much fun come January when you have to go back and decide which ones need re-contracted.

Rehash the plot to a new character

Sometimes the plot needs to be rehashed for believeability. But in the final draft, you know it will suffice as, "I told my sister everything that had happened since she left for France last week," rather than a whole conversation.

Have a flashback to the beginning of the book... and copy-paste the first scene

No. Pretty please don't do this. This doesn't help you find the story. It doesn't help your editing process. It doesn't help anything at all.

Give characters really long names/titles

Imagine if every reference to Voldemort in the Harry Potter series was "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." An extra five words every time someone mentions him. Five words you'll probably delete later. How many times does that full phrase appear in the million-word series? Not many. Even worse if you do this at the end, using find/replace to beef up a character/place name just to hit 50k.

Write Every. Single. Line. of dialogue

Obviously, you should write all the dialogue that belongs in the book or gets you closer to understanding the book. What I'm talking about are the pleasantries and small talks that happen in real life and never, ever happen in novels (unless they're used as foreshadowing, but that's a topic better suited to revision). It will add words to your story if you write, "Hello." "Hi, how are you?" "Fine, you?" "Good I guess." "So what did you do today?" "Not much, just played video games. You?" "Well my sister's in the hospital." That's a given. But in the final book it will almost certainly look like two characters approaching each other and one of them saying immediately, "My sister's in the hospital."

When all else fails, add aliens/a zombie apocalypse/a meteor crashing/etc.

The further along you are in your novel, the worse an idea this is. I often see it advertised as prompts for sprints or for people who are stuck, "just to shake things up." There may be a few times it's worked and prompted the story to go in the direction it was always meant to go. But for the love of revision in January, don't go adding these things to a contemporary just so you have the words. What's the point of writing them when you know without a doubt they'll be deleted the moment you re-read?

Tricks that Can Work

Write a scene from a non-POV character, or outside the timeline of your story

This is the kind of suggestion you should take if, for instance, you're having a hard time getting to know a character, or want to explore a character's history to see how it would be affecting their present. There is a lot of value in this, even if it is the kind of thing you're going to immediately cut come January. (You are going to cut it immediately, right?) The catch lies in not getting so distracted from what you actually want to write that you can't get back on track. This should be a quick troubleshoot, a diagnosis... not the new program.

Add a fight

Fights are always appropriate in books, regardless of the genre. You have battles, fist fights, gun fights, cat fights... all of them can not only add words but conflict to your novel. The trick here is to keep it organic. It's important to be true to your characters and the story, but you don't have to have best friends being besties all the time. It can be useful to think about a verbal fight in terms of "What's the worst thing she could possibly say right now?" and then, of course, have her say it. Even if the fight doesn't stay in the final book, you may have learned something about their relationship dynamics.

Relentlessly describe everything

Unlike including every bit of dialogue you possibly can, this can be useful. There are two ways in which I mean it, too: first, describe all aspects of the setting and make sure you're using all five senses (assuming your character uses all five senses). Make sure you personally know the setting and the layout so that the scene begins to come to life around your characters. Second, if you aren't sure which way to word something, use both. I know there are times I have to stumble through a paragraph of description before I hit on the perfect two- or three-word phrase I was looking for. The way to make sure you ease into January here is to make sure you cross out the words you know you won't keep. Don't make your future self do more work than s/he has to.

If a scene isn't working, try again

Sure, you're not supposed to edit during NaNo, but what about a do-over? Wondering what that scene would be like if a different character were present? Thinking a witty line of dialogue might have sent the plot off in a completely different direction? There's no use not trying. In the end, one or both of the scenes will have to go, but you should be closer to finding your story in the process.

The Litmus Test

In my opinion, whether these methods of padding your word count are "good" or not comes down to one question: Does this further my story and/or my understanding of the story? If the answer is yes, then do it. If the answer is no, you might want to rethink which is more important to you: winning NaNoWriMo or eventually having a polished novel that you're proud of.

What are some ways that you power through the last week of NaNo?

Truth Amongst the Lies: Why Fiction Needs to be Factual

NaNoWriMo is a blasted challenge for me. See, I don't actually get 30 days to write—I get just a little over a third that number. That's because I'm slavishly devoted to my day job, which is fraught with 12-hour computerless shifts. Horrid, horrid thought for a writer to be cut off from the ebb and flow of words for such long stretches of time.

I suppose it's a writer's saving grace that writing is mostly mental: I believe that writing is only 10% typing and 90% thinking. It just seems more apparent to me during the month of November. This time of year, I tend to quantify my writing efforts and, like every other good little Query Tracker enthusiast, I obsess with the numbers.

As a writer with limited screen time, I have to work very hard to make sure I make the most of my typing time—usually by using my thinking time to fullest advantage. Sometimes, though, that turns against me and I start to overthink the story.

And that's almost as bad as not writing at all.

 

Truth in Fantasy

I'm a speculative fiction author with definite fantasy leanings. My favorite genre to read is high fantasy, the stories that make you work to unlock every storyline, every character, every unique world element. I love complex family hierarchies, social and ruling systems, and unique magical theories and arts. I thrive in those worlds where there are no limits beyond the authors' imaginations.

 

But when I stop reading and start writing, I find myself thinking about the facts in fiction. A lot.

 

Research takes up a huge chunk of my thinking time. Historical periods, locations, events—accuracy is important to my story telling craft. It's not enough for me to spin a tale—the story must have strong, believable feet upon which to stand. Truth is the structure that suspends my disbelief.

"Suspension of disbelief or willing suspension of disbelief is a term coined in 1817 by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative. Suspension of disbelief often applies to fictional works of the action, comedy, fantasy, and horror genres." –Wikipedia, the font of all wisdom (and probably the number one cited reference for high school term papers)

A "human interest and a semblance of truth" can mean so many things: an honestly-portrayed emotion, a genuine personal experience, an accurately described setting, a relevant recounting of an historic event. Our stories must ring true enough so that the reader may become one with the story, a part of the telling itself.

 

Someone who doesn't read fantasy may believe that the very nature of fantasy would be at conflict with truth. Not so. Fantasy begins the moment a writer frees himself from the bound of reality, the point where he utters "what if…?" and takes the first step of discovery.

 

And what could be more truthful than capturing that journey from an honest emotional perception or an accurate portrayal of the setting?

 

That journey— whether through outer space, deep under the earth, or entirely within the realm of a character's psyche— must always have a truthful element, even if the character is completely alien. If not, the human reader may not connect to it. 

Truthfully…
As for me, my word count is balking at the moment because I'm neck deep in Civil War maps and regiment muster dates and the Pennsylvania Bucktails. I'm trolling historical society websites and getting really close to hitting up a history professor or two. Why? Because I need a setting for my NaNo story. The book isn't about the Civil War or soldiers or battlefields. But there's a house, next to an unmarked cemetery, which a character believes may have been a Civil War regiment's temporary camp.

It's not a huge part of the story. It's only a vehicle to explain what happened in the backstory.  It's not the most crucial element of the book.

But it needs to be right. It needs to be plausible. It needs to be something that could possibly have happened 150 years ago or else I'll just feel like I slapped something in there to fill a space.
I can't do that. I need that element of truth in my possibility.

What I should do is shut off the Internet, pick a non-threatening place in my manuscript, and get back to writing. I can skirt the truth for now and avoid the places where I'd have to make open declarations. I can focus on the characters and their relationships and their trials, seeking the human interest and the truth of their discoveries. Just because there's a ghost or two in it doesn't mean it has no base in reality. There is still a lot of truth to be told.

But I know that sooner or later, I'll go back to flipping open one of my books on Gettysburg and looking for a hint so my characters, human and ghost alike, don't remain homeless forever.

Thanks a lot, Coleridge. First Xanadu, now this. You know to really make a girl overthink everything.

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. She's the author of the urban fantasy trilogy The Books of the Demimonde as well as WORDS THAT BIND. She also writes for YA and NA audiences under the pen name AJ Krafton. THE HEARTBEAT THIEF, her Victorian dark fantasy inspired by Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, is now available.

A Writer’s Morning* (Ever Have One of These?)

*with apologies to Helen Fielding

Note: This post of Rosie's should have gone up yesterday, but Carolyn, who was responsible for getting the post up, was having one of those days yesterday...

Rosie G's Diary
Previous day’s word count: 3, 236

6:58 a.m. Awake before seven! V. good. Lots of time to get some writing done before breakfast. Head straight to desk and open manuscript. Minimize manuscript and check email. Check Facebook—two new notifications! Check Goodreads to see who has added me to “want to read” list.  Apparently, no one. Re-open manuscript.

7:23 a.m. Stare at page 9. Why is protag talking to this other person? In fact, who is this character? Take out Oxford comma in line of dialogue. Add “that” for parallel structure. Continue to stare at page 9 until lightheaded. In need of protein and caffeine.

Word count: 3,237

7:48 a.m./Eight hours until cocktails. Time for breakfast. Cook up two eggs and three slices of bacon. (No toast, as watching carbs.) Read Publishers Weekly and check lists. Good God—how did that book even make it? No accounting for the market. Does talent even matter these days???? Continue to make smug pronouncements until caffeine hits and hurry upstairs.

8:17 a.m. Back at desk. Squint at page 9. Put glasses on. Stare at page 9. Aha! I remember why second character is in room! (How will I get her out of room? Worry about that later!) Finally getting momentum. V. good. Second character looks at protag with “an expression of desolate despair.” Or perhaps “despairing desolation”?

8:20 a. m. Look down at lap and notice alarming thigh spread. Was bacon a bad choice for breakfast? Must get moving!   A brisk walk, followed by 75 lunges ought to do the trick. Will use the time to work out main character motivation.

Word count: 3, 243

8:25-9:51 a.m. Out on power walk—perfect for inspiration! So why does protag get involved in investigation? Curiosity? Pride, or perhaps—ooooh, new bakery just opened in town. Are those samples I spy in basket outside door? Yum. Brush croissant crumbs from shirt. On walk home, decide protag has dark secret to be revealed. (But what is dark secret? Worry about that later.)

10:00 a.m./Six hours until cocktails. Back at desk. Add two modifiers to dialogue tags. Protag speaks “confidentially.” Second character gasps “breathlessly.” Damn, I’m good. (Note to self: give second character a name)

Word count: 3,245

10:13 a.m. Thirsty from exertion. Go to kitchen to fill 64 oz. water bottle. Must stay properly hydrated to write.  Back at desk. No Google alerts today. Search self under real name. Search self under pen name. Search self plus title of book. Search self plus “reviews.” Search self plus “debut author.” Search self on all pages found, including those in foreign languages. Finish water bottle.

10:47 a.m. Potty break! Check out self in bathroom mirror while washing hands. Eyebrows in desperate need of grooming. While plucking, decide upon second character name: Penelope. Or Leticia. V. Good!

Word count: 3,245

11: 23 a.m./Approximately five hours until cocktails. Back at desk. Add Penelope/Leticia’s name to dialogue tags and mull over protag’s dark secret. Is Penelope/Leticia in possession of said secret? (Will worry about that later.) Provide Penelope/Leticia with “feral grace” and “hair as dark as midnight.” Oooh, I’m on page ten! Double digits at last!! Minimize document.

11:48 a.m. In celebration of page 10, check Amazon numbers on pre-orders. Can that be right? Open author page and go to graph. Still in the six digits. Crap. Check Novelrank in case of some mistake. Apparently not.  But UK numbers up by one! Huzzah! Make note to order more promo materials, stat!

12:14 p.m./3.5 hours until cocktails. One thousand bookmarks, 1 gross pens, and several hundred “signed by the author” stickers will be in my possession by tomorrow! V. Good. Open document. Time to establish main character’s dark secret.  Find and remove two more Oxford commas. Re-read pages 1-9 to better grasp main character motivation. Realize edits sorely needed—revise all flabby prose. Delve more deeply into main character motivation and mysterious connection to Penelope/Leticia. But what IS dark secret?

(Will worry about that later, as it is time for lunch.)

Final word count: 3,236    V.Good!

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara, will be released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband, two of her three sons, and an ill-behaved fox terrier.

No Excuses.

Let's talk about that novel that's been in progress for ages, the one you're pretty sure you'll finish someday (especially if it's your first novel but even if it's your twentieth). Let's talk about why it's stalled.

I'm finishing my novel for Lent. For reasons we don't need to get into here (but I did elsewhere, for the curious) I've turned the runup to Easter into my own personal NaNoWriMo. You may remember I said I don't do NaNoWriMo, and I don't -- I've set the word count at a sustainable rate for myself, and I've been able to nail it every day except for the time the school called and said they foresaw an ambulance ride in my son's future. (There wasn't. He's okay.)

What I've realized is not just that I required a swift kick in the pants to get finished, but why I needed it: I was allowing normal problems to derail me. So let's back up a bit. Are you too-easily discouraged?

The problem with being an instinctual writer, the kind of seat-of-the-pants writer who navigates the drafting process via instinct rather than road map, is that sometimes our instincts are wrong. Or rather, as instinctual writers, we believe it should be easy. When it gets hard, we may mistake resignation for a writing pause.

This kind of stall is not just the writer making excuses for not writing. I mean that sometimes we legitimately get derailed, only by something that shouldn't have had that much power over us. Maybe in those cases, it's time to borrow tricks from our more-disciplined outlining and word-counting siblings to clear the hurdles. Maybe that's the time to pull out the yardstick and figure out just how much we should be producing per day. And then produce it. No excuses.

Just after the midpoint of my WIP, the reader needs to know a minor character has realized something vital to the plot. The problem? He's not a POV character. Another problem? He keeps this information to himself. I couldn't figure out how to convey his realization, but I had to because it's going to explain why things start going wrong for my protagonists, and yet no solution I came up with resolved the problem to my satisfaction.

I asked my agent. I ranted at my Patient Husband. I lamented to a friend. I wrote nothing. I wasn't even at that part of the novel, but I stalled.

But once I resolved to write my daily minimum, that scene came up, and when it came up, I had to solve the problem. I had no choice. No more dithering. And while I walked out to get the mail, on the day I needed to solve it -- I found the solution.

It's not just that one scene. I've discovered repeatedly that when I'm forced to solve a problem because the word count demands it and we're at that scene...the solution comes. What's the next scene? I don't know. But that doesn't mean I need to take five weeks to figure it out. It's not going to be any easier to figure it out in May than it is today, right? The pace forces me to settle on a solution and enact it -- today. Otherwise I won't get today's pages done.

That's not to say I haven't revisited those pages the next day to do it better. What I'm saying is that sometimes if you're a SOP writer, the tendency is to say, "The solution will come when it comes."

Maybe instead it's better to get up and stride toward the solution. Because now I'm chugging ahead on the manuscript, and I'm furious at myself for the time I've lost waiting for The Idea Fairy to present the next scene, or a way to convey a third party's information, and so on. 

I still hold to the idea of a literary pause. But not literary laziness. Only the writer can tell the difference.

Here's my suggestion, though. If you've got a work-not-in-progress when it should be, and if your literary pause has lasted longer than a week, pick it up again. Write all the way up to your trouble spot. Force yourself to write through it. If it works, then you're steaming ahead. If it doesn't, then rip out those pages and try another approach. But don't discount the idea of momentum. Sometimes going through the motions does lead to real results.

---

Jane Lebak is the author of The Wrong Enemy. She has four kids, three cats, two books in print, and one husband. She lives in the Swamp and spends her time either writing books or ejecting stink bugs from the house. At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four kids. If you want to make her rich and famous, please contact the riveting Roseanne Wells of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. 

How Long Should It Be?

                                             ©Stina Lindenblatt

By Arthur Plotnik @artplotnik

Here we go again with "size matters." Not long ago I was asked to help some writing students answer the question: "How long should a piece be?" Talk about generalizing---it's almost like asking "How good should a piece be?" (Answer: Pretty damn good.) But the length question is a common one, and, as I mused about it, my muse and I came up with some practical guidelines.

In answer to "how long?" the stock response is “as long as it needs to be.” “Needs” covers a lot of ground, however, and depends on what you mean by “it.”  Often a publication and its editors set the length limitations. Sometimes the form itself does, as with a sonnet (14 lines) or haiku (17 syllables). Time can be a factor, as with television scripts.

But if there are no set limits, writers still have to consider their purpose and the interests of an audience. You don't want to run at the mouth or come up short. What will make your communication hit home? Which elements have to be there and which are going to be a distraction?

Limits are off only when writing something out of personal need; say, to get a jumble of pressing thoughts into some kind of form. The result might be a riff or a rant as long as the Alaskan Iditarod---and just as forbidding. Or it might boil down to about 140 characters, luring you to spill your inspissated guts on Twitter.

But what determines length when addressing a wider audience? Again, form is key. In news writing you have to lay out the who, what, when, where, and sometimes why, enough to tell a story; and, in opinion pieces, enough argument to persuade---all within the attention span of the average reader. In newspapers, that might mean 200-500 words for the average piece, and some 700-2,000 words in longer-form media, like magazines. (A double-spaced manuscript page holds 250-300 words; a typical printed magazine page about 700-1,000; a page of an average published book about 350-500.)  

Poetry is mainly a form of “distillation,” where meaning is boiled down to the fewest telling words and images. Many literary journals call for poems no longer than about 40 lines, which is what fills one of their typical printed pages. Reflecting the tenor of the times, the editors suggest that if something can’t be distilled into 40 lines of poetry, then it hasn’t been worked on enough or the topic is unworkable. “Epic” poems, of course, are long verse narratives that might be book-length. They are stone out of fashion given the patience of today’s reader.

Short stories, too, are confined by journal guidelines. While quick-take stories (or “flash fiction”) run up to 1,000 words, 2,500 is the average maximum for short stories as the form has come to be developed.  Experience has shown that 2,000-3,000-words constitute a workable length for developing characters and taking them through a meaningful episode.

With multiple characters to develop and more complex episodes, or a time-span of many years, one enters the terrain of the “long story,” about 5,000-12,000 words, or up to 40 manuscript pages.  Higher counts, say 15,000-30,000 words are usually classified as “novellas,” or small novels. Like long stories they face a sheer cliff in getting published other than through the occasional contest or in a collection of the author's otherwise short stories. But here and there a bulked-up tale scales the heights.  Published novels tend to run from 80,000 words (e.g., romance novels) to 200,000 (e.g., historical sagas).    

Common nonfiction lengths include the editorial essay or op-ed of about 300-700 words; 1,000-3,000-word topical essays, and 100,000-150,000 book-length treatments of a rich topic (e.g., a biography, history of a war, or a year spent living in a tree with koalas).  

Within the general lengths mentioned, a hundred aesthetic factors make for variations. If a created character or suspenseful atmosphere is so compelling that readers are likely to want more, greater length might be justified. If the idea is to stimulate by understatement, then like the “minimalists” you’ll be writing shorter pieces. 

Often, an agent or even an editor will suggest cuts or expansions of a book manuscript without any promise of publication. And, blast them, they are usually right from a commercial publishing point of view. But not always; you'll want some second opinions. Once the book is accepted, you're still likely to face length changes from the editor---or a succession of editors during the long publishing process. You can go along with them, argue, or give back your advance. Your choice.

Crazily, the length might have to be changed at the last minute, owing to a budget change or, with print books, to fit the number of "forms" on a press (usually total book pages must be divisible by eight). You'll need to be a good sport, even if it feels like they're reconfiguring your very molecules.

But back to first things, your manuscript. The famous advice of writer Elmore Leonard still holds: “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” And in the age of Internet, when words from every imaginable source flood every screen and every mobile device, people are skipping more than ever, especially self-indulgent, off-message digressions of interest only to the author and his/her unquestioning golden retriever.

And I hope I’ve left out those parts here.

Arthur Plotnik is a distinguished editor and author whose eight books include The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts Into Words (2012, rev. and expanded, Viva Editions) and Better Than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives (2011, Viva). His Spunk and Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style (Random House) has been a bestseller in its category. Website: www.artplotnik.com.

A. P., copyright ©2012

Manuscript Length

How long should a novel manuscript be?

I belong to quite a few writers' groups, both local and online, and in my QT Blog posts, I try to address recurring topics discussed in these groups that apply to aspiring writers. The question of word count comes up frequently.

I'm not an expert on all genres, so I'm going to link to and quote from folks who know what they're talking about. What I do know is that loads of aspiring writers, especially those new to the business have monster-long, and I mean doorstop-huge manuscripts well in excess of 130,000 words.

So, let's start off with the numbers. Here's literary agent Colleen Lindsay's take on manuscript length from her blog, The Swivet:

Word counts for different kinds of novels vary, but there is are general rules of thumb for fiction that a writer can use when trying to figure out just how long is too long. For the purposes of this post, I'm only talking about YA, middle-grade and adult fiction here. And bear in mind that there are always exceptions, but good general rules of thumb would be as follows:

middle grade fiction = Anywhere from about 25k to 40k, with the average at about 35k

YA fiction = For mainstream YA, anywhere from about 45k to 80k; paranormal YA or YA fantasy can occasionally run as high as 125k. The second or third in a particularly bestselling series can go even higher. But it shouldn't be word count for the sake of word count; the word count must actually be what works best for the story.

urban fantasy / paranormal romance = Usually around the 100k mark; some bestselling urban fantasy writers are able to turn in even higher word counts, but as a debut author, stick to the appropriate range.

mysteries and crime fiction = Cozies tend to be shorter than the average, somewhere around the 60k to 70k mark; most other books that fall into this category fall right around the 90k to 100k mark.

mainstream/commercial fiction/thrillers = Depending upon the kind of fiction, this can vary: chick lit runs anywhere from 80k word to 100k words; literary fiction can run as high as 120k but lately there's been a trend toward more spare and elegant literary novels as short as 65k; thrillers also run in somewhere around the 100k to 120k mark; historical fiction can run as high as 160k words or more (and again, these are just rough guides - there are always exceptions). Anything under 50k is usually considered a novella, which isn't something agents or editors ever want to see unless the editor has commissioned a short story collection. (Agent Kristin Nelson has a good post about writers querying about manuscripts that are too short.)

science fiction & fantasy = Here's where most writers seem to have problems: most editors I've spoken to recently at major SF/F houses want books that fall into the higher end of the adult fiction you see above; a few of them told me that 100k words is the ideal manuscript size for good space opera or fantasy. For a truly spectacular epic fantasy, editors will consider manuscripts over 120k but it would have to be something extraordinary. I know at least one editor I know likes his fantasy big and fat and around 180k. But he doesn't buy a lot at that size; it has to be astounding. (Read: Doesn't need much editing.) And regardless of the size, an editor will expect the author to to be able to pare it down even further before publication.

I recommend reading all of Ms. Lindsay's article from which I quoted above because it gives some examples of when and how longer word counts make it through.

Jessica Faust from Bookends, LLC also blogged about this topic in an article appropriately called Book Length.

Here's agent Nathan Bransford's opinion on Novel Word Count.

How about an editor's take on it. Moonrat blogged about the ideal length of a submission.

My point is 130,000+ word debut novels are rare. There's a reason they're not the norm. Publishing is a business. As writers, it's our job to know as much about the business as possible. There is a ton of online information on this subject from industry professionals.

If you have thoughts on this topic or other links to good articles about manuscript length, please share them in the comments.

Have a great week!

Mary

Cutting the Fat

In honor of the new year, it's time to lose some weight. I don't mean you, but your manuscript. Maybe it's just me, but I tend to go on and on in my writing. Since I don't outline (shudders), I usually have to go through multiple (multiple, multiple) drafts of my MS before it's ready for human consumption.

And at least one of those rounds is just to cut the word count to something appropriate. (I won't go over that here. Check Colleen Lindsay's blog for a great guide.) My latest round? I had to cut 10%, which for me is about  8000 words.

Holy deletage, people. That's a lot of words. That's more than a just a few dialog tags, you know?

So, as with anything I do in writing, I start in small steps.

1. Sweat the small stuff. This includes but is not limited to: dialog tags, adverbs, adjectives, tedious blow-by-blow action ("I got up and walked to the door. I twisted the knob and yanked the door open." We don't need a blow-by-blow. Just say, "I strode to the door and yanked it open." That's about half the words.), and "no-duh" statements ("The sunglasses fell to the ground." You can remove "to the ground." Most of us understand gravity. And hey! It's 3 words!). These are small changes, but can reduce your word count.

2. Once is usually enough. This sounds like a "no, duh, Elana" but seriously. I had gone through my MS, deleting deleting deleting. I didn't have like two of the same word on a page or anything. That's not what this is. This is what I tell my critique partners: "You've said the same thing three times using different words."

Carolyn read my MS, and pointed out that I was establishing setting in multiple ways. Sure, I'd used different words. Different senses. But they were all establishing the--same--thing.

Once I realized this is how I write, I can usually find sentences (WHOLE sentences) that I can take out. I choose the best ones and delete the rest. You can delete hundreds, if not thousands of words this way.

3. Keep your eye on the big picture. I read through my MS, writing what happens in each scene on a tiny post it. Seriously, guys, it was like a 5-word thing of what was going on (I don't even outline AFTER the novel is written). Afterward, I looked at the scenes and what they did to advance A) the plot B) the character arc or C) nothing. Anything that fell into the C) category got the axe. If I felt like there was pertinent information I absolutely had to have in the cut scene, I wove it into a different scene that already accomplished A) or B).

Sure, it's hard. No, I didn't want to. Does that matter? Not really.

Hopefully you don't ever have to delete 10% of your manuscript to make it saleable. But if you do, I hope you find some of these suggestions helpful.