Problem was, I was at least 2,000 words OVER the maximum word count limit. Obviously some ruthless editing was in order.
So yesterday I spent several hours doing just that. (Incidentally, that image is NOT a copy of a page from my manuscript.)
I did the usual eliminating unnecessary words, checking my use of adverbs, looking for ‘pet’ phrases, and so on, but I was still over max limit.
You see, this is a short story—not a full-length novel—part of a series I’m writing, with a maximum word count of 10,000 words each.
Anyway, as I did my initial editing yesterday, I found some scenes and incidents where I did not follow through before reaching the end. Oops. That has to be fixed one way or the other. And…*sigh*…that will add more words to the total count.
So today I will be doing a deep line-by-line edit, hunting down and killing those weasel words such as ‘just,’ ‘very,’ and ‘only,’ words that don’t need to be there and serve no purpose except to bloat the manuscript. You writers out there will understand this.
Writers are not normal people. We live in an imaginary world, peopled with people we create out of thin air, scenes and places the do not exist, or places that DO exist but we’ve never been there which requires research for accuracy. I think, at times, we must be a little insane, or warped. But we’re happy and content to be there, cocooned in our own little, crazy world .
Now, for the curious. The title of this series I’m writing is SWEETWATER RIVER, Volume 2: Undercurrents. You can read the first, UNedited first chapter HERE.
SWEETWATER RIVER, Volume 1:Ripples, can be found on Amazon for $0.99, OR you can purchase and listen to it for $2.99 HERE
Thanks for visiting THIS crazy writer’s world. Would LOVE to hear from you. Either leave a comment below, or use the Contact Peg tab above
Chopping and lopping at scenes and getting rid of those unneeded words that weasel their way into our work-- not easy to deal with! ☺ I don't envy you having to thin out your manuscript, but the end result will be good, as always.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Sally. I spent nearly all day today doing DEEP line-by-line edits, something I've never done this much before. I think I've reached the point where I'm not 'seeing' things anymore. So I think I'm going to stop and send it off to Kathi. I'm still about 500 or so over max, but the publisher isn't worried about it when I told him. He said "Relax!" I guess that means he OK with the overage. Neat, huh?
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