Tuesday, May 17, 2011

CRAFT: Revising

I recently visited Cally Jackson's Blog where she wrote about her editing process.

I left the following comment there:

You’d be surprise what you can actually cut out of the ms to tighten it up. My first ms was about 110,000 words, and when I started getting a gazillion rejections and realized my word count was too high – - I did a revision with the singular goal of cutting words.

Every chapter, every scene, every sentence, every word needs to move the plot along. If it doesn’t – consider cutting it. Ask yourself, will this paragraph even be missed if I cut it?

And, you can cut a ton of words by fixing all of these: “was thinking” to “thought” … “was watching” to “watched" ... and so on.

...
After that post, I thought harder about my current revisions. Am I staying true to the advice I gave Cally? Yesterday, I almost cut an entire chapter because of it. However, I decided there were some important plot points in that chapter. So, I kept the meat and eliminated over 300 words of fat (from an already short chapter).

Do you try to delete the words readers skip?

12 comments:

  1. Yep - whether it's whole scenes, paragraphs, or even the word "that" (my most over-used word!), I do lots of deleting. Thanks for reminding me only "keep the meat!"

    Erin @ Quitting My Day Job

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  2. On the other hand I cut a scene and had my great CP tell she wanted to know what happened during that scene, sounded good and she felt cheated. It was good, but I summed up five pages in one paragraph by just having them talk about it. Sounded more word efficient, moved the plot in the same way. yet... if it doesn't leave the reader satisfied, it was a big blunder.
    Sometimes you can't win, eh? Finding that balance is a real challenge.

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  3. I tend to write to get it all out and then cut away the 'fillers' Eg that etc but I agree with Tanya about keeping the reader satisfied. It's a fine line sometimes.

    Psst....something for you on my blog.

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  4. This is exactly where I am at right now. My first draft is grotesquely verbose, and it really weighs the plot down. Easy enough fix.

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  5. i do try to be ruthless with excess, but then I usually go back and put a few back in. A completely functional-only style can be a little sterile, imo.

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  6. I've been amazed at how many words I've been able to cut at every stage of the process. Even little things like you mentioned help. In my very last read through, I managed to shave an additional 100 words off just by tightening sentences. It's so worth it to make it better!

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  7. Congrats and your revision successes. I am in the middle of the same thing. It's very exhausting.

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  8. Great post and very timely Margo. I've just finished my current WIP - just over 115,000 words and need to cut it by 15-20-k!

    This is the best part now, and the hardest.

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  9. I agree that there's always more in our chapters than we see at a glance. I do several rounds of editing to catch different things. Slicing away the excess words is a whole exercise by itself.

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  10. Very good advice. I was thinking during my own revisions the other night that an entire chapter could go...but it's one I really like. So I don't know what to do with it. Oh well, this is just my preliminary edit/read through, so I'm not too stressed. Yet. hehe

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  11. Good post. I think I over-edit. Sometimes it takes someone else to point out our errors because we know your craetive babies too well, I think. I wish I could just write it all down and then edit. :O)

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  12. Yes - I agree - keep the meat, but always remember - it's your story. You know what's right for it. You'll know what you should cut and not cut. Take advice, but always trust your heart. :)

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