If these were dollars, it wouldn't be a problem
Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 8:42 PM | Writer's Cramp I posted awhile back about my concerns about the length of Matashara, and how its 250,000 word count might negatively impact my chances of getting a foot in the door with an agent and thus, negatively impacting my chances of getting published. I’ve had it in my mind that I need to do some serious cutting, with a goal of trimming it down to a tight 200,000 words.
So here I am, a quarter of the chapters edited, and not only is my word count not dropping, it’s actually gone up. By about 2,000 words. Oy.
I said before that I’m not going to trim anything just for the sake of trimming it. And I have been trimming things — a word here, a phrase there, an unnecessary sentence. But those edits aren’t going to drop 50,000 words, and some of the editing has necessitated adding narrative to make things clearer. Hence the net increase.
I have an idea that the section I’m coming up on can stand some judicious editing of plot, so we’ll see how far down it gets me once I’ve worked my way through it. Even if I removed the entire section — roughly 10 chapters — it still wouldn’t trim 50,000 words, and I’m obviously not going to do that anyway. There are two other sections I think I can do some copious trimming, as well, but they’re going to be trickier, and I’m not confident that the end result is going to necessarily lessen the word count when it’s all said and done.
So it may just be that I’m going to have to steel myself for that crazy high word count showing up on the upper right corner of my ms, and hoping for the best. But what I’m more afraid of than that crazy high word count is that it really does need some serious trimming, and that I’m not able to see it, not able to identify just where those cuts can and should be made. I suppose that’s why god invented editors, but if I can’t identify where the story can stand to be tightened up, then does that mean I’m not yet ready for prime time?
book 1, process, word count in on writing, revision
Reader Comments (4)
WARNING: BIG PILE OF PERSONAL OPINION FOLLOWS:
From the perspective of someone who is reading Matashara (admittedly in rather short bursts), and who writes long herself, can I just say that your story is long? I mean, it's a complex, multi-layered narrative, a saga. It's long. So far, I've encountered only a few small spots where the narrative lags even slightly, and these were where you put expository information about the political and cultural structures of your imagined world into characters' mouths. As you've already discovered, simply streamlining a passage here and there isn't going to solve the perceived problem of length.
The only way you're going to remove 20% of the words in a story like this is to alter it at a very fundamental level, to go back and decide to excise certain whole concepts. I don't think this is like demolishing the garage, but more like removing 20% of the story timbers from throughout the body of the work. The structure would change and whole plots and characters and ideas would go away, and the remaining parts would have to be restructured from the ground up to a very large extent.
I think it can be done, with discipline and detachment, but you would have a very different novel at the end of the process.
The only other idea I can offer is to watch Serenity (or, you know, think about it, since I know you know it as much by heart as I do) and consider what vast swaths of story Joss had to cut and then convey with a half-second of an actor's reaction, or a single word of dialog, or a prop. Though it's a brilliant job of compression, the fact is, the story that he set out to tell was long, and one of the reasons Serenity a) got made as a movie and b) didn't catch fire as a movie is that the story was compressed to fit a format too small for it.
From the standpoint of artistic merit, I see just the two courses: either you can, as you say, hope for the best with that long word count (and it's not impossible, though I agree it's going to close a lot of doors), or you can deconstruct the palace you've built, preserve all its parts in coded piles on the building site, and build a splendid, tight, stylish manor house from a new blueprint, using only as many parts as you need.
I bet you can do it, but I'm not convinced that you should. It's a tough one.
A suggestion....but what if you ended book one in a different place than you did, started book 2 at that point and instead of drawing a black line at "trilogy".....let it end where it ends, when its time....let the story take control say till book 7 or so??? The lad and little lady are both young so they could stand some time to grow, learn, mature and age.....and if they were a little more agile at escaping gashes and life threatening wounds and scarring they will hold up physically and not look like vikings at the end. It might be interesting to experience more than one generation of these folks. A war will last as long as there are two who will raise a sword against one another or when Toto pulls back the curtain on the wizard. Just a thought.
Anne: I have to really thank you for your insight on this. I admit I've been kind of flailing around with this whole word count, and it helps having your input in particular. I agree that in order to really bring that word count down is going to mean major restructuring, there's just no two ways about it.
But it's also good/nice to know that from your perspective, that it may not be the right course. Because you're right: doing so would make it a fundamentally different story than it is now. Better? Maybe, maybe not. But your input is confirmation of what I've been suspecting to myself, and where my anxiety about that stupid number really lies.
Hmmm. Will have to do some pondering. Thanks again for your invaluable insight, as always.
ETA: Oh, and the tip about Serenity is a great idea...thanks!
Cats: Ending the story in a different place is definitely something I'm considering. It would require some major reworking, but could be very worthwhile. Had to laugh though at your "book 7 or so???"... :) Hee! You just want more and more story, I see what you're really after!
I have a very definite plan for the overall story and how it'll be plotted over the course of 3 books, hence the reason I've said all along it's a trilogy. That being said, I wouldn't necessarily hold myself to that if I felt it couldn't be done in 3 books. The first book had a plan, too, and I certainly didn't expect it to end up as long as it did. So a story really does "end where it ends", as you put it, no matter what plans the author has for it! :)