Re: If only it were shorter...

dosferatu <do$feratu_pjl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
A few of the agents on my query list will probably reject my query
on word count; they mention upper limits of 110,000-120,000 words
and it's closer to 140,000.

Just call it "about 100k" and don't worry about it.

I'm not going to rewrite speculatively, but I find myself wondering
how
I would deal with an editor making the same request. I've done a
revision
pass tightening the prose, and while I think it improved the writing
quite a bit, the net reduction was only about 2000 words. Taking out
a
word here and a word there doesn't add up very quickly.

Only 2%? You weren't trying hard enough. <g>

The rule I use is that if you can delete a word and the sentence retains the
same meaning, you leave the word out.
Look for redundant phrases, like "the car was parked in the street" unless
you really need to spell out that the car was in the street you don't need
the phrase.
Also, sometimes just re-writing sentences works, if you can get the same
meaning in fewer words.

In a separate post Mary wrote:
: Where the heck did I use all those words? This never fails to
: surprise me. It doesn't have a lot of subplots.

I wonder whether it would be worthwhile asking a friend to precis a page
or two, selected randomly from the middle?

You might hate the result (I'd probably hate it if someone did it for
me) but it might highlight wordy writing quirks (if you have any) that
are invisible to you because they're yours.

Jonathan
.

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