by Lucy E. Zahnle

Created on: September 07, 2009

Trimming an Overlong Manuscript

Many writers have to struggle to meet word count requirements in their stories while others, like myself, are too verbose. Getting word count to agree with a publisher's requirements is difficult enough if you have to add content, but having to delete perhaps entire scenes from a manuscript can be painful to both a writer's heart and ego. Deciding what to cut, what to rewrite, and what to keep can be a daunting job.

When I finished my first novel, it was around 350,000 words long. I hadn't worried about word count while I was writing and I soon realized that I had a lot of editing to do before I submitted the novel anywhere. I had to decide how to cut what amounted to a large book's worth of text from the manuscript.

I was in a quandary. What scenes should stay or go? Should I cut out whole characters? How do I keep from ending up with a skeleton plot with no color, vibrancy, or soul? Reluctantly and with great mourning for those special passages that had to die, I found my way. After extensive revisions, I finally published my novel at 150,000 words - still a long book, but not impossibly so, and the pruning made it a much stronger, better piece of writing. Although 200,000 innocent words perished, I am a much better writer because of their sacrifice. My techniques will help any wordy writer become a tighter, more streamlined storyteller.

Start revisions with your opening scene. Don't write a page or more of boring background at the beginning of your work. As much as possible, include your back-story in your characters' opening thoughts, actions, and conversation so that your readers can jump right into the scene's action. You can often set your opening scene with fewer words using the question and answer of dialogue. Dialogue, along with character action, thought, or reflection, will pull readers into your narrative much faster than a history lesson and you can lay out your back-story, your character's present situation, and reveal his or her personality all at the same time.

As you review your manuscript, consider each scene individually. Does every scene move your plot forward? Each scene should take your characters further along your plot path. If a scene is included merely to demonstrate a character's personality traits or because 'it's such a cool idea,' let it go. Incorporate anything you think is pertinent to your tale in that scene into other parts of your story. You can do this through dialogue, character thought,

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