cutting down a story

[DarlingNikki]

I am working on a piece with a word limit of 3000. I need to cut out about 300 words. I've been over it a few times and I believe everything included advances the plot (as much plot as there is in non-fiction) or tells us something important about a character.

What is the next step? I'm sure I'm being a little wordy in places, but how can I zoom in on those places? Is there a tried -and-true technique for trimming the fat?

 

[oggbashan]

You have to lose every tenth word.

Start by looking at all sentences with a comma in them. Can you cut out the dependent clauses or replace them with one word?

Og

 

[gauchecritic]

Have you read Weird Harold's thread on redundancies?

Off the top of my head I'd say you could probably cut quite a few adjectives without losing too much style.

I've noticed lots of writers (myself being a major culprit) when searching for other than ordinary words will use something like 'aural senses' when they mean 'hearing'.

In this case K.I.S.S is very useful.

Gauche

 

[Quasimodem]

It is difficult to tell, not having read your manuscript, what exactly, is the problem.

You may have truly edited it to the nub, and now face accepting that it is going to be a manuscript with a larger word count. Alternately, you could decide to amputate one of the complexities of your story for the sake of brevity. (Never a happy decision with Non-Fiction.)

On the third hand You may have developed a number of word consuming repetitions, or long-winded phraseology, which could be simplified without damage to the story.

I do not know whether the Story Discussion Circle accepts Non-Fiction, but if it does, and if you have the time to submit you manuscript there, that would be an ideal method of receiving assistance from others, through critiques, about how to shorten your manuscript.

If you are not aware, the SDC has a new method of critiquing manuscripts BEFORE they have been published.

If this seems a likely answer to your problem, PM to KillerMuffin, who is the Moderator of the SDC.

[advertisement]

If this is a recurring problem, may I recommend the Snippettsville Group (also found on the SDC Forum) for future exercise.

If you have been living in a cave, or have been in a coma, the Snippettsville Group concentrates upon 600 word fiction set in a shared environment, sometimes even reusing each other's characters.

Under those conditions, editing for length is a common event. For example, the stories I have provided, usually are 800+ at first draft. Whether they end up acceptable for a Snippettsville Issue – or not – the editing required is always a learning experience.

If this interests you, check out the Snippettsville threads in the SDC Forum and sign up. If you have any problems or questions, contact wildsweetone. Or, for simple questions, contact anyone listed as an author in the Snippettsville Group Profile. WSO is a busy lady!

 

[Weird Harold]

What is the next step? I'm sure I'm being a little wordy in places, but how can I zoom in on those places? Is there a tried -and-true technique for trimming the fat?

It not just for adjusting word counts, but a good idea in any story:

Use the Find function in your word processer to seek out every occurance of the word AND to re-evaluate whether it is needed.

Repeat for the words THEN, BUT and SO.

If your story has a lot of dialogue, repeat again for the Words ASKED, SAID, and REPLIED (and other common words youuse in dialogue tags. Re-evaluate whether each dialogue tag is needed.

Your story can have too many words ending in ING or LY and the find function can point you to places where those words are found as well.

As mentioned above, commas are often co-located with words that aren't necessary to your story. Find and re-evaluate each comma use.

 

[kiwiwolf]

Just a note to endorse Quasi's suggestion. Both Wildsweetone and KillerMuffin are awesome editors. I do know that both ladies are very busy but a brief to the point PM may get the desired results.

 

[whispering_surrender]

Atmosphere

Durn it......wrong place.

*ashamedly*
Whisper

Edited because I apparently need tutoring in following instructions....

 

[Dirty Slut]

In most cases involving word counts...

Publishers allow for a plus, or minus of 10%. So first find out if this is true for you.

DS

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

Obviously, since I haven't seen the story, I can only guess.
I believe, though, that almost every work can be cut to
reduce words without reducing ideas. (A friend once worked
as an editor on a newspaper -- a pro. He cut the caption
for a picture down as much as he could, and it was still too
long. He handed it in to his city editor, who looked at it
for a minute started crossing out and writing, and handed
it back. His version had 1/2 as many words.)
These sometimes work for me:
1) Look at every adjective. Can the adjective and the
noun it modifies be combined into one word?
2) Similarly look at every adverb.
3) "And" do you need both?
4) It's cheap to change "in order to" to "to."
5) Can the order of the ideas be changed to remove the
necessity of some words.
Email the article to me at "anon584c@ripco.com" with "Uther"
in the subject line. I'll bet I can cut 10%.

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Cull ideas

Although cutting out the odd adjective and so on will make a little difference, it's only small. You've already examined your work at that level. If you have 'the X, Y object' you can chop it down to X or some Z; if you have 'and then' you can cut one out. But after a little of this you have a syntactically lean story that just doesn't lend itself to chopping out more individual words.

My suggestion is cut out larger bits -- ideas -- that turn out to be merely connective. Let's look at the storyCasual Kissing in your sig, which is a bit unfair since you're not trying to be compact in that, but the same principles of consolidation could be applicable:

As the conversation began to flow, it turned out that we had several things in common, including a love for travel, and we became more at ease with each other.

This is background. You could convey all the essential points with a lot less, just skimming over it:

The conversation flowed; we had things in common, like travel; we felt at ease.

The conversation in this story is diffuse and repetitive, so it would be unfair and too easy to point out things in it. So on to more description:

Having them see our faces flushed, our pupils dilated, having them wish they were doing what we were doing.

They saw our flushed faces, dilated pupils, they wished they were doing it.

What I mean is, don't just look for things that preserve your existing syntax but are shorter. Look at whole phrases that really just say 'and then' or 'they see' or 'I thought', and see if they can be bundled up into the next clause as a single word. It's a bit like this business of telling not showing: 'I thought X...', 'they seemed to X...' can often be expressed just by 'X' and relying on the readers to know who's thinking or seeing or whatever at that point. Whole clauses might turn out to be just transitions. You can do the transitions just by juxtaposition, leaving out the explicit statement of thoughts or opinions or sensations: His mouth was very wet, even a little too much so becoming His tongue was wet, too wet.

 

[KillerMuffin]

3,000 word limit. . . .

How are you counting words? Most publishers do it the old fashioned way. Very few of them hit the "word count" choice in the word processor's menu. If you are not counting words the same way your prospective/contracted publisher counts them, then you will have a large problem.

 

[DarlingNikki]

Wow, thank you so much, everyone... what a wealth of useful information.

The piece has been put aside for the moment so I can look at it with fresh eyes later, but I will be using a lot of the advice given here.

Of course the hopes raised by Dirty Slut's post were dashed by Killer Muffin's... All they say is max 3000 words, but my piece has a lot of dialogue, so it will take up more pages than it would if it didn't, which might be a problem.

 

[KillerMuffin]

You should find out if you can. If not, then go by word processor and plead ignorance. You'll get more words that way and you can still edit it down later.

If it's the traditional way, the here's as good an explanation as I've ever read:
http://www.pammc.com/count.htm


As to cutting down words? Lessee, you've got non-fiction so it's either an essay or creative non-fiction which does have a plot. If you've got a lot of word to chop, the first thing to look at is the big picture. Identify the main parts of the plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and anticlimax. You can usually cut more words in exposition (character introduction and such) because it's not nearly as pertinent to the climax.

 

[DarlingNikki]

Great link, KM. I learned a lot about dialogue.

As for the word count part, by that formula I only have 2700 words... maybe my math is bad, but if that's right then good for me, no more trimming.

It's a travel memoir and I have very little character introduction. I mostly just let my guys start talking and doing and reveal themselves. I edited out a lot.