I claimed there was no way I could skim down my MS from over 200,000 words into a much more reasonable low 100's for YA/Crossover. At first I cut it down from 234,000 to 214,000. Second time around I ended up at 205,000. Round three left me with 199,932.
4/22/10 189,490
4/24/10 185,583
Grand total since my highest point: skimmed off approx. 48,417 words. And I'm not done folks as I am only about 1/5 through my book. My original goal was to get my book down to 150,000 but now I am thinking I can get it between 120-130,000. When my critique partners grab a hold of it maybe they can get me closer to that 100,000 mark that agents seem to like.
As I re-read through my hard copy for the fourth time I am practically hacking it with my machete/pen for the word dumps, info dumps, and anything remotely dumpy in nature. I thought this would be an emotionally trying process for me, but in a peverse way it actually excites me. Is that weird?
I am looking forward to going home when I can make the edits on my computer and see the latest word count. This is yet ANOTHER example of my placing unnecessary doubt on myself. Silly silly girl.
3 comments:
Yay! I'm glad you're finding you can do it!
PS. I totally don't get how you guys go over. By the time I reach 60,000, I'm all panting and looking around for the finish line.
I am getting the feeling that teh sequel is going to be between 60-80,000 words. It feels about 1/2 done at this point.
I can say I know the feeling. I have never written anything at the length you speak of... but once I first finish writing, and begin to edit I do get excited at the amount I cut. I think you'll be very happy with your finished product, as it should probably be pretty tight with so much cut!
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