A Few Tips To Cut Down Your Word Count

 
So I've had this manuscript of mine critiqued by  ,   and   (Jeannine Garsee). They've all been an incredible help in making this book something legible. Maybe even worth reading.

Jen and I spent the afternoon at Borders the other day, and we both said that critiquing someone else's work is a GREAT way to improve your OWN writing. For some reason it's easier to spot the redundancies of words, grammar and punctuation in someone else's novel. But then we can carry that knowledge back to our own manuscript.

I thought I'd share a few things that I had NO IDEA I was doing. (Thanks to  for these)

1. Reexamine all of your passive verbs - 'I was, she was, he was' - and try to eliminate a few if possible.

2. Do a search for words you overuse. Such as (these were many of mine)...
 - was
 - were
 - tried
 - being
 - felt
 - seemed
 - began
 - still
 - just
 - like
 - glance
 - made
 - look/looked
 - could
 - sounded

3. I'm a HUGE fan of the metaphor... but I don't need to stuff them down the readers throat. Too many can be distracting

4. Try to make sure your characters all sound different. A reader should be able to tell who's talking (most of the time) without the author having to mention their name.

5. Song titles should be placed in double quotes; "Jingle Bells" (When they're not in dialog, that is.)

6. TV Show, Album and Movie titles should be in italic; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Only one more week people)

Of course, there is so much more, but it's a good place to start.

Once again, I'd like to thank  ,   and   (Jeannine Garsee) for taking their valuable time to help me with this book.

I honesty expected all of them, after reading it, to look like this...

Tightening Up Your Manuscript

I've been doing some heavy editting, as well as some heavy reading. I shouldn't have printed my manuscript out on 20 pound paper. But I digest. *burp* Excuse me.

While I was revising, I discovered something... and it's really helped in pruning my novel. It concerns emotions in the form of facial expressions. This is something I over use SO much. But in the books I've been reading, facial expressions that portray emotion are toned way down. Instead, different story elements are used to get that emotion to the reader.

Examples:

1.) Instead of something like: 'Her honest eyes made it seem as though she believed me, but her runny nose gave away the truth', you could get this across with dialogue, maybe this girl stutters when she lies. Or with action, like when she blows her nose, everyone knows she's not telling the truth.

2.) Or instead of 'His facial expression morphed into anger', try some action; 'He clenched his jaw so tight it caused tobacco to dribble down his chin. Using a stiff finger, he slathered the lumpy brown goop back into his mouth and spat it on me'.

3.) Or instead of 'When she took his popcorn, she noticed his eyes go wide'. How about some dialogue: 'Gimme my popcorn, Grandma! You old bag!"

But remember, sometimes you HAVE to go into your character's head in order to get his/her's emotion across to the reader. Why? Because some charcters don't show emotion. Need an example? Okay.

Let's say your protag is an elderly Scotsman who spends his days standing along the side of the road, smoking homemade cigarettes. The guy keeps everything inside, bottled up tight. His expression NEVER changes. Even if a car came careening right at him, he still wouldn't show his feelings.

What? You think a protag like that is unrealistic? Whatever!





But back to the topic of character emotions, there are only so many ways to get feelings across by describing facial expressions and eye movements. And isn't that sort of like TELLING the reader instead of SHOWING the reader anyway?

So after you finish that first or second draft, go through the book specifically looking for these types of descriptions and see if you can eliminate a few, replace them with action, dialogue or something else. It will make your book read faster by getting rid of these reduntant elements.