Maunscript Diet
Have you ever had a manuscript gain an unsightly number of pages, so much so that you cringe at the cost of printing it out?
I am usually a short writer. When I started college, I trembled at the thought of ten page papers. Ten pages? Who am I, Charles Dickens?
When I wrote my dissertation and managed a whole 250 (including 25 pages of bibliography and tables), I was flabbergasted. I'd maxed out. That was for sure. Never would I write anything longer. Ever.
And I didn't.
Until...
I started my present WIP. It's about a boy and a dolphin set in late 19th century New Zealand, and I even got to go to New Zealand last November for on-sight research. At that point, the ms was still a manageable 285 pgs.
Over the last year, I think my WIP secretly gorged on adverbs, Anne of Green Gables poetical monologues, and New Zealand scenery because it grew to a whopping 420 pages. A real full figured dame.
Given another era, another economy, another stage of existence in the publishing industry, and it might have been fine. Dickensian (or Botticelli) full, but fine. But it's a hard sell in today's market.
After a lot of thought, and talking with other authors, and speaking with agents, and pretty much hashing until I had come to terms with the inevitable, I put my ms on a diet. A serious diet. No liposuction here. I mean serious, word-counting, shave-off-the-excess pagery reduction.
I started three weeks ago. Being the slightly obssessive compulsive neurotic writer that I am, I'm keeping a "diet" journal. At the end of each day of revisions, I weigh in. The rule is that the ms word count cannot be any higher than where it was at the beginning of the day. I strive to make it a lot less. So far, it's been working. I have successfully shaved 11,000 words off, and I'm only through the first 120 pages.
Oh sweet success. I can almost taste the adverbs.
No, No! Bad writer. Stay away from the adverbs!
See how hard ms reduction is?
Sigh.
Please keep your fingers crossed. Pray to any and all writing muses. Send me parsimonic vibes. My ideal ms weight: 70-75,000 words (285 ms pgs), and I want to reach that by Winter Break. Which means, no adverbs on the side. No waxing poetically about scenery. Cut. Cut. Cut. Snip. Snip. Snip.
And, every once in a while, celeb
rate the hard won successes.
GLEE!!!!!
Now back to counting words...
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Michael Pokocky says:
I read an excellent article
I read an excellent article recently that espoused the idea of a split between having your cake and eating it too: Do both! And I don't know where I read it, but considering everything, their are people out there that will want the whole buffet! Good luck and damn the corporations for taking over what was once a business of independent publishing houses owned by the sons and daughters of millionaires who were very much into promoting literature and didn't give a damn whether a book turned a profit or not. A writer was part of a family and a books maturation period might be 10 years. Today the editor is replaced by the marketing people who where the suits and are under contract for two years to produce a winner and they have to find that winner so they can go back to the table and negotiate a five year contract and increase their salary. The suits don't give a damn about the "writer" unless the "writer" work is going to make them a heck of a lot of money.
Doesn't that reality turn the cornflakes in your stomach. Makes it nearly all but impossible to break out a new writer these days like a Dickens or a Steinbeck. Goodness this is the black age of publishing and it seems to me that its everyone for themselves. But I know no matter what road a writer takes there will be friends that will show up and help promote you if you are willing to do the best you can with your work. The best is still appreciated no matter if its written on a roll of paper.