Losing the Word Weight — How to Put Your Manuscript on a Diet
By Liz Michalski | October 29, 2015 |
When I finished my manuscript for my second novel, it clocked in at 160,000 words.
Pretty impressive, huh? Double the word count of my first novel. A little long, maybe, but hey, J.K. Rowling has a few novels out that approach the 200,000 mark. And it had taken me several years to string them all together, so those words were GOLD, baby.
Okay. Maybe not.
Somewhere on my writing journey, I’d read that when you think you’ve finished, cut 10 percent of your manuscript to make it sing. I cut 20,000 words, bringing it down to a barely-there 140,000, then sent it off to my agent.
Who was not as delighted as I’d hoped he’d be.
The characters were compelling, he explained, but all those words slowed down the pace. Perhaps I should consider cutting a few more words.
Like, 40,000.
Ouch.
After a few nights of chocolate and wine, I realized he was right. With all those words, my characters were suffocating. They needed room to move, and the reader needed space to envision them. So I did the big rewrite first.
And I looked at the story with fresh eyes.
And I got down to 120,000 words. A good, solid story. But still too long. Not because of some arbitrary word count, but because when I reread it, I still felt as if the pacing could be tighter, the tension higher. A trusted beta reader agreed.
So I put my manuscript on a diet. These are the steps I followed to lose the word weight:
*I sought inspiration.
I reread several of my favorite tightly-strung works, ranging from novels by Lee Child to short stories by Amy Bloom to poetry by Billy Collins. I try to pick apart how they make every word serve multiple functions.
*I used the search function to find words that end in ly. If they were adverbs, I killed them without mercy. (Mostly.)
*I did another scan for adjectives, paring them down to the absolute essentials.
*I looked at all my dialogue tags and made it a game to see how many I could eliminate before the reader lost track of who was speaking.
*I divided my manuscript into three sections. Every week, I worked on one section, randomly opening to a page in that section and making sure it was as tight and polished as possible.
These efforts got me to about 108,000 words of solid writing. My characters were true, my pacing faster, my plot tighter. But I still felt the story could be improved, and I’d looked at it so many times I’d run out of ways to keep my eyes fresh.
The next step?
I hired an editor.
More on that in my next WU blog post.
In the meantime, what are some of your secrets for cutting a bloated manuscript down to size? (I really want to know!)
[coffee]
Liz Michalski’s (she/her) second novel, Darling Girl, was published in 2022 by Dutton. Her first novel, Evenfall, was published by Berkley Books (Penguin). Liz has been a reporter, an editor, and a freelance writer. In her previous life, she wrangled with ill-tempered horses and oversized show dogs. These days she’s downsized to one husband, two children and a medium-sized mutt.
Oh, Liz, I can so relate. Halfway through the first draft of my WIP, I was at 100K! I stopped right there and used many of the suggestions you have here to help bring it down to size.
After my last rewrite, the finished product was at 115,000, which still seemed a bit long. I took some suggestions that Donald Maass gave during his workshop at the UnCon and, though they weren’t given specifically as ideas for how to cut words, I used them as a gauge for how important scenes actually were to the story.
I went through my manuscript scene by scene and first simply wrote summaries of what happens. After that I answered the following questions for EACH SCENE. Who are the characters involved? What does the MC want at the beginning of the scene? Does she get it? What are the consequences either way? What are the MC’s emotions at the beginning of the scene? What is the turning point of the scene? What does the MC want at the end? What are the MC’s emotions at the end?
This exercise was agonizingly hard and took weeks, but it was worth every gray hair it gave me. Why? If I could not identify something that the character wanted, some way that the scene contributed toward her getting her goal or ultimately sabotaging herself, it was probably fat. If there was no turning point, no change in her circumstances, then the scene was static. The words may be “writerly” or even gorgeous, but something needed to happen or the scene needed to go. (I found each and every one of my ‘darlings’ this way.) If the emotions/goals/desires at the end of one scene did not somehow lead into what happens in the next scene, my transitions needed work.
All of this was a major epiphany for me. I plan to do this for my next book, preferably BEFORE I actually write it, so that way I have a clear plan and wont have to write over a million words to end up with 100K that I’m satisfied with.
Great advice, Kim. I did something similar for my first big rewrite — and like you, I’m planning on doing the same thing in advance for my next book! (Sometimes, I just have to learn the hard way…) Good luck with your writing.
Wow, 160,000 words! Liz, you deserve a medal. Your points are very good. My novels run about 78,000 words and I go through the same pains you do .. where’s the fat? For me, pacing is a 2-step process. Brisk pacing in a story is more about content first, and then later on editing down wordy paragraphs. 1. My main chores are finding the redundancies in dialogue, overwritten descriptions, unnecessary information, and meandering interior monologues. Every scene has to keep on focus and have movement. Once I know the content and action are tight, then I move on to Number 2. the mechanics of which sentences or paragraphs are too wordy or repetitive and edit, edit, edit. I have to confess, I love red-pencil cutting—possibly because I’m a line editor myself and as a reader I can’t stand to plow through “the fat.” Love your post today.
This is great advice, Paula. And marvelously succinct. Imagine that. You must be an editor!
Very good advice, Paula — thank you! (Those meandering internal monologues get me every time.) : )
Liz, I use many of the same techniques you mentioned when I am editing not only my own work, but the work of others. Even though I’m a detail person, I don’t have the difficulty of using too many words. Seems incongruous, but I prefer to have those details in the barest possible words. That can create a story that doesn’t have enough detail for the reader. Admittedly, I think it’s easier to cut words from a manuscript than it is to add words.
I always think of my high school teacher reading us THE SUN ALSO RISES, Debra, and pointing out how much was left unsaid, and how powerful that was. Sometimes the sparsest details are the ones that convey the most information.
Thank you, Liz, for this great post. In addition to the steps you recommend, I like to ask myself, “Is this essential to the story?” If it’s not contributing to setting the scene, character development, or moving the plot forward, it’s a prime candidate for deletion. It seems simple, but it can be eye-opening.
And ideally, the paragraph or chapter is doing all of those things — or at least several of them — at once! But killing the ones that aren’t working can be painful, not simple — at least for me!
I smiled when I saw the title of your post! The most helpful thing I’ve found I can do on my own is put distance between me and the writing. When I can come back after even two weeks and look at something, the flab seems to light up in neon. Great post!!
Time definitely helps me as well, Susan. Although with this manuscript, I’ve reread it so many times it was hard to see it in a fresh light even after an extended time away. Thanks for reading.
This is what my critique group told me just last night. I’m girding my loins and drawing my sword for the coming battle. :)
Good luck, Dana! Battle hard!
You did good! But I wish I had your problem. (For me) it’s so much easier to go back and edit out the unnecessary. I have much more trouble coming up with those words in the first place. As anyone on WU has probably figured out from my short comments.
Apparently I can’t say hello in less than 100 words, Carmel — at least on paper. (In real life I tend to be quieter.) But pithy can be very good. : )
Wonderful advice, Liz!
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
Thanks for stopping by, Dee! Glad you liked it.
Lots of good suggestions, though I will say that if you’re looking to make major cuts, you can’t focus on individual words — you have to look at at larger elements. Look at your subplots. Do they take more space than they deserve? Look at your secondary characters. Can you combine a couple? And last, what about your descriptions? Focus on the telling details, rather than on setting the full stage.
And good luck!
Absolutely, Leslie. My first two rewrites cut major words by killing a subplot and ditching a character. But there was still plenty of flab to go around.
Thanks for the good wishes and the good advice!
Sorry, but I feel I must get this off my chest: I like big books and I cannot lie. Sir Mix-A-Lot aside, I understand this is mostly a genre thing. And yet, after all these years of writing and trimming, rinse and repeat, I still cringe every time I hear “the industry absolutes.” I guess I just want to say that many of the novels I read still have a brisk pace in spite of being north of 150K. Yes, trim the fat. But please, make the length serve the story. Since it’s almost Halloween, I’ll say Boo! to formulas and auto-conformance to arbitrary standards.
Phew. Glad I got that out of my system. And not to imply you were advocating conformity, Liz. Thanks for the tips. Because, yes, I still have fat to trim.
Wishing you the best at delivering your very best (which I’m eagerly anticipating)! Happy Halloween!
I feel your pain, here, Vaughn. I’ve been known to love a couple of doorstops in my time, and didn’t want to leave the world they created.
And though I recoil at any knee-jerk commands — such as 100.000 words and not a single word more — I was also moved by the first chapter of Stephen Dobyns’s book on poetry, Best Words best Order, in which he discusses honesty. All too often, when we think we absolutely need to include something that the little voice in our heads says to cut, we’re not being entirely honest with ourselves.
I think there is a definite balance. I think a great many big books are also bloated books. But a great many lean books are also slight books.
Vaughn, your opening made me laugh out loud — thank you for that! And I agree — there are plenty of very long books that I wish were even longer. Mine, however, is not one of them. : ) (But I’m sure yours will be, and I’m looking forward to it as well!)
Happy Halloween back at you!
This advice was what I needed today as I face the edit of my 160,000 word first novel. I was so amazed I completed the work but dreading the edit. I’ve been letting the story marinate in time so I can face it fresh. The weeks have been adding up as I have wondered how I would even start the task. It’s part of the journey. Liz, your blogs on writing are always so timely and insightful – for me at least, someone new to fiction writing from the non-fiction world. I look forward to reading Evenfall.
I’m so glad it helped, Sharon, and I wish you the absolute best as you start your revising journey. Onward! (And I hope you like Evenfall.)
And thank you for the coffee! (Although mine is actually green tea.)
This post found me at just the right time. My MS needs to go on a diet. Thanks for the inspiration.
Good luck, Suzanne! And thanks for reading.
Excellent advice, especially the last bit. And yes, kill those adverbs and excess adjectives. Your focus is spot on, too–it’s not the number of words, it’s how well they work in delivering the story. Narrative logorrhea can drown a story quicker than anything. I have an opposite problem. I usually need to add 10% or so to my narratives because the first draft is so lean. NIcely done.
Thanks, Ray! Amy Bloom is one of my favorite writers to read for inspiration, especially her short stories. Her tales are lovely, and every single word is perfectly chosen.
What a marvelous article and just what I needed to hear now! Thank you!
Thank you, Stephanie. I hope whatever you are working on, it is going well.
Love this post, Liz! I’m not even writing a novel at the moment and I still wanted to make notes so that I didn’t forget these great tips! Yes, I’ve heard all the counsel about keeping the tension going, “killing your darlings” and stripping out the adverbs, etc., but you gave helpful, real world advice on how to do that in a way that made sense to me.
My only tip on reducing the bloat is to also search for those words you know you overuse – whether it’s a phrase or a go-to word – and reduce the number. You (the writer) may not even notice them anymore, but a reader surely will. Even in my non-fiction I do that and it always surprises me how often I used certain words like “accordingly” and “ensure”.
Thanks so much for reading, Deborah! And I love your advice — I’d forgotten that Scrivener lets you do that.
Hi, Liz:
Oh, yeah, been there, done that. Let me state at the outset, though, that overwriting isn’t the wrost writing problem to have — by far — because cutting is so much easier than trying to figure out what isn’t there.
General principle: Less is more. Unless it’s not enough.
We’re all walking that invisible, ineffable, unteachable line between leaving the reader confused and burying him in the redundant. And knowing when you’ve become redundant is the real test. There’s no quick-and-easy rule. It’s a line by line, word by word decision process.
First, I always try to keep in mind Steven James’s wonderful advice: repetition kills tension. And readers keep reading because of increasing tension.
There are a variety of ways we repeat ourselves: role repetition (several characters serving the same basic dramatic function); action repetition (too many chases, battles, arguments, bouts of conscience over the same thing, etc.); struggle repetition (too many characters with the same external, internal, or relationship problems); voice repetition (several characters saying the same thing or who sound too much alike).
This is the genius of doing what you did, looking at the “big rewrite” first. No need trimming language from scenes you’re tossing overboard. (Talk about “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”) Make sure the story has strong causal links between scenes, and nothing is simply a pleasant digression because you enjoyed writing it so much, etc. As much as possible, put that pleasure in scenes that matter.
After that big rewrite, I go back to the individual scenes. I look for places where much of the language was an effort to “get myself up to speed” or tell myself what’s going on. As a result, I’ve over-told the story, and now need to go back and find where, in gaining my momentum, I’ve inadvertently repeated myself:
Examples:
1. Descriptions that helped me get to the characters’ voices, but which now seem irrelevant because their dialogue and actions convey what the descriptions do.
2. Similarly, thoughts repeated (or amplified, etc.) in dialogue or vice versa.
3. All of which relates to what Annie Dillard calls “the old one-two.” This is where a writer says something well, then either through a seeming need to justify it — prove to the reader I really know what I was saying — or simply on a roll, I find another way to say the same thing. This is nothing but clutter. Find the best expression of the thing or feeling or thought, cut the other, and move on.
But the fundamental point: we as writers need to always keep in mind that we are not trying to give the reader our experience, or even our characters’ experience. We’re trying to help them have their own experience.
This is why less is more. All we need to give the reader is enough so they can actively engage with the material. Anything more is shoving our erudition or gift for language or research or whatever down the reader’s throat. Sometimes it comes from a young writer trying to prove himself or demonstrate his authority by adding all sorts of redundant detail to verify he actually does know what he’s talking about (and has the skill to make it come across).
The test of what to cut is always the reader.
Wonderful post. Can’t wait for Part 2.
I agree, David. Leaving room for the reader to imagine the story himself is so important. And I’m definitely a perpetrator when it comes to repetitive clutter. The person I hired has been fabulous about weeding that out for me — I’ve read the manuscript so many times I’ve really struggled to find it at this point.
P.S. I chuckled at your first going after the adverbs. Oh, we Americans, imprisoned in the shadow of Hemingway. Brits tend to think we’re a bit nuts about this. Adverbs don’t give you cancer. But (he said ruefully) they are indeed all too often a sign of lazy writing.
For me, in this manuscript, most of them were laziness. And killing them felt so good. : )
But I did spare a few. (She admits guiltily.)
Less is more.
: )
I’m with Vaughn, I like big books. I finished A Little Life, which came in at 700+ pages. I’m about to start City on Fire coming in at 900 pages! But all those words have to count for something! In A Little Life, Yanagihara broke a lot of conventional rules and it didn’t hurt because she’s been nominated for so many awards.
That being said, I’ll write as tight as I can, kill my adverbs, minimize the use of dialogue tags. But I’ll also write as much as I need to get my story told, and that could be 100K words or more.
Exactly, Rebeca. Every book has its own length — as authors, we just need to find it. Thanks for reading.
I considered topping Benjamin’s act by leaving you only an exclamation point for a comment, but that crossed the line into serious underwriting.
Helpful tips, Liz. I’m not to the point of needing these yet but my day will come. Also? I laughed at the line about adverbs.
Any day I can make you laugh is a good one, Jan!
Some 30 years ago I attended a local writers’ conference where an editor said that, if a scene or even a character doesn’t advance your story, it needs to be removed. That, along with a slew of adjectives and adverbs, will always cut down the unnecessary “word weight” of a novel. It can be painful at times; especially if it’s lovely verbiage. But it’s imperative, so more readers will find your work palatable and want more from you in the future.
It is painful, but you are right — it is necessary. Thanks for reading, Alejandro.
This is one of the reasons I write flash fiction. it gets you into the mindset of cutting out all the words you don’t need. I believe that’s the difference between a good novel and a great one. I’m aiming to get there.