AND . . . CUT!

Wayward words are hiding on your pages…..

 Every writer overwrites. Yes, it’s true. All of us have to attack our babies…er…manuscripts with a sharp eye for wayward words defying the delete key. Now these wayward words are allowed freedom on the page until the story is written, the second and maybe even the third draft, is complete. At that point, it’s time to stare at the manuscript’s word-count and accept the glaring numbers with a groan. You’re over the accepted limit for your genre. What do you do?

You cut. But…but…here come the excuses –

“My plot will suffer.”  No, it won’t.

“If I cut a scene, the story will fall like dominos. Be a mess on the screen.” Nope, that won’t happen, either.

So, what do you do? You focus on finding and deleting those wayward words and phrases that aren’t necessary to your story.

 How do you do it? By making a plan—start with the big picture and narrow your focus.

–Look at the overall story line and keep it focused. How? Focus the story on the major elements of the genre you chose. Remember, your readers are picking up your book because it falls in a genre they love reading. Give them what they want.

 –Follow the main character[s] storyline all the way through the book. If there are too many gaps between their scenes and the secondary scenes, then cut back on some of the secondary issues.

 –Cut an entire subplot, especially if you have two of them when going after major word counts.

–Sometimes, the tone of the story loses its impact when there is too much going on. We don’t always see that there is too much story and it’s diluting the overall picture.

 –Trim all description.

 –Make scenes do double and triple duty by combining locations, characters and dialogue if possible.

  –Trim every extra word that’s unnecessary in a sentence. This can amount to a lot of words. Do a search and replace for—just, really, very, honestly, both, that, about, sort of—for a few examples.

 Below, I’ve added some links for other ways to trim those wayward words.

http://fantasy-faction.com/2011/cutting-the-flab-eliminate-extraneous-words

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/04/how-to-cut-thousands-of-words/

http://rebeccabelliston.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/writing-tip-5-trim-the-fat-and-cut-the-easy-stuff/

http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2009/11/writer-question-how-do-i-cut-text-from.html 

Those are a few ways to grab your manuscript and shake out the chaff. How do you cut, chop, delete when the word count has grown beyond the margins?