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Question regarding word count
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Hi. I thought I'd add my two penny worth.Cutting is difficult. However, try going through your manuscripe to find as many 'filler' words as you can. These are words like so, just, that etc, which can be left out without changing the meaning.
Adverbs are another group that can often be removed. Very is another. Choose stronger words in both cases.
Also check for tautology. I recently read an author who said 'he whispered quietly'. How else would you whisper?
You can often remove dialogue tags, too, and instead of 'sat down' or 'stood up', omit the preposition. (You can often omit prepositions.)
Check for infodumps, too, and repetition of things. It's easy to tell a reader something several times.
All these things, and many others will not only reduce your word count, but tighten and strengthen your writing.
Hi John, I agree with both Kenny and V.M. Agents look at you’re word count as a reflection of your professionalism, so sticking to the range, especially as a debut author, is important. But also, 101k is basically 100k. If it were me, I would just say it was 100k in my query, and I don’t think agents who ask for the full will be bothered when it’s 1k extra.
V.M. Also has a great point though. If your M.S. is super super polished there might not be room at a line or paragraph level to cut, but if you haven’t I’d definitely look up lists of words and types of words to cut. The examples V.M. Provided are great, but there are even more. After I did a binge through the “This Itch of Writing” blog, I cut like 15k words from my 75k MS (and have gotten compliments on why writing at a line level from agents ever since). And that was after my MS was already “polished” enough to receive full requests. But again, I haven’t seen your writing, so you might already have it too tight for this. It would just be a great solution because it could be an opportunity to shorten and improve at the same time, instead of making your story feel incomplete.
I agree with Jessica. I would just say 100K words in your query. You're only a little over, and these are all intended to act as guidelines. Going a little over or under really shouldn't be fatal. It's not like if they love your premise and eventually request the full and see your manuscript is 101K words that they are suddenly going to go, nope, sorry, no way. (And would you really want someone who is that obsessed with an arbitrary number representing you anyway...?)That said, I also agree with her and V.M. that there are usually ways to trim words and phrases resulting in tighter, cleaner prose. Whether your manuscript could benefit from that is impossible to say without seeing it.
John, that's way too long for a romance, for example.Oh yeah. The bestselling romance of all time is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. That was (and still is) 120k.
Don't ever cut the good stuff because some Ah*** tells you about a word count limit.
I agree with VR, too, John. My stuff tightened when I deleted all "suddenly"s. (Put me on a strict diet: one "suddenly" every hundred pages.)
Hey John, I agree with what they've earlier written. And would like to add my view. I once came across a manuscript that was written and overflooded with "had". You should look out for that word and definitely the dialogue tags. And also how many words you can cut out of your modifying sentences. About the word counts too, I don't think an agent will mind if it doesn't go far beyond the limit. Good Luck.
John wrote: "Update: I followed through with the advice, did some editing of the wordiest paragraphs, removed a load of dialogue tags, looked for other words to remove and now down to 99,943. Delighted, now my ..."Well done, John. And I bet it reads much better now!
I'm currently reading a novel where the author hasn't gone through this process. He has at least 4 justs on nearly every page! ( plus a big no-no, several exclamation marks in succession!!!! Several times in the novel.)
John wrote: "I finally finished my final draft as it reached 99,912 words, however, after a billion readthroughs, I personally felt ill each time as I'd omitted an entire chapter and rewrote a part of the final..."Read that book about writing that said to 'kill your darlings'.
Either that chapter was important to the reader or it was not,
and how much you liked it is irrelevant.
Do you hope to get a real trad pub deal or are you going to self publish. Whatever please do NOT get suckered by a VANITY press no matter how much they tell you they are helping you self publish.
If this is truly literary fiction, then length should be no issue as there is never a point to that type of writing. What matters is how well the words flow and how fancy your vocabulary is.
That goes double if you self publish. Then any length is perfect as long as you are happy with the final mss. Trad pub houses may edit it down for profit/marketing reasons. But you should send the best mss you can and let them butcher it for printing. As long as you get it published do you really care what they do to it first?
Wmba wrote: "John wrote: "I finally finished my final draft as it reached 99,912 words, however, after a billion readthroughs, I personally felt ill each time as I'd omitted an entire chapter and rewrote a part..."Whilst I agree with much of what you say, I was surprised at your final sentence. Personally, I do care. If I've spent many months researching and writing a work, I don't want it butchered by someone else.
There's more to this writing thing than making money. At least to most writers I've come across.
1) Absolutely stay away from vanity presses. If someone is asking you for money to publish your book, you're likely dealing with a vanity press. (That said, self-publishers can and do often hire others do design book covers, edit a manuscript, or proofread their work.)2) I wouldn't say the only thing that matters in literary fiction is the quality of the prose. Literary fiction often emphasizes character over plot, but it's rarely plotless or pointless. And the author does usually have a point, often an important one -- a lot of literary fiction tackles complicated issues or comments on society. Think about novels like Beloved or The Kite Runner. A lot of readers read literary fiction because it makes them think.
3) I've never worked with a traditional publisher, but I would say if you're going that route, you do need to be open to the possibility the publisher is going to demand changes as well as that as the author, you might not get a say in certain things. (I have a friend who traditionally published, and she had NO say in her book's cover...which she happened to absolutely hate.) If you want total control over the final product, you self-publish/go indie.
Kenny wrote: "Hey John, can you please specify the genre and target audience of your book? How much you need to cut out/the word count you need to aim for depends on the genre you're writing and the audience it'..."Kenny wrote: "Hey John, can you please specify the genre and target audience of your book? How much you need to cut out/the word count you need to aim for depends on the genre you're writing and the audience it'..."
John wrote: "I finally finished my final draft as it reached 99,912 words, however, after a billion readthroughs, I personally felt ill each time as I'd omitted an entire chapter and rewrote a part of the final..."
100% agree with Kenny here. First time authors are expected to color within the lines. Once you're published and proven, you have a little more leeway with things like word counts.
tbh i'm a firm believer that a book has to be the lenght it has to be. Following an arbitrary number just to meet it makes no sense to me.I, however, know that it's difficult to work with larger books. My first novel's draft is ~340K ahahaha even then I love everything bout it so... yeah xd
You can check out this list by Bookends (a literary agency) covering genre word counts and what you should be aiming for:
https://bookendsliterary.com/2019/03/...
You can also check out their youtube channel. They have a bunch of videos where they address why you should stick to the specified word count as a debut author.
Here are a couple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUIDg...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z-_R...
There is no harm in keeping two versions. I myself kept so many versions of my own book, both for me and also for that hypothetical what-if scenario when an agent would ask to see a "longer" version. However, if you wanna up your chances of getting an agent, then I would definitely recommend sticking to word count limits, because it does matter.
Lastly, I understand the pain of having to cut out entire chapters or subplots for the sake of word count. It's not called killing your darlings for nothing. It's just another challenge of being a writer that we have to work with. When I started querying my 95k YA contemporary, I didn't think the word count would matter so much if I had an interesting story to tell. I also thought I was still in the green because I was under 100k, but I was definitely wrong about that. By the time I finished doing revisions and cutting back words to better fit the genre and audience, I'd already received a ton of rejections that I felt so discouraged and decided to set the project aside. So yeah, to avoid burning yourself out, and to increase your chances of landing an agent, I would highly encourage you not to dismiss the word count specifications and actually stick to them. Don't rush this. Take your time with it until you're absolutely ready. And be prepared to face rejection even if you check all the dos and donts of querying.
I hope these links help, and I wish you the best of luck with editing your book.