Editing Advice

This week’s post will be relatively short but I figure future weeks will be relatively long so it’ll all balance out, right? So please indulge me (on those long weeks, that is). Today, this’ll only take a moment:

I mentioned earlier that the original version of my current project (tentatively titled Will-O’-The-Wisp) was unmarketably long. I actually thought I had cut it to a manageable length during a subsequent read-through a few years ago. So as I opened it up to look at it with my always-evolving-critical-eye, I thought surely it’s far less than the original 150,000 words! However I realized after pulling out the entire file that it’s still much longer than I thought. My first estimates must have been based on page count multiplied by the approximation of 250 words per page which, depending on the font, can be well short of an actual word count. Now that I use a computer-based word count, the sad truth is the book is still almost 140,000 words.

When I mentioned to my husband that I needed to cut a massive amount of words he offered some friendly advice (being the problem-solver of the family). He asked what is the most commonly used word in the book? I guessed it to be “the.” To this he said simply cut every “the” in the manuscript, with a Reader’s Key on the first page suggesting they add the word “the” in their head if any of the sentences don’t make sense. You see? I’m clearly married to a genius.

Not an editor.

Thanks, honey, but it’s back to the keyboard for me…

One last thing. I’ll be visiting a friend’s blog on Wednesday of this week. Patricia Hickman will be discussing stories relating to motherhood with me and three other authors. Let me just tell you I’ve been reading Patty’s blog and love it! So if you have a moment, check that out at:
www.wordsunwired.blogspot.com/