Joanna’s tortured musings on Cutting Down a Manuscript PLUS NEW TIPS

A few years ago, I was faced with a MS that was much too long. It needed cutting down to size. So I wrote a blog with my tips for doing it.

Last time, the MS had swollen to over 94,000 words. I needed it to be well under 90K. I actually got it down to 82K, by following my own hints and tips. Then I submitted it to the editor who’d asked for it. Unfortunately for the length problem, I then had to make changes to take account of said editor’s (very perspicacious) comments and it swelled to—would you believe?—94,000 words again. Disaster on the length front, though the MS was a lot better for the editor’s input.

Impossible to resubmit the MS at that length. So chagrined author had to go back to ruthless application of the strategy for cutting down. It worked. Though it took ages. Still, the final MS was 87,000 words long. Result 😉

Writing long

courtesy of PatriciaMcLinn.com

Why do I always write long? it’s a fact of my writing life. Something I do. I’m not the only one, as the graphic (left) from Patricia McLinn shows. Not only do we writers have weird brains, but it also takes longer to explain what we’re thinking when we see something like a faulty garage door.

I have a lot of bad habits, like repetition, as I said in that previous blog. I also tend to see scenes in my head (like a movie) and write down what my characters say and do.

That might be great in some ways, but what they say and do isn’t always needed in the book. Some of them really do rabbit on. And on…

I’ve made a conscious decision not to try to avoid my bad habits while I’m writing that first draft. That would put me into editing mode rather than creative mode and I would risk losing any creative flow I might have found.

Beware the editing brain

The editing brain is always trying to muscle in and to tell the creative brain what to do. It’s pretty much a function of the way we live in the 21st century. We’re always organising our lives, our actions, what we write, even what we say. Diaries, ToDo lists, emails to write, calls to make, places to be. The admin brain organises all that. But…

That editing/admin brain has got too used to being in charge. And it really revolts when it gets pushed into the background by the creative brain. I’d say that, for a writer, it’s absolutely essential to tell the editing/admin brain to pipe down and get out of the way. [In part of our Explorers Workshop, Sophie and I discuss how to encourage the creative side and get the editor on our shoulder to shut up.]

So I knew cutting down had to wait until the first draft was done.

Fine.

That’s where I am right now.

And this time, the first draft is over 102,000 words. ARGH!

Cutting down isn’t that hard, is it?

Yes, I know, I shouldn’t be starting from here. A MS of 102,000 words?
Madness when it needs to be below 90K.

Don’t do as I do, do as I say? Good advice.

I went back to read my own blog, to remind myself of what to do in the cutting down process. I’ve dealt with the habit words. I’ve murdered quite a few darlings. And on that front, I have a confession. In my last blog about making cuts I mentioned a reference to a favourite chanson by Jean Ferrat that I was determined to keep in that story.
Did I?
Nope. In the end, that darling was cruelly murdered in the interests of getting the word count down.
Sigh. Isn’t it a hard life, being a writer?

When all else has been tried, there’s always the nuclear option

So what’s left now for my 102K manuscript? It’s the nuclear option.
Here’s a slightly expanded version of how I described the steps last time:

1. First, I compare the finished word count of my draft with the desired word count. Let’s say, to make the sums easy, that my draft is 100,000 words and it needs to be 90,000. So I need to lose 10,000 words. Horrors!
2. I print off the long draft.  My 100K draft comes out at about 330 pages, in double spacing. (Some people may be able to do cutting down on screen. It saves trees if you can.)
3. Then I divide my 10,000 word-cutting target by the number of printed pages. So:
   10,000 ÷ 330 = 30 (rounded). I need to cut an average of 30 words per page.
4. I start cutting. But there’s a secret to it. I start at the end of the printed draft and then I work backwards, page by page. (Helps me to focus on the words rather than the story flow.)
5. Even though I have a target, I don’t usually count the number of words I cut on a page. My rule of thumb is to cut lines. To get my 30 words, I need to be cutting about 2 lines per page. Sounds simple, eh?

Can I do it?

My current MS is 102.600 words. I’m aiming to cut about 15,000 words to get it comfortably below 90K. I’ve printed the MS single-spaced to save paper: it’s 205 pages. So…15,000 ÷ 205 = 70 (rounded). I need to cut an average of 70 words per page. That’s about 4 lines per page.

Deep breath here.

Well, I’ve started. However, cutting whole lines hasn’t worked too well this time. I’ve found another wheeze.

It could go in at the end of my list above, as an alternative to the method in steps 4 and 5.

6  Email MS to Kindle (and probably change the font so it looks different). Work through it there and highlight words and sentences than could be deleted. Even single words help when cutting down has become a tough challenge!

7  Then open MS on computer and copy highlights from Kindle. Do word count on highlighted material to ensure potential cuts are enough.

Working on your MS on a Kindle (especially if you change the font) brings more objectivity, in my experience.  Making cuts using the screen format that you use every day is likely to be much more difficult. And cutting down is already hard enough, isn’t it?

This time, I’ve used the steps 6 and 7 method. I’ve gone through 37 printed pages so far (18,500 words) and I’ve identified over 3,800 words of potential cuts which is more than my 70 words/page target. You can see from this Kindle page sample that some cuts are single words, some are phrases, some are whole sentences.

Warning: it took me 11 solid hours to do 37 pages of cutting down; it’s a real slog.

Based on time spent so far (at 3½ pages an hour), I’ve got nearly 50 more hours of solid work ahead of me.
Even deeper sigh.

Late addition: more detail on using Kindle highlights

At the request of a fellow writer, I’m adding a bit more detail on how I use the Kindle highlighted text approach.

With the Kindle running beside me, I open the MS on my laptop and highlight the same words and phrases in my Word doc. It’s a manual process, but quick and easy to do. (I do it a chapter at a time, after I’ve identified cuts on the Kindle.) Once I have completed the highlights for the whole document I then:

• save the document (belt and braces in case I need to go back later)
• save the document a second time, under a new name, say, Doc 2
• turn on Track Changes in Doc 2
• in Doc 2, use Advanced Find and Replace/Replace All to replace the highlighted text with nothing, which, in effect, deletes the highlighted text. You can see how to do it in the screenshot below which uses the same text as on the Kindle image above [click to enlarge to read the balloons]

• then read through Doc 2 after the deletions using the final (clean) version in Track Changes
• if anything seems off, go back to the final version with mark-up [see screenshot below] and put back any deletions that are needed or make any other changes, such as missing/duplicate punctuation

I hope the additional detail helps. If not, please tell me in the comments and I’ll try to improve my notes.

Joanna the cutter

PS In case anyone wants to print it off, my revised steps for drastic cutting down are included below (in a more concise version).

Joanna’s steps for making major cuts in a manuscript

1. Compare the finished word count of the draft with the desired word count. Say the draft is 100,000 words and desired word count is 90,000. So MS needs to lose 10,000 words.
2. Print off the long draft.  A 100K draft would print at about 330 pages, in double spacing. (Some authors may be able to do cutting down on screen. It saves trees, but not everyone can do it that way.)
3. Then divide the 10,000 word-cutting target by the number of printed pages. So:
   10,000 ÷ 330 = 30 (rounded). Cuts need to average 30 words per page.
4. The secret is to start at the end of the printed draft and then work backwards, page by page. Starting at the end helps to focus on words/sentences/aragraphs rather than the story flow.
5. No need to count the number of words cut on a page. A better rule of thumb is to cut lines. To get to 30 words, cut about 2 lines per page.
                         OR use alternative method below if above won’t work:
6. Email MS to Kindle (and probably change the font so it looks different). Work through it there and highlight words and sentences that could be deleted. Even single words help where cutting down has become a challenge!
7. Then open MS on computer and manually copy highlights from Kindle. Do word count on highlighted material to ensure potential cuts are enough.
8. Save document twice, one of them under new name (Doc 2). Turn on Track Changes in Doc 2.
9. In Doc 2, use Advanced Find and Replace to delete all highlighted text (replacing highlighted text with nothing).
10. Read/edit now shortened text and put back any deletions needed.