CRASH EDITS: Trimming Fat From Your Novel

Okay, raise your hand if you like to diet.

Yeah, I thought so, because the truth is NOBODY likes to cut back on things they love, be it food, drink, or the words they bleed into a novel. Especially moi (CDQ Lessman, and no, those aren't my feet ...), whose first manuscript was … ahem … 162,519 words. Apparently my publisher didn’t catch on right away because my next three books ranged from 145,000 up to 167,000 words before the legal department lowered the boom on book 6 in my O’Connor family saga, A Love Surrendered.

        “You want me to cut HOW many words from this book???” 

        “Fifty Thousand,” my editor said softly with a crimp of sympathy in her eyes, "and I’ve  suggested a few ways to do it, Julie, with subplots you can cut.”

A brain freeze Anartica’d my body as my eyes glazed over with frost. “Cut 50,000 words and three subplots???” I rasped, lips turning blue. Might as well cut L-M-N-O-P through Z out of the phone book or dictionary. I mean, seriously???

Yes, seriously. So, yes, I did what any self-respecting author would do when an editor asks for a lb. of flesh—I broke down and cried—right before I went to the shed and sharpened the ax.

And you know what? It’s not really all that hard to trim fat from a novel, so I’m going to share with you today just a few of the tips I’ve learned along the way, starting with the easiest and most obvious ones.

1.) CUT UNNECESSARY SUBPLOTS. This is one of the easiest way to cut words from your novel, as I learned the hard way when I was asked to cut 50,000 words from A Love Surrendered, which okay, I’ll admit, was originally 170,906 words—ouch! But in my defense (I know, there is no defense for an author who writes 171,000-word books), it was the last book in the O’Connor saga with a massive epilogue, so there. AND … the silver lining in all of this was that I cut three subplots, two of which I’ve already used for two Seeker Christmas novellas. So … I’d like to take this moment to send a HUGE hug to my very wise editor and Revell’s excellent legal department!!

2.) CUT UNNECESSARY SUBORDINATE CHARACTER SCENES. Okay, this is a recent one I learned when I pitched my new contemporary, Isle of Hope, to my publisher who actually liked it, but wanted me to cut it in half (cutting a 156,146-word novel down to 78,000, imagine that!) plus wanted me to tone down the spirituality. Well, since the story is loosely biographical and pretty therapeutic for me, both my agent and I decided I should keep it as is and pub it myself, which I’ve done. So if you like deeply romantic stories with deeply spiritual content, this is the book for you. (WARNING: Shameless plug at the end of this blog with giveaway).

However, my agent and I both felt I needed to cut about 10,000 words to tighten it up, so my editor suggested eliminating “unnecessary scenes with subordinate characters,” namely children. You know, things like cute banter you love but doesn’t really add to the plot of a novel? So, take a good hard look at trimming all the extraneous banter with your subordinate characters because more than likely it won’t be missed.

3.) MAKE A GAME OUT OF CUTTING WIDOWS & ORPHANS. And, no, I’m not some sadistic person who hates little old ladies or ragamuffin kids. But when I’m serious about reducing word (and page) count, I literally go through an entire ms. and eliminate widows (single sentence or short paragraph on a page by itself at the end of a chapter) or orphans (single word or two on a line by itself at the end of a sentence). I tackle each one like a game—cutting words from sentences and paragraphs around or before the widows and orphans until those puppies are gone. And you know what? I actually have a blast doing this!

4.) CUT THE WORD “THAT.” Did you know that you can eliminate the word “that” most of the time? 

Such as in “Did you know you can eliminate the word “that” like you did in this sentence? When I cut A Passion Most Pure down, one of the ways I did it was by going through the entire book and eliminating every “that” that I could … uh, I mean eliminating every “that” I could … :) Here’s a clearer example:

Clara shook her head as she watched the newlyweds duck into the taxi that was waiting at the curb.

Clara shook her head, watching the newlyweds duck into the taxi waiting at the curb.

5.) CUT DOWN SENTENCES LONGER THAN THREE LINES.  When I’m editing to lower word count, this is a little rule of thumb that I use constantly, eyeballing sentences that take up more than three typed lines. When I see them, I immediately pare the sentence down. Following are some before-and-after examples of my copy as originally written, followed by the pared-down version.

Here’s a sentence in which I eliminated eight words by deleting unnecessary phrasing (in blue) for what I think is a cleaner, sharper sentence. 

The door slammed behind them, and Katie found herself racing to catch up with Betty as she marched down the glossy wooden hall lined with closed doors, high heels clunking like a small army.

The door slammed behind them, and Katie raced to catch up as Betty marched down the glossy wooden hall, high heels clunking like a small army.

No amount of paring down is too small. Here’s an example of eliminating one unnecessary word because it’s already understood.

“You jump higher than Luke does when I sneak up on him.”

“You jump higher than Luke when I sneak up on him.”

Phrases of three words can often be pared down to one or two words as seen in these two examples where I cut the underlined words for the final copy:

Both words and air pasted to the roof of Sean’s mouth as his eyes flipped open, glazed in shock at the picture of Mr. Kelly looming in the door, slack-jawed at the sight of Sean holding Rose in his lap.

Words pasted to the roof of Sean’s mouth as his eyes flipped open, glazed in shock as Mr. Kelly loomed in the door, slack-jawed over Rose in Sean's lap.

Here’s a progression of edits where I’ve underlined phrases and words that I eliminated in the next version because they are already understood from the action in the scene. Note the deletion of the phrase “hustled at a brisk pace,” which is already understood by the phrase “hot on his heels.”

ORIGINAL COPY:

Bobby screeched to a stop, his spindly chest heaving from his sprint to catch up with Sean. Twenty feet behind him, his mother was walking at a brisk pace, obviously hot on his heels.

FIRST EDITED VERSION:

Bobby screeched to a stop, spindly chest heaving from his sprint to catch up. Twenty feet behind, his mother hustled at a brisk pace, obviously hot on his heels.

FINAL VERSION:

Bobby screeched to a stop, spindly chest heaving. His mother hustled twenty feet beyond, hot on his heels.

First drafts are the perfect place for purple prose—all those wonderful words that come to mind to describe something, but in the edit phase, take half of the words out, especially the ones that “tell” rather than “show” OR the extra adjectives that only muddle the water, as indicated in the before-and-after clips below where the underlined words were cut.

ORIGINAL COPY:

Whether entranced by the beauty of Savannah Bridge at twilight, its watercolor wash of purples or pinks spilling into the rippling waters, or whether his footsteps were muffled by the sounds of foghorns and traffic, she didn’t seem to hear his approach.

EDITED COPY:

Whether entranced by Savannah Bridge at twilight, a watercolor wash of purples or pinks spilling into the water, or the sounds of foghorns muffling his footsteps, she didn’t hear his approach.

***

ORIGINAL COPY:

The gurgle of a fountain happily melded with Mrs. O’Bryen’s off-key humming to create a familiar ambiance that warmed Lacey as much as the summer sun peeking through leafy branches that swayed in the salty breeze.

EDITED COPY:

The gurgle of a fountain happily melded with Mrs. O’Bryen’s off-key humming, warming Lacey as much as the sun peeking through leafy branches that swayed in the salty breeze.

***

ORIGINAL COPY:

A familiar calm suddenly buoyed her with hope like the colorful flags on the various sailboats, billowing in the breeze, their tall masts jutting in the air like arms lifted to heaven while they bobbed on the water. 

EDITED COPY:

A calm suddenly buoyed her with hope like the colorful flags billowing in the breeze, their tall masts like arms lifted to heaven while the sailboats bobbed on the water. 

6.) FINALLY, CUT DOWN SPEAK ATTRIBUTIONS. Use speaker attributions (he said, she said) sparingly and mix in beats instead (actions to show whose speaking rather than a speaker attribution).

TOO MANY SPEAKER ATTRIBUTIONS:

“Patrick, you’re tired, and you’ve been drinking. Come to bed, and we’ll discuss it in         the morning,” she whispered.

“Did you kiss him?” he said.

“No, of course not!” she responded.

“Did he kiss you?” he asked again.

She gasped for breath.

“Answer me!” he screamed.

“Yes!” she said.

“Well, Mrs. O’Connor, and how do I compare?” he asked.

LESS SPEAKER ATTRIBUTIONS:

“Patrick, you’re tired, and you’ve been drinking. Come to bed, and we’ll discuss it in         the morning.”

“Did you kiss him?”

“No, of course not!”

“Did he kiss you?”

She gasped for breath.

He gripped her arm and shook her. “Answer me!”

“Yes!”

His eyes glittered like ice. “Well, Mrs. O’Connor, and how do I compare?” 

***

So there you have it—just a few of the ways I whittle my manuscripts down to size, so now it’s YOUR turn. 

GIVEAWAY!

Post a before and after of ONE of your sentences that you’ve pared down or give me ONE or TWO of your lanky sentences, and let’s see what we can do with it, okay? Everybody who comments is eligible to win their choice of any of my signed books, INCLUDING the paperback or ebook version of my new contemporary, Isle of Hope.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT ISLE OF HOPE:

— “I don't think anyone can walk away after reading this book without being changed." — Kav, Best Reads Blog

— “Be prepared to question your beliefs about forgiveness.” — Beth K. Vogt, award-winning author of Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

— “Isle of Hope will tear out your heart and put it back together, a little sore for the process but sweetly soothed all the same.  It’s emotional and raw and convicting … but healing.” — Carrie, Reading is My SuperPower Blog

— “Isle of Hope is “too important not to be read. There are so many life lessons in this book that I’ll be thinking about it for years to come. Run don’t walk to the nearest bookstore or online, and then take the journey to Isle of Hope.” — Virginia Rush, Amazon reviewer

— “I can count on one hand, in fact, the number of books that I have not merely enjoyed but ingested and absorbed into my soul.  Isle of Hope will now forever (and ever, amen) be included in this list.” — Carrie, Reading is My SuperPower Blog

— Isle of Hope may in fact not only be Julie’s best novel so far, but also her most important. — Carrie, Reading is My SuperPower Blog

“I have read a lot of books this year (I would not be surprised if I have read an average of 10 books a week if not more) and this novel ranks close to the very top if not at the top as far as spiritual impact (along with being an over-all well-written and compelling story).” — Katy from The Engrafted Word Blog.

— “Julie’s book is as much as devotional as a novel.” — Virginia Rush

ISLE OF HOPE CONTEST: Be sure to check out the IOH Contest on the CONTEST tab of my website for a chance to have a character named after you in my next book and a signed copy. Good luck!!

ABOUT JULIE:

Julie Lessman is an award-winning author whose tagline of “Passion With a Purpose” underscores her intense passion for both God and romance. A lover of all things Irish, she enjoys writing close-knit Irish family sagas that evolve into 3-D love stories: the hero, the heroine, and the God that brings them together.

Author of The Daughters of Boston, Winds of Change, and Heart of San Francisco series with Revell Publishing, Julie was named American Christian Fiction Writers 2009 Debut Author of the Year and has garnered 17 Romance Writers of America and other awards. Voted #1 Romance Author of the year in Family Fiction magazine’s 2012 and 2011 Readers Choice Awards, Julie was also named on Booklist’s 2010 Top 10 Inspirational Fiction and Borders Best Fiction list. Her latest novel, Surprised by Love, appeared on Family Fiction magazine’s list of Top Ten Novels of 2014, and her independent novel A Light in the Window is an International Digital Awards winner, a 2013 Readers' Crown Award winner, and a 2013 Book Buyers Best Award winner. Julie has also written a self-help workbook for writers entitled Romance-ology 101: Writing Romantic Tension for the Sweet and Inspirational Markets. You can contact Julie through her website and read excerpts from each of her books at www.julielessman.com.

How Does Your Speedbo Garden Grow? Part II

by Pam Hillman

So, you spent the entire month of March hard at work sowing words in your writing garden. But now you have to tend that garden if you want it to flourish. For some, this task might be hard work, but for others, it might be a breeze.

If you’re like me, I decide on a whim to plant something, so I don’t do the prep work I need to. Goodness, I’ve decided to plant flowers and within 24 hours, I’ve hoed the grass out of a small plot, bought flats of flowers and popped them in, hoping I’ve added just the right amount of fertilizer and water, all the while admonishing my poor confused dog (who just wants to play) to STAY OUT OF THE FLOWERS.

Unfortunately, my flowers (and my poor attempts at vegetable gardening) never end up as gorgeous or bountiful as I envisioned. To be honest, the poor suckers are lucky to even survive! If they could talk, they’d probably beg me to take them back to where they came from.

So it is with us writers. We come from all kinds of backgrounds. Some of us prepare a lot in advance, sow our words, then tend our garden carefully. Some don’t prepare a lot, sow abundantly and wildly, and then gleefully (or not so much) work really hard to clean up the mess.

We won’t even talk about some of MY past failures of not preparing the plot, sowing seeds willy-nilly, then staring at the bug-infested, weed-choked, holes-dug-by-the-dog mess until I finally give up, scurry back inside and ignore the whole thing. Nope. We really can’t have any of that here in our Speedbo gardens!!!

So, what does tending your Speedbo garden look like?

Fertilize and Water

Nothing grows without some food. Water and fertilize keep your plants thriving. Tending your Speedbo garden is much the same. A computer, dictionary, plenty of rest, a healthy spirit and body, time, pen and pencil, research. All of this is part of nurturing those seeds and bringing them to life. If you sowed 50,000 words in March and then just left them stored on your computer hard drive without ever nurturing them, I’m afraid nothing much is going to happen. The GOOD news is that—unlike seeds planted in the ground—there isn’t a time limit on coaxing those seeds to come up. So if you haven’t done anything with your Speedbo garden yet, all is not lost. You can STILL work that field! Whoot!

Ruthy's Son Working Hard in the Garden!
Thanks for the gardening photos, Ruthy. :)

Plowing and Hoeing

Once those seeds burst forth and start to resemble a well-organized garden with row after row of pretty green plants, you might discover that you accidentally planted corn with peas, tomatoes with potatoes, squash with cucumbers, and then there are the dreaded weeds that somehow always look exactly like the good stuff! Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop out unnecessary words, paragraphs, whole scenes of weeds, leaving them to shrivel up and die by the wayside. Yes, it sounds harsh, but all they’re doing is hogging the food and water that the good plants need to grow. Do it.

Replant Skips?

After all this chopping, you might discover long stretches of “skips” or plot holes in your Speedbo garden. Or in some cases, just a few bare hills. My husband’s grandfather was notorious for replanting the skips, which in a vegetable garden didn’t make much sense to me: if the peas didn’t all mature at the same time, it just made picking them that much more difficult. Again, good news for us writers. We can plant in the skips and plop a word or a whole sentence in the bare spots and with a bit of smoothing, I guar-UN-tee nobody will ever be able to tell the difference. All the words will mature together. Amazing, huh?

Scarecrows, Spraying, Dusting, and plain-out PICKING HORNWORMS

Don’t you hate planting something, then seeing your dog (or worse, the NEIGHBOR’S DOG!) happily digging a hole and plopping down in the nice cool dirt? Or the screeching sound of crows as they converge on your corn patch and peck away at your juicy corn? Worms on your tomatoes? Raccoons sneaking in at night? Deer trampling your vegetables? Ugh!

It’s the same with the interruptions and responsibilities in your writing life. Sometimes you have to put a scarecrow on your office door. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of an analogy for spraying and dusting your kids—maybe it’s best just not to go there.

And other bugs and worms? Oh, yeah. We know all about those nasty worms in the cyber-world, don’t we? Don’t leave your Speedbo words in danger of being eaten by worms. Back them up. Spray or dust those buggers with virus control. Don’t be squeamish… pick those hornworms off your Speedbo tomatoes by HAND if you have to. Come to think of it, I imagine when God dictated the words "little foxes that spoil the vine" to the scribes thousands of years ago, he had computer viruses in mind!

           

Harvest

A well-tended garden yields fruit or vegetables. Sure, there are times of drought and calamity that no amount of care and knowledge can overcome, but generally a savvy gardener has more fruitful years than not.

I think we’ve established that I’m not a very productive gardener, but that’s because I don’t work at it. When I was a teenager, I hated working in the garden. When my mother said we had to work in the garden, I asked to go to the hayfield and bale hay. When told there wasn’t any to bale, in desperation, I blurted out, “Well, let’s go cut some then!”

It’s the same with my writing. When I tend the words I’ve sown, when I water them, fertilize them, search and destroy the grass and the bugs and replant the areas that need tending, my Speedbo garden flourishes.

And yours will, too! So grab your tools and get to work.

Currently, Pam is reaping the rewards of her most recent harvests with stories in The Oregon Trail Romance Collection, and in the Seeker’s With This Kiss Historical Collection. Pam also has a couple of summer harvests and a fall harvest, AND, not to beat a metaphor to death, she’s still enjoying the fruits of labors from year’s past out of her “freezer”. Ha!


Check out Part I of How Does Your Speedbo Garden Grow?

Anatomy of an Edit

with guest Melanie Dickerson.

Before I was published, editors seemed to be these mysterious beings who held sacred knowledge about writing and story and revision. I could hardly wait until I had my very own editor to glean from, someone who would love my story as I did and would help make it even better.

Now that I’m published, I haven’t changed my beliefs about editors very much, because from my (albeit limited) experience, they truly do have amazing abilities when it comes to seeing a story as a whole—the forest AND the trees—and knowing what would help to make it better.

But lately I’ve had a few people tell me that they don’t intend to ever try to get traditionally published because they don’t want an editor telling them to make changes on their books. They stated that it would be too stressful, and others said they didn’t want to give up control over their book or any aspect of it. Once they finish it, they plan to self-publish. Period.

So, I thought I would explain what really happens at publishing house when it comes to edits, and why an author would actually WANT to submit to this process. I’ll be giving examples from the three types of edits we did on my new Medieval romance, The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest, in partnership with my wonderful editors at Thomas Nelson.

There are basically three types of edits. 

1. Content edits, also known as macro, substantive, and developmental edits.
2. Line edits
3. Copy edits

Some might consider line edits and copy edits the same thing, but in my experience, the line edits were more in-depth, and copy editors proofread after the main edits were done.

The first edits an author receives are from the content editor, your main point of contact, with whom you also communicate about the cover, the back cover copy, and various issues that come up. This editor looks at the big picture of your novel and every aspect of plot and characters. They put their observations in the greatly anticipated “editorial letter.”

In this letter you may be asked to change characters, eliminate characters, to make changes to your plot, to eliminate a subplot, or to create one. But all these changes are usually stated as suggestions, not forced changes set in stone. Your editor will tell you what the problem is and allow you to decide how to fix it, while giving you some ideas about how you might do that. Ultimately, it’s up to you how to fix it, and even, in most cases, whether you even want to or not. You get to choose. It’s your book.

I will give an example from my editorial letter for The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest. This was my first time writing for Thomas Nelson, and also my first book geared toward an adult audience rather than a Young Adult audience. I really wanted this book to be as “clean” as my YA books, but at the same time be a little more appealing to adult readers.

In my editorial letter, my editor, Becky Monds, stated that The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest “reads too young.” This was one of her main concerns about the novel and the one I’ll give examples about. And since I didn’t want this story to “read too young,” I listened.

(BTW, Dina Sleiman just shared a great post earlier this month about what constitutes YA fiction.) [Link: http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2015/04/so-what-is-ya-fiction-anyway.html]

Becky made a few suggestions about how to “age up” the story, and especially the heroine, Odette. The controlling stepfather made Odette seem more like a child than a mature woman of twenty years old. She suggested I eliminate the overbearing stepfather, Rutger, and the heroine’s passive mother, and make Odette an adult orphan who is independent.

As Becky said in her letter, if I were to make this change: “Odette becomes a much more active heroine. She is the one setting the terms for her poaching. She isn’t being manipulated by anyone.”

I mulled it over and knew Becky was right about Odette seeming too young and needing to be more in control of her life. However, I didn’t think I could make her totally independent and living alone. It wouldn’t be authentic to the Medieval time period. So instead, after talking to Becky on the phone, I decided to make Odette an orphan, as Becky suggested, but I replaced the controlling stepfather with an easy-going uncle-guardian who would allow her to make her own life choices, and he would retain the name Rutger. This would help Odette seem older and more mature but still preserve the historical authenticity. I was very happy with this change.

But now I had to do the work. I would have to change Rutger’s role in the story, as he had been the evil villain. I had to figure out who would do the bad stuff that Rutger had done. I used a combination of people, including Rutger, but from different motives this time. It actually worked very well and didn’t take that long to figure out.

I had to change every single conversation the heroine had with Rutger, as his personality was now the very opposite from what it was before. Sometimes this was surprisingly easy, but other times . . . not so much. I also eliminated the mother, which wasn’t hard since she was so passive and actually served no real purpose.

But I liked the changes. It worked very well and achieved my goals for the story. Also, on Becky’s suggestion, I made changes to Odette’s best friend. From Becky’s letter:

“I love the role that Anna plays as a confidant for Odette and eventually the ultimate confidant when she tells Anna that she is poaching. But Anna acts very young herself. If Anna is married with perhaps a child or two, it will help Odette feel older, even if she has never married nor had children. As it is now, when Anna and Odette get together and talk about Peter and Jorgen, it feels like two giddy teenagers. Putting Anna in a more mature stage in her life will elevate their conversations to a more mature level.”

So that’s what I did. It was also a more believable scenario for the time period, to have a 21-year-old woman married with children.

All of these changes had lots of repercussions. I had to do a LOT of work. But I believe it was worth it, and it all paid off. I think it’s a much stronger story, and the changes I made to Rutger’s character made him much more complex and set the story up for a really big plot twist near the end that I thought was much better than the way I originally ended the story. Yay! I love surprise plot twists, and even more when they surprise me!

Now on to line edits.

The second stage of editing is the line edits. My line editor for The Huntress was Julee Schwarzburg. She helped me with all kinds of things, like smoothing out awkward sentences, eliminating unnecessary and repetitious words, and lots of other things that editors are known for.

As an example, on the first page of Chapter Two of The Huntress, Julee deleted two unnecessary commas in the first sentence. She deleted an unnecessary speaker attribution. (These were all optional deletions, made in Track Changes, so that I could accept or reject the changes as I wished. But I usually accept, as I usually like the changes.) She also made this comment in the margin: “Somewhere in this chapter can you describe what Odette’s dress is like? For example, is she wearing a kirtle with a scooped neckline? Or whatever is appropriate for this time period and Germany.”

Since I know I am too sparse in my descriptions in my first draft, it was a good suggestion. I always find myself adding descriptions of dress and setting at this stage, and a good line editor will remind me to do that.

On the second and third pages of Chapter Two, Julee highlighted a large portion and said, “This is great information, but I think we need to move this to ch. 1 so we know what the stakes are when Odette is first seen poaching.”

Another great suggestion, which I complied with. We went through the entire manuscript together three times, making changes on practically every page, fixing our inevitable mistakes on the second and third passes from when we copied and pasted or deleted, and also catching other mistakes and awkward wordings, etc.

And I think that gives you a good idea of what a line editor does and how much work it is for both the editor and the author, but also how much it improves the writing.

Lastly, I believe I had at least a couple of copy editors on The Huntress who looked over the entire manuscript and made minimal changes and suggestions, including a couple of grammar issues. Mainly, copy editors fix the things the other editors and author miss.

For instance, there was a sentence that read: They were going about their normal daily chores and shopping, not knowing that just above them a young girl’s life was hanging uncertainly, doomed to a sordid, ugly life.

The copy editor said: As written, the clause "doomed to a sordid, ugly life" modifies "young girl's life," but it is Kathryn, not her life, that is doomed. Can it be reworked?

Of course. I reworked it. 

And there you have it, examples from the three types of editing from The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest. This is why I appreciate my editors so very much. Editing a book is a ton of work, for the editor as well as the author, but it’s worth it. I believe the book is much better for the editors who worked on it and all their suggestions—and all the HARD WORK I DID! (Haha! I had to add that!)

So, questions for you. What do you think of having an editor suggest changes to your work? Do my examples help you see how helpful editors can be? And/or, What are some of the most major changes you ever did to one of your books? Come on, make it good, so I won’t feel like I’m the only one who ever had to make major changes! And I’ll put you in a drawing to win a copy of The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest. (Winner announced in the Weekend Edition)

Melanie Dickerson is the author of fairy tale retellings set in Medieval Europe, including two Christy Award finalists and a Carol Award winner. She lives in north Alabama with her two teenage daughters and all their angst, and her husband, who is the sole male in a house where even their two guinea pigs are females. She enjoys watching movies based on Jane Austen’s books, and she literally has no other hobbies, as she’s always writing. Or editing. Or a combination of the two.


 

 

The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest

A beautiful maiden who poaches to feed the poor. A handsome forester on a mission to catch her. Danger and love are about to unite in Thornbeck Forest.

The margrave owns the finest hunting grounds for miles around—and Odette Menkels spends her nights poaching his deer to feed the hungry orphans of Thornbeck. By day, Odette is a simple maiden who teaches children to read, but by night this young beauty has become the secret lifeline to the poorest of the poor.

For Jorgen Hartman, the margrave’s forester, tracking down a poacher is a duty he is all too willing to perform. Jorgen inherited his post from the man who raised him, a man who was murdered at the hands of a poacher.

When Jorgen and Odette meet at the Midsummer festival and share a connection during a dance, neither has any idea that they are already adversaries.
The one man she wants is bound by duty to capture her; the one woman he loves is his cunning target. What becomes of a forester who protects a notorious poacher? What becomes of a poacher when she is finally discovered?

Tips for Meeting Your Target Word Count with Missy Tippens

Tips for Meeting Your Target Word Count

By Missy Tippens

How many of you have had trouble meeting your target word count on a project? Have you typed The End and found you’ve come out way too short? Or have you finished the story and realized you needed to cut 10,000 words?

I’ve actually done both. And neither is fun.

On my first several books for Love Inspired (the target for a contemporary LI is 55-60,000 words by computer word count), my first drafts came in long. Anywhere from a couple of thousand words over to nearly 20,000 over (I had been targeting a single title line that Harlequin had closed).

When you’re talking about cutting 20k words, you have to take drastic measures. In my case, I made the cuts before I made my first sale. The editor said I basically had two endings so to cut one. :) Um, yeah, I hope I’ve improved since then! She also had me cut out a good bit of one subplot. Both those changes cut a large chunk of extra words. From there I made lots of smaller changes that helped whittle down the words.

Tips for Making Large Cuts in Word Count

--Cut subplots that may not be needed.

--Cut secondary characters you may not need (combine characters to allow one character to do more).

--Cut scenes that don’t pull their weight. Make sure the pov character has a goal for that scene that ties in to the story length goal and that he is pursuing it. If nothing changes, no matter how fun or sweet or thrilling it is, then cut the scene.

--Don’t drag out the ending. No matter how much you love your characters, you eventually do have to tell them goodbye. :)

photo credit: Crestock/yuriz

Tips for Making Small Cuts in Word Count

--Do a word search and cut your pet words. It’s always fun for me to see how many times I cut the word “just” out of my manuscripts. :) Make a list of your pet words, keep it on your computer, and print a copy each time you edit a manuscript. Also add to that list any other problems you need to check for. Then search and destroy. Ask your critique partner to help you create a list.

--Cut descriptions you don’t need. Make sure the descriptions you keep do more work, such as showing emotion.

--“Don’t walk the dog” (as Janet Dean tells me when reading some of my scenes). You don’t have to include every step a character takes. On one manuscript, Janet suggested I cut the hero getting the baby ready to leave the house, making the decision to buy lunch for the heroine, then going to buy sandwiches. She suggested I open with him showing up at the heroine’s office with the bag in hand. The scene now works so much better (thanks, Janet!).

--Don’t start scenes like a dated journal. Jump right into the action, anchoring the reader with action and dialogue.

--As a last resort, I do what Mary Connealy once suggested. Divide the number of words you need to cut by the total number of pages. That will give you the number of words per page to cut. Need to cut 2000 words from a 250 page book? Just cut 8 words per page, which shouldn’t be too hard.

photo credit: Crestock/Feverpitched

After a few years of writing books that kept turning out long, thinking that was the very worst thing that could happen, I experienced my first manuscript draft that ended up too short. And then I decided that was the very worst thing that could happen. :)

In fact, when I finished the first draft of my most recent manuscript (turned in the end of June, hallelujah!), it was 48,000 words! Remember, it’s supposed to be 55k. OUCH.

Now, typically, my first drafts grow about 2000 words as I do second and third drafts. So coming in a little short is good for me. But 7000 words short? NOT GOOD.

So, I started through the process of revising. It grew some before I sent it off for critique, but it was still short. As I finished making changes after the critiques, I went over the 55k mark. Relief!

Photo credit: Crestock/MasterofAll686

Here are some ways I learned I can fill in and lengthen a manuscript…

Tips for Increasing Word Count

--Make sure to describe each new character as he/she comes on stage. Just keep in mind that descriptions are often better done by another character (the hero describing the heroine instead of the heroine looking in a mirror or thinking of her own description).

--Do a read-through looking for flow. Do scenes seem to be missing? Maybe you skipped a scene you thought might not be necessary but realized on reading that it’s actually needed. Add it.

--Add the difficult-to-write scenes. Sometimes I’ve summarized a painful scene thinking it doesn’t need to be on screen. But consider including it (as long as it’s appropriate for your target readers). Does the hero need to have that painful discussion with his father about his mother’s death? Does the heroine need to tell the hero about giving up her baby for adoption? Don’t shy away from it. Add it.

--Layer, layer, layer. My first drafts are typically talking heads (although I’m getting better at filling in as I go). I won’t go into this deeply because we’ve had many great posts on layering here in Seekerville. Recently, Glynna Kaye did a 3-part series on layering. Here’s a link to several of those posts: click here.

--Show, don’t tell. We’ve always heard this. But one benefit is that it often increases word count. Instead of telling that Betty was sad and avoided the grief by sleeping all the time, show Betty walking into a quiet room, looking at her deceased husband’s empty recliner, then immediately avoiding that room by heading to bed early, trying to focus on a book but re-reading a page for the fourth time.

--Have you brought all plot threads through the whole story? Tie up any loose ends.

--Make sure the story comes full circle. Show how the characters have changed and earned their happy ending.

--Consider adding an epilogue.

I hope this was helpful! I’d love to hear your experiences with writing short or long. Can you add any tips?

I’ll be giving away IOU’s (should arrive sometime in August) for FIVE copies of my upcoming book from Love Inspired. The Guy Next Door is available for pre-order now! I’m really excited about this book. I had so much fun writing it! Please LET ME KNOW in the comments if you’d like to be entered.

www.missytippens.com

The Guy Next Door

From Friend to…Fiancé?  

Stalwart and steady, Darcy O'Malley has been by Luke Jordan's side since childhood. She has seen him through trials and tragedies, romances and breakups. They've been everything to each other—except boyfriend and girlfriend. Why ruin a good thing? What Luke can't explain, however, is why suddenly Darcy's presence is making his heart beat so hard. Something has changed since he left Appleton, and it's making him uneasy. Is it possible his best friend is meant to be something more? Dare he risk their perfect friendship in the hopes of finding his perfect wife?