Many writers are crushed when their 120,000-word novel is rejected. What happens when you enter a contest that says 500 words or less and you end up with 894 words? You can spend years writing your story or hours writing an article, but that doesn’t mean you’re done. It means you have completed the first draft. That’s great, congratulations are in order, not everyone goes that far. Remember that it is much easier to cut words than to add them. I can imagine many of you thinking, “Yeah, sure, my editor wants me to cut 10,000 words!”
Believe it or not, it’s not as scary as many writers think. Let me give you an example. When I first thought of writing this article, the name was: “How to reduce your word countdown by 10,000 words or more, in 3 easy steps.” It’s 16 words, but it catches your attention, right? Then it occurred to me: “Three easy steps to better word count.” When I read both to my wife, she said, “That’s the same thing.” She was right, except now she only had eight words. If you look at the top of the page, you’ll see that I ended up with “The Word Count Diet”, which has only four words. Did I change the meaning? No. Did I screw up the title? Obviously not, you’re still reading it, right?
An award is different from a whole story, but the concept is there. The more time you have invested, the harder it will be to cut your baby’s words off. But let’s face it, you want your baby to one day grow up and leave the nest, right? That’s called editing. I said it there, you don’t have to hold your breath anymore. But I am a creative soul, you think, why would I want to destroy it?
Listen to this statement; “Editing isn’t destroying, it’s simplifying, it’s enhancing, it’s making it easier to read.” With that in mind, where do you start if you’re not a professional editor or English learner? I suggest you look at three areas that will improve your work. These areas are adverbs, adjectives, and sticky words.
Adverbs are modifiers of verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. The easiest way to identify an adverb is that it usually ends with the letters LY. Why is everyone against using LY words? Many writers, editors, Y readers consider writing lazy because you don’t show anything. Example: He gently knocked on the door. The word touch means “a light tap,” so it’s a bit redundant. You could say: He knocked on the door with a gentle caress for fear of waking the baby. No, but shorter is more attractive. i might as well have said definitely no, but shorter is useless. When you look at most LY words that’s what you find, they don’t add any substance.
The phrase ‘all things in moderation’ means to stop using so many stupid, meaningless, space-wasting, disgusting adjectives. I could have said, stop using adjectives, but what fun would that be? Many writers have the misconception that the more adjectives you use, the better. This is not true. Slow down the reader. Mark Twain urged writers to “kill” any adjectives they could catch. I don’t know if it would go that far. Soft brown eyes are fine, but…soft brown eyes, sparkling, golden like puddles of honey…it’s a bit too much, don’t you think?
What exactly is a sticky word? Sticky words are the 200 most common words in the English language. The problem is that they are so common that it is easy to abuse them. Words to watch out for include: like, the, so, very, and, or, but, big, tall, up, down, etc. For example, you could say, “Sally walked across the room to look in the full-length mirror and see how good her new dress looked.” (21 words) Or you could say, “Sally admired her new dress in her mirror.” (eight words) The meaning has not changed, but the number of words has. The other concern with sticky words is that they are so vague that they mean nothing. do not tell very sad, let’s say depressed. do not tell Really tired, let’s say exhausted. Nine times out of ten you can take the word out that and no one will notice. Maybe it’s just a word here and there, but when you know what words to look for, it can add up. Look at the title again, from 16 words to four words. Even if you only do half that good, your bloated 120,000-word novel has just become a 60,000-word bestseller. Think about it.
