Slashing Your Word Count

A guide for over-writers.

So there I was, sitting in front of my 120,000 word YA Fantasy manuscript having a breakdown. Why? you ask. Well, because I want to be traditionally published and no one will buy a YA debut that long.

Why not? This answer would a post on its own. Or a 24 minute video. Luckily Alexa Donne has already done that work and you can watch it here.

Now I’m going to summarise all the advice I was given that had lead to me doing a brutally cut down draft in two sections, the big cuts, macro level, and the small cuts, micro level.

Micro Level Cuts

Reduce each description by 1 or 2 words - @coffee_loving_artist

Reduce dialogue. Single spoken words can carry more emotional weight than elongated lines.

Cut down on dialogue and action tags. If it’s clear who is speaking, don’t use anything! - @parisandherbooks

Cut repeated sentences. It’s not as dramatic as you think it is.

Simplify convoluted sentences - @jade_d_brown

Cut words like very, quite, sort of, kind of, it was, there was, that, now, then, suddenly and any crutch words you have - @just.a_simple_writer

Change passive language - @laurenkayzles

Macros Level Cuts

Chop off the beginning and the end of long scenes.

Cut info dumps

Never get lost in internal monologue. Keep it to a small para at most.

Cut fluff scenes - @teen_writing_101 & @cakeyboy

It doesn’t take 1000 words to make a small point – condense it!!

Cut unnecessary dialogue or chit chat

Merge scenes that feel repetitive

Cut the prologue

Cut the epilogue

(Remember that those can go back in after your book has been bought)

If you’re desperate, delete a POV - @thewritingfirebird

Ask your Beta’s which subplots/characters could go - @howwhyandsowhat

[If reposting to instagram please credit @isabellestonebooks]

Time Travel Alternate Universe Prompts

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You time-travel back to 1348, accidentally bringing your phone. About to take a photo, you notice: “1 available wifi network”. (x)

In the near future, the secret to time travel has been discovered - in order to travel back into the past there needs to be a ‘receiving station’ at the other end - explaining why nobody from the future has been observed up 'til now. The first such 'station’ is about to be completed. (x)

You, a young scientist have discovered time travel. You think it would be a great idea to go to medieval times, share your knowledge and become king. On your first visit, you meet a king and he introduces himself with a polite fist bump and greets, “bro you discovered time traveling too?!” (x)

In the future time travel is finally achieved, but instead of being used by preventing disasters, time travelers are known as historians, who are trained since birth to blend into environments and answer history’s unanswered questions. Maybe we can see the universe’s creation. (x)

Time travel exists. By law, every citizen is given one day they may repeat on loop until they get it right. This morning, you found your spouse looking exhausted and crying. “I can’t save you. I’ve tried hundreds of times.” (x)

Since you were young, time travelers have visited you. One of them explained that, in the future, an algorithm determined that you were the only person in the past that it was safe to visit because no matter what you do it will not change the future. You are determined to prove them wrong. (x)

Having developed time travel in secret, you find yourself stranded alone in the 1800s following your test jump. Walking amongst the crowds on the cobbles of Victorian London years later, you pass someone humming a Beatles song. (x)

In an effort to prove to your friends that time travel is possible, you tell Siri to remind yourself to travel back in time to the present day, at your current location, in 1/1/2100, if time travel has been invented by then. Suddenly, a strange capsule materializes before your eyes. (x)

A time traveller attempts to explore the far future, only to be intercepted and trapped in a time prison. The rest of the prison happens to be populated by the countless recursive instances of a single time traveller’s attempts to break themself free. (x)

A friendship between a time traveler and an immortal. Wherever the time traveler ends up, the immortal is there to catch him up to speed. (x)

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260 notes View Post

justanothergirlsblog

4 years ago

Hi there! I was curious for your advise on how to get back into writing after a long absence? I haven't written for at least 3 years and I can't seem to figure fire out a way to motivate myself and get excited about something to write. I'm incredibly out of practice and stories rarely come to me nowadays. It seems to be easier to just continue with life mindlessly, not trying to write since when I think about trying to write I immediately think about what a failure it would be.