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 ends 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 that 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 several of you thinking, “Yes, my editor wants me to cut down 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 the countdown to 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.” She was right, except now she only had eight words. If you look at the top of the page, you see that I ended up with “The Word Count Diet”, which has only four words. Did I change the meaning? No. Did I ruin the title? Obviously not, you’re still reading it, right?
A sentence is different from a complete story, but the concept is there. The more time you have invested, the more difficult it will be to cut off your baby’s words. But let’s face it, you want your baby to grow up one day and leave the nest, right? This is called editing. There I said it, you no longer have to hold your breath. But I am a creative soul, you think, why would I want to destroy it?
Listen to this statement; “Editing is not destroying, it is simplifying, it is improving, it makes it easier to read.” With that in mind, where do you start if you are 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 for 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 it lazy writing because nothing is shown. Example: You tapped on the door. The word tap means “a light tap,” so it’s a bit redundant. You could say: He touched the door with a gentle caress for fear of waking the baby. Not shorter, but more attractive. Could also have said definitely not shorter, but useless. When you look at most of the 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, useless, space-wasting and unpleasant adjectives. I could have said, stop using adjectives, but how fun would that be? Many writers have the misconception that the more adjectives you use, the better. This is not true. It slows down the reader. Mark Twain urged writers to “kill” whatever adjectives they could grasp. I don’t know if it would go that far. Soft brown eyes are fine, but … soft, shiny, golden brown eyes like puddles of honey … it’s a bit too much, don’t you think?
What exactly is a glue 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, then, very, and, or, but, big, tall, up, down, etc. For example, you might say, “Sally walked across the room so she could 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 the mirror.” (eight words) The meaning has not changed, but the word count 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 delete the word what And no one will notice Maybe it’s just a word here and there, but when you know what words to look for, you can add. Look at the title again, from 16 words to four words. Even if he only does half that good, his inflated 120,000-word novel just became a 60,000-word bestseller. Think about it.