"" Writer's Wanderings: Word Surgery

Monday, October 02, 2006

Word Surgery

I have been terrible about posting to my blogs lately. Part of the reason is that I am embroiled in word surgery. I need to cut close to 30,000 words from a novel I wrote and is being considered by a few houses for publication. One house said it was too many words (they prefer 60,000) and if I cut it down, they would reconsider. I'm always up for a challenge, I thought, and I've never had a problem cutting back on word content.

Well, it's been quite a journey in the "operating room" so far. I am having fun. I actually laughed out loud the other day at something I forgot I wrote. The trouble with word surgery is trying to decide what to cut out and what to leave in. I certainly don't want to kill the patient by cutting out a vital part and I don't want want to leave something in that is best cut out like a cancer. I have to truly ask a lot of questions before the "scalpel" selects and deletes. Maybe I should consider liposuction instead--just remove the fat.

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