Some words are superfluous and redundant, they not only reduce the clarity of your sentences, but also with the adverbs and adjectives will zap your prose of being active; telling instead of showing.
Deleting whole scenes can hurt the novel so be warry and make sure it needs to go. Kill the filker words, the 'glue' words not the story. Take out the words that aren't helping the story, aren't helping move the plot, take out what doesn't matter.
Even in a heavily polished chapter in a book you can always cut it down even more.
Let's take 256 words from chapter One of Soul Tears and gently stamp out any extra words. I'll mark the ones that can be cut with a: ✂
Keep in mind trimmed hapter has been edited and revised twenty + times already.
A flash of ✂tiny✂ bright dots blinded Merryn from the cast spell. ✂As✂ she rubbed them, the coins in the enchanted pouch bulged on her hip. ✂A twinge of✂ guilt surfaced for taking it from that dolt. Besides, ✂the man✂ (he) still had his other coin bag. She clutched it giving it a squeeze, it stretched out and slimmed back down; compressing its contents.
The port and the book were at opposite ends of the city, hopefully, the map would have a few shortcuts marked on it. Paved jade streets, and marble lined walls bled of status and wealth. ✂She found✂ this city (was) elegant by human standards, though it did nothing but remind her of how she didn't belong. This truth became magnified from the disdainful looks of the men and women who passed by. Each haughty face and glare ✂were✂ as subtle as a kick in the gut.
She frowned. It was bad enough having to learn the darker arts let alone be dumped into this human city. Couldn't blame the Elder Adapts, they were already pushed past their limit keeping everyone at home from succumbing to the dark-ones.
✂She breathed✂ (Breathing) in a few times. It was hard calling him, but had to be done.
"Feared Kage, pull the shadows and wrap them tight, with a kiss of the night," she whispered.
✂It took concentration✂(To will the shadows to come took concentration) to will the shadows to come. The coolness flowed over, starting at her feet. It spread to her torso, over her face and hair stopping as it reached her long ears.
I cut out: ten words. :)
Going page by page is a time-consuming job for sure, but it does force you to look at each page and evaluate it for what it says. You'd be surprised how easy it is to tighten when you only have to cut a measly ten or twenty words out. Take it page by page and you'll find those words falling off without too much pain.
And again!
A flash of ✂bright✂ dots blinded Merryn from the cast spell. She rubbed them, the coins in the enchanted pouch bulged on her hip. Guilt surfaced for taking it from that dolt. Besides, he still had his other coin bag. She clutched it giving it a squeeze, it stretched out and slimmed back down; compressing its contents.
The port and the book were at opposite ends of the city, hopefully, the map would have a few shortcuts marked on it. Paved jade streets, and marble lined walls bled of status and wealth. This city was elegant by human standards, though it did nothing but remind her of how she didn't belong. This truth became magnified from the disdainful looks of the ✂men and women✂ (people) who passed by. Each haughty face and glare as subtle as a kick in the gut.
She frowned. It was bad enough having to learn the darker arts let alone ✂be✂ dumped into this human city. Couldn't blame the Elder Adapts, they were already pushed past their limit keeping everyone at home from succumbing to the dark-ones.
Breathing in a few times. It was hard calling him, but had to be done.
"Feared Kage, pull the shadows and wrap them tight, with a kiss of the night," she whispered.
To will the shadows to come took concentration. The coolness flowed over, starting at her feet. ✂It spread✂ (Spreading) to her torso, over her face ✂and hair✂ stopping ✂as it reached✂ (at) her long ears.
Took out 12 more that time. Twenty-two total. Twenty-two words per page times 480 pages is 10,560 words. 😨 Woah!
Break it down into small bites and you can do nearly anything.
Learning how to bring your world count down is essential if you're planning on becoming a traditionaly published author!
Even after you go through many edits with the editor that they assign you the publisher will most likely want your book to be within the average word count its the genres. Fantasy is about 90k to 100k for a novel.
A noveleta in any genre is around 50k words. An epic is 200k or more. Large books like epics are wsy harder to sell to a publisher if you're a new author. Learning how to cut down the word count now will help make this easier. Along with improving clarity with your words.
The overall page didn't change and the story and scene stayed intact. Be sure to back up your chapter before editing it that way you can put back in anything that you really miss.
Some chapters will be hard to trim down just get what you can as the next one might have way more than twenty words to cut, and that'll make up for the ones that refuse to be trimmed much.
Here are a few ways to trim it down:
'On top of' - can become: Atop
Use contractions!
Contractions reduce total word count as tgey (duh) combine two words together. And, they keep it from becoming too stiff. This is especially true with dialogue, but that's a whole chapter in itself.
Examples:
Cannot - can’t
You are - you're
That has - that's
Are not - aren't
Will not - won’t
Did not - didn't
Does not - doesn't
Do not - don't
You would - you’d
Has not - hasn't
Have not - haven't
He had; he would - hadn't
He will; he shall - he'll
I had; I would - I'd
It will - it’ll
She had; she would - she'd
She will; she shall - she'll
She is; she has - she's
There's lots more, but I'm not going to type all of them out, just too many.
Next up part two.
ns 15.158.61.11da2
