WOW! Women On Writing Blog: word count

Thursday, June 27, 2024

In my experience, tight writing is marketable writing. In part this is because I write for the school library market. A biography for fourth graders may be only 2500 words long. Some of you write essays that dwarf that word count! But flash writers also face tight word counts. The cut off for a flash piece may be only 750 or even 250 words.

So, what do you do when your draft is too long? One of the things that I discuss with my nonfiction students is how to tighten their writing. If it is only a little bit too long, searching out problem words and phrasing may be enough. These might include:

START and BEGIN. At one point in my writing life, these two words were my personal weakness. I was always announcing that something was about to happen. “As the admitting nurse started to process his paperwork …” Nope. Just let it happen. “The admitting nurse processed his paperwork and …”

These aren’t the only words that announce something is taking place. In your own work, you might look for ALREADY, EVEN, EXACTLY, FINALLY, JUST THEN, NOW, and SUDDENLY. I’m not saying that you should never use these words. Just make certain they aren’t hiding wordy construction.

Another group of words that you might be able to revise away are imprecise words. They include ALMOST, APPEARS, APPROXIMATELY, BASICALLY, CLOSE TO, EVENTUALLY, NEARLY, PRACTICALLY, and SEEMS. Again, I’m not saying you should never use these words. When something isn’t exact, I must use the word approximately. But in general, it is better to be specific. If the noise “seems really loud” why not say that it “is thunderous”?

You may also need to cut -LY adverbs. “Quietly walk” could become tiptoe. Is something “largely unseen” or is it “hidden”?

Sometimes I need to cut one-third or even half of the total. That’s the case with the chapter I am revising today. Each chapter should be 500 words long. The first draft of chapter five came in at 760 words.

I know that I can do it. But one of the problems with cutting a significant percentage of the word count is that the final piece often feels choppy. The best way to avoid this isn’t to cut. It is to start over.

Whoa! Calm down!

When I’ve already drafted a piece, I know where it needs to go, and I know I don’t have space for anything extra. If I start over again, my draft will be tight, and it won’t feel like something is missing. Sometimes I open a blank document and start from scratch. Other times I open a blank document and copy over two or three paragraphs at a time. Then I set about finding shorter, tighter ways to give much of the same information. I’m not sure why, but it works.

How do you go about revising when you have to make big cuts?

--SueBE

Sue Bradford Edwards' is the author of over 55 books for young readers.

To find out more about her writing, visit her site and blog, One Writer's Journey.
Click here to find her newsletter.

She is also the instructor for 3 WOW classes which begin again on July 1, 2024. She teaches:

4 comments cutting words from a story, reducing your manuscript's word count, revision, Sue Bradford Edwards, word count

Word Count: Why It Matters

Thursday, June 18, 2015

With so much writing published electronically, I often wonder if word count really matters. Sure, the editor has a length in mind but how important is it that I hit that range?

Recently, I read a post explaining why word count is still important. Write too short or too long and you harm your Google rank. A too short piece feels slight and doesn’t impress readers. But a piece that is too long may be skipped altogether by readers on the run. There’s a reason your editor asks for a specific count. She knows her market and what they want. Unfortunately few of us hit the number on the first try and have to massage our work to get it right.

To cut a little:

Cut –ly words. If you have to modify a verb, you may not have chosen the best verb. Don’t walk quickly. Depending on the situation, scamper or run or pelt.
Cut “begin” and “start.” I admit it. Start is one of my downfalls. My characters start to pack, start to study and start to fix dinner. Instead, they need to pack, study and cook.

Need to cut even more?

Cut repetition. When I want my reader to get a point, I sometimes repeat myself. Most often, one or more of these repeats can be cut. If not cut, they can always be tightened.
Cut multiple examples. Especially when I write nonfiction, I sometimes give more than one example of a phenomenon. It’s my way of using all the great information that I’ve found. Sometimes I need more than one example, but most often I should cut the weaker example.

Most often, I write too long and have to cut, but that works in my favor. When I cut, I can make sure my piece is tight and professional. One of my writing friends actually recommends cutting 30% from every manuscript.

Every now and again, I find that I’ve written too short. This isn’t typical for me but it happens. To solve this I need to beef things up without padding my manuscript.

Add a sidebar. Not all publishers want them but sidebars are a great way to include research that wasn’t quite on-topic enough to make the main chapter.
Add a chapter. Sometimes I leave things out because I don’t think there will be space. Now is the time to add them but only if I have enough remaining words for a chapter that won’t look slight among the others.
Add examples. Instead of telling my reader that World War I trenches were disgusting, I can show it with feces and rats and death. Three or four examples can easily eat through 700 words.

There’s a reason your editor wants things to be a certain length even if the piece is electronic. The closer you get to that mark, the happier your editor and your bank account will be.

--SueBE

The next session of Sue's class, Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults begins on July 6, 2015.

2 comments word count