Snip, snip...

[melissajm]

The good news: I've found another potential market for "The Giant Book."
The bad news: Their upper limit's 125,000 words, and the book's 138,700.

I'm pretty good at cutting, but I already cut this one down from 150,000.
This is...a challenge.

Comments

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

You can do it :).

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

I'm glad someone thinks so. ;)

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

::sending you cyber-scissors::

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

I think this calls for a cyber-axe...

[marshallpayne.livejournal.com]

Hope you don’t mind me chiming in here with my two cents. I read this entry before I
went to bed last night, and didn’t have a clue how to solve the problem, especially since I
haven’t read your novel. But just like when I’m struggling with a fiction problem of my
own, I awoke this morning with an answer. Maybe not the right answer, but...

You know how you’ll see a movie in the theater or on HBO uncut, and then a few years
later they’ll put it on commercial TV and it’ll say edited for content and length so as to fit
into the two hours with commercial breaks? It always seems to be my favorite scene of
character development that they cut. Makes you wanna scream “That was my favorite
scene!” But to someone who’s never seen the movie before, it won’t be missed. Alas, the
action scenes seldom get cut. I’m not crazy about this solution as those scenes that
contribute much to the inner workings of a character are my favorite, but I think that’s the
rationale--that they’re not needed. Films really don’t have exposition like novels do, so
after looking over exposition to cut you could take a look at those “slow scenes where
everyone just stands around talking.” I’m not crazy about this idea as I like these scenes
more than the fight scenes, but it’s a thought.

Good luck with it! :)

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

It's good advice, especially since I love writing dialogue and my characters (like their creator) tend to ramble.

Thanks!