Word Count Battle continues.
Starting word count yesterday: 108, 456.
Ending word count yesterday: 108, 131.
No huge gains, because yesterday was the use contraction day and frequent word substitution day.
You guys are so funny. “They are taking 8,000 words away from us! We’ve been robbed!”
Publishers have set standards for their books. It has to do with typography and price point and things I don’t fully understand, but the bottom line is, we are contractually obligated to deliver something between 90 and 100K. We can probably get it below 105K and be squeak by, but we would like to get as close as we can to the goal.
Gordon is having an unexpected root canal today, so that complicates things.
I promise that if we cut anything hilarious, it will be posted for you.
Well, on we go. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead.
Poor Gordon! Poor you! I’ve had two root canals in my life, but am happy to report feeling almost 100% right afterwards, except some mild soreness of keeping my mouth open for the surgery. But yeah, will never be my idea of a good time.
Wishing you a speedy completion of word deletion and a speedy recovery from the root canal. Onward to better days.
I couldn’t agree more!
My friends and I call it word porn and find the sex scenes gratuitous in the extreme.
Trust our imaginations. You do a fine job of steaming up our glasses when it comes to
writing the chemistry between characters without these scenes.
I really liked the internet version of the innkeeper books and thought they were suitable for a wider range of readers. I didn’t need to read any more of what was going on between Arland and Maud than the internet version to thoroughly enjoy the book.
I’m sure that you won’t lose a single reader by cutting those scenes out — and think about how much more fun you can have if you finish editing early.
After the book is out in print …for maybe a year…con you post it on your site unedited…..??
Yikes. An unexpected root canal sounds worse than a normal one.
Good luck with the words.
Focus of books? Other sister, brother and cousin books
Love all your words. Thank you for explaining. Thank you for working so hard to get the same story with less words. Y’all are awesome.
Good Luck
+1
We don’t even need the ellipses, honestly. I don’t find the AL’s sex scenes gratuitous (unlike *some*) because they do advance the characterization, but I have a perfectly good imagination. If you have to lose them, no complaints. We’re here for the story.
Just cut the first few chapters. Post them on your blog and start the actual book at say chapter 4! Problem solved now you can go ?!
+1
Bravo! Best idea ever! Haha 😀
Publish the first 4 chapters as a novella! Woot! Two books instead of one. Win winnnnnn!! To the people that realize this isnt actually possible. Shhhh. Maybe the publishers wont notice! After all we won’t tell!
Have you read Patricia Briggs Alpha & Omega? I didn’t realise the first time I picked it up & was super lost until I found the book of short stories with the first part in.
Still, if I knew in advance…? Maybe.
Yes, Anna and Charles weren’t planned as more than a short story, but then the publishers wanted more and Patty Rufe Goldberged the series. It is confusing, with the first part in an anthology.
Actually my digital library has a novella titled Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs that I later found in the anthology. But yes I was totally confused first time I read Cry Wolf.
Rachel
I howled!
I say, submit this plan to the editorial staff …
ju-no, yus splain, your readers don’t wan ju bot herd.
+1
there is a particular author *cough*lkh*cough* that does this ALL the time. the first couple of chapters of her new book are always a short story in an anthology beforehand. it’s just one of the reasons that I get her books from the library now instead of buying them.
Laurell K. Hamilton does this? With which novels? I haven’t noticed missing chapters at the beginning. Which anthologies is she publishing her shorts in? Help!
I may think she’s kind of awful now, but she’s obviously not so awful I stopped reading her, and I’m kind of a crazy completionist.
It happened twice with two of the books around 10 and 11 maybe? THe first few chapters of a book due out later in the year were published as a short story, but they were also included in the book when it came out. She isn’t the only one. There was one anthology where two or three different authors did that. Pissed me off since they weren’t real short stories. This happened around 2006 I think, I have not run across any author doing it recently.
ARGH – I’m the same way with LKH. I miss when the focus was better balanced between the romantic elements and the rest of the plot. I struggle with whether or not to drop the series, but the world is uber fascinating. So far I continue.
Cry wolf: I did feel like I was missing things, but the short story was excellent so it felt like a gift and less like a second book I had to buy.
Good luck with your endeavors.
And hope the root canal goes well. Fingers crossed you have a fantastic dentist.
Rooting (no pun intended) for you both every step of the way.
8000 words! You have to cut over 8K from a story you actually finished and polished?
Leave the bottle bartender, it’s going to be a long haul. .In fact, bring another, forget the glass.
Best of luck with the battle and the canal
I’m so so so so sorry. You have my heart felt condolences.
You are so good. I would still be at the gnashing of teeth stage whilst screaming “My Baby, My Baby”.
CamelCase
UsedByManyProgramers
Bwahahaha! This is brilliant!
Have you ever played Plants vs Zombies? Instead of screaming “Braaaiiinnnnssss!” I want to scream “Woooooorrrrrrdddddssss!” In a feed-me-now manner. ??
Anyone who wants to try something similar, have a go at making a radio ad (copywriting).
You have a 30 second limit for the ad, which is about 70-75 words.
You need to mention the business name, contact details and a description of the product or service that the business offers.
NB: Each number in a phone number are counted separately and the www. of a webpage address is also counted as 4 words.
Have fun! ; )
I just imagined War&Peace cut to fit a book contract
🙁
Just remove ‘the’ articles. Works for me.
Cant beat a bit of Shakespeare first thing in the morning 🙂
Fightiing!
Could you just leave the extra words in and add to the price. I know I would be willing to pay an extra $1 to get all you have written.
Good luck! And Gordon, I wish you success with your root canal. I just had a molar removed that was root canalled a year ago. If you have pain weeks and months afterwards, and you dentist says you just bite hard or grind your teeth, get a second opinion! Turns out it’s been severely infected underneath resulting in loss of tooth and 50% of surrounding bone. Dealing with a bone graft now. Seriously-second opinion -lesson learned.
That sounds awful. I hope you have expressed your feelings to the original dentist.
Oh I will! It’s the most expensive dentist in the city too. Now $1000 out of pocket to an oral surgeon and four days of missed work. Grrrr And it’s taken me two weeks to be able to taste again. Blech!
You know that you’re in deep when the oral surgeon tells the nurse to get everyone in the office because this is the worst case he’s seen.
Repeat re pete
I am down wit Rachels plan
I want to be a fly on the wall if you float her plan past them
Would Skyp work
You know the natives are revolting . . .
This is why I would NEVER pursue a phd … down the establishment UP the creative freedoms
Standing in the corner, facing the wall. Can’t deal with losing so many lovely words. The first chapters as a separate novella sounds like a plan. It would be a hit!!
Is it just me, or did we seem to lose a page of comments? I thought there were 3 pages, but there only appear to be 2, and one of my comments isn’t there anymore.
Anyone else seeing that?
We didn’t lose comments. I deleted them on account of their insulting nature.
Oh. I didn’t think mine was insulting, but apologies if it was.
No, yours was fine. No worries. But when the leading comment is deleted, all the following comments go with it. 🙂
It would be awesome if you cut out a scene and posted it on your page, or wrote a little side story with the deleted scene and posted it as an Easter egg for us fan-atics. That would make it more tolerable to accept the restrictions imposed by the publishing overlords, instead of reading an epic 500 page book that we all deserve.
All I can say is root canals are the devil and I have a lot of sympathy for Gordon
Robbed of genius goodies *sob*
My favorite quote is “Creativity is subtraction.”