Making the cut

I've talked about it before, but I wanted to revisit the issue of the delete button. I recently joined an awesome forum for working on queries and one thing I'm noticing is a tendency toward verbosity. Put simply, people use too many words to express a simple idea. This is a problem literature has always encountered (60 pages on gutting a whale, seriously?), and as someone who studied the early novels of the 18th century, I can tell you that editors and agents have really helped in this regard.

The most common mistake I see is people writing a complex sentence for a simple idea. People do this for many reasons. In my past life as a Composition instructor I found many of my students were trying to mimic more complicated sentence structures to sound more formal. While it's important to understand how to construct sentences, don't undervalue a simple statement! Don't use 20 words when ten will do in your queries or your manuscripts. Other times the author is using passive voice, which adds wordiness to the sentence. And still other times, the author is telling us about the book or analyzing it (if you see heart-warming or fast-paced, cut it!).

The same rules apply to MSS and queries
1. Be succinct
2. Use active voice
3. Show don't tell

Happy Writing!


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The most powerful tool in your arsenal

"What?  But, Jen, the goal is to finish the book not delete it!"

Yep, that's the first goal.  Finish it.  The second is to make it good.  Hence the backspace button.

"But I'm at 70,000 words and all I need is to spellcheck!"

Maybe you are the next Proust, but if you have even the nagging suspicion your book needs revision you have to let go of your word count and make friends with the backspace button.  Fact is, there are whole sections of your novel that are fluff, characters that fade into the background, and dialogue that drags.  But you already know this.  What you have to do, and yes it will hurt a little, is start deleting.  Great writers don't cling to every word they write as art.  Great writers recognize bad writing and delete it or rewrite it.  You wrote a book.  You can do it again.

Just remember:  You can rewrite it.  You have the technological.  Better than it was before...better...stronger..."