I have just done the hardest thing I have ever done and am physically and mentally shattered!!
I want to enter one of my short stories: The Root Of All Evil, into a competition. The only trouble is the word count must not exceed 2000, and my story hits about the 4000 mark. Not good.
So. I have just spent the last four hours - yes, four long headachey coffee-fuelled hours - culling 2000 words from my story. Talk about killing your darlings...this was more like mass murder!
But I've done it. And, although it hurts me to admit it, the story is now much punchier.
Next step...send it off...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
I'm sure that it only hurt for a little while...I had to do something similar a few weeks ago, though not as many words. I was concerned that the story would lose something important in the cut to meet the maximum word count.
Glad to hear your liked the final product!
Wow, that's a hell of a cut!
I've had to trim stories before, but nothing like that.
Good luck!
Man, that's a major cut. If it works, it works, though. I gotta get down to business this fall and liposuction the bejesus out of my novel. Thy will be done.
Oh what a cut! I wish you lots of luck with your story. I have a story out too so I'm there playing the waiting game with you too.
Alan ~ I thought my story would lose something by the time I'd finished with it too, but it didn't. When my mum re-read it she couldn't even see the difference!!
Mmmm...not sure if that's a good or a bad thing...
onipar ~ Thanks, I've a couple of things doing the rounds at the moment...so fingers crossed.
Rabid Fox ~ That's what I'm doing at the too at the mo: editing my novel. Bit of a hard slog.
Jarmara ~ I've been trying to send something off each month - don't always manage it - but at the moment I'm on the ball. :)
Rabid Fox ~ if my blog comments are anything to go by, my editing's not all it should be!!
Go for it girl! Cutting a story in half is brutal work- it's like trying to cut a diamond with a sledge hammer.
I entered Round 2 of the NPR Three-Minute Fiction contest last month. The word count was 600 and my story had 650 when I finished it. I had a hard enough time culling fifty - I can't imagine culling half my story!
Rick ~ how right you are, it's gelling the good bits all back together that's the tricky bit.
John ~ welcome to the darkside. Editing in any shape or form is hard. I hate parting with words I have laboured over writing in the first place.
Post a Comment