how long is too long?

[shan]

i am trying to edit my first novel i will actually be submitting for publication. it is under women's fiction and i was wondering if there was a set (approximate) amount of pages i should adhere to? i am trying to whittle it down to at least 550, but it is difficult to do - i don't want to cut anything out!

[zarch]

I'm not a big fan of cutting stuff just to cut stuff or adding stuff just to add. I think the problem you may run into, shan, is the fact that an agent or publisher may have reservations about investing the time/effort/capital in such a long novel written by a new writer. HOWEVER, if it's a solid story (which I have no doubt it is) and you write an effective query, which may actually be the key here, you stand as good a chance as anyone.

I say leave it at its current length (provided the current length isn't like a million pages...what is the current length, anyway?)! You can always revisit the trimming back idea later, but give this version a shot at publication before you do that.

Good luck!

[Birol]

Forget the page count. What's the word count?

[zarch]

Yeah, good point. What's the word count?

[Jamesaritchie]

Word count is what matters. Publishers have length guidelines, and if you venture outside these, you'd better be an extremly good writer.

But any novel can be cut without harming it, and many should have been cut more than they were. If you don't think your novel can be cut, just wait until an editor gets it in hand. She can cut it so fast all you'll see is a blur.

[Garpy]

What James said.

Last I heard on book length, for a first timer, you should be aiming for no more than 100-120k. Now that's not a hard and fast rule, just a ball park....and you'd certainly not be passed up by a publisher just for exceeding that number.

[jackie106]

Put your novel aside and work on something else for a few weeks before you begin to edit your novel. It's easier to prune extraneous elements after you put some distance between yourself and your manuscript.

Jackie

[Garpy]

yes...first rate advice. And if you don't have another project, then go pick up a book or two to read, read them, get into them, forget about your book completely....and then after a week or two of reading other books, you might be fresh enough to take another look at your wip.

[Arkie]

I believe in cutting for the sake of clarity. My first ms had 133,000 words. I thought it was great. My reading team said I had too much extraneous material that got in the way of a good read. So I went back and cut adverbs and adjectives I didn't need, which was most of them. Then I looked for the sentences ending with those 3-5 word prepositional phrases that repeated stuff in the sentence. The I looked at all the "nots", had not, cannot, would not, will not, etc. I recast and cut.


Then I recast as many passive sentences as I could and made them active, resulting in word loss. ( One does need a passive sentence now and then).

The final result after 12 edits was a cut of 30,000 words, down to 103,000, or 245 pages. The final result was worth it. The flow is there, the transitions are extraordinary. It reads as smooth as a virgin's kiss. To bad PA has it.

[akichan]

As long as the reader can understand and enjoy what your writing. I don't think you should start cutting words. If you think that your book is fine the way it is now, that its perfect, just leave it at that.

[Jamesaritchie]

As long as the reader can understand and enjoy what your writing. I don't think you should start cutting words. If you think that your book is fine the way it is now, that its perfect, just leave it at that.

True enough, within the bounds of what the market will bear. But no book is perfect, any book can be cut, and if no publisher will buy it because it's too long, readers aren't going to have the chance to understand and enjoy it.