Ughhh so LOOONNGGG

I don't necessarily know if it happens to me "a lot"... But recently I was writing for a short story anthology. The writing limit was "3k, with some exceptions for a 5k work if it is very good".

Even limiting myself, I blew past 7.5k and I think as high as 10k and that was with me trying to contain myself.

I'm not really surprised, in the end, that they passed on my short story. It was really something that needed to be longer to flesh out the bones. (IMHO. For all I know, they might have thought it was fine as it was, but didn't have place for the 5k words in the anthology.) I'm going to enjoy expanding on it soon.

But I suppose, now that I think of it, that does happen more often than I realized since I rarely write with a word count goal in mind. I often plot in "milestones", so I'll pass a milestone and say to myself, "Shouldn't be long until I hit this next one. All I need to do is write a quickie little scene here and..." ...and that "and" usually ends up being two characters unexpectedly hitting it off (or the opposite) and going off on side trips instead of proceeding to the milestone I have in mind.

In many cases, I welcome it because that unexpected scene or so was actually necessary for a later milestone (not necessarily the next one up). Sometimes it's meant that I didn't actually need a milestone at all because it took the place of what I wasn't sure about in the first place. And sometimes it just means that the characters have more depth than they would have otherwise.

Rarely do I have to go in and yank it out. More often, I end up cutting descriptions of things that are unimportant, or exposition that I'm able to insert more smoothly in dialogue or in smaller bite-sized chunks.

It happens to me. The nice thing is that the darlings aren't so darling after six months of letting the manuscript rest, hours upon hours of planning edits, and a few scathing critiques from your beloved betas.

My current WIP is 100k+. I didn't mean for it to be, lol. And yes, it took forever to get to each major point for me, too, because of nice little scenes that developed character and the like. Difference is I'm more of a pantser so I didn't have any of it outlined, or have any expectations other than "ok, when I'm a third in I better get them off on that quest or they're NEVER going to leave." Rewrites are going to be hell, I can tell.

So you're not alone. And killing your darlings, while cruel, usually makes for a better book. Like Domino Derval said: it's a lot easier to do once you take that 6 wk or longer break between drafts. Especially if you let yourself fall in love with some new characters in the interim.

Kind of Really off-topic but...

Domino Derval said:

the darlings aren't so darling after six months of letting the manuscript rest, hours upon hours of planning edits, and a few scathing critiques from your beloved betas.

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I'm always wondering if I'm weird but this is totally not true for me.

I can kill darlings pretty easily while the manuscript is still fresh. If I let it rest? Not so much.

If I haven't let the manuscript "rest," its genesis is still clear in my mind, I can remember writing it, and then it's still fluid, evolving, and open to changing. Critique it as hard as you like, and I'll be open to the suggestions and do my best to edit the hell out of it.

Six months later? Not at all. It's set. Like bread. No matter how I try, the words are done. Even if I can recognize some change as possibly being for the better, when I've left it for that long, changing a single comma becomes impossibly hard.

For me, the longer I wait to edit, the harder it becomes to change anything.

Sorry for the tangent.

/totally-off-topic

The epic I am working on, wrote it in omni (do not ask why if I knew that I'd shoot whatever made me do it) and now have 4 POV's and have to murder a lot of darlings to do that.

Have never done this before, I keep a word count in my head and it comes out like it should pretty close to the desired count.

I just let it fly with this epic and now I am paying the word reaper.

You'll likely find that you cut a lot of unnecessary words during the first/second/third, etc revisions. Words like 'that,' 'just,' and so on will probably lead to a reduction of a few hundred/thousand words.

Or you'll come to sentences and paragraphs during your revisions that you'll think, "Why the hell did this make sense when I wrote it?"

pandaponies said:

Okay, so this is less of a question and more of a vent (sorry if I've posted in the wrong spot!), but geez--! I started this novel expecting it to end up around maybe 80k-90k words. Got my loose outline, planned stuff out, figured rough points in the novel where certain big events should occur. I'd figure "Okay, so (A) just happened, (B) should be about 2k words from now." And the next thing I know, I've written 5k... 7k... 8k words leading up to (B), and (B) hasn't even happened yet! And I really LIKE all the stuff in between, I feel like a lot of it is interesting and nicely fleshes out the world/plot.

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Smells a lot like "info-dump". Many writers love their info-dump, and it requires significant self-critique and self-discipline to do away with it. Maybe you should post some of this in SYW.

caw

caw

As Chachant said, cutting individual words will help some. There are always unnecessary words that creep into my writing. Filtering phrases that distance the reader from the action, such as, "she saw," "she heard," "she felt," etc. Then there's words like, "just," "very," "suddenly" and so forth. I can trim adverbs (-ly words) and adjectives, because I usually don't need nearly as many of these as I initially write.

Then you can go in and look for places where you've repeated yourself. Do you state basically the same thing, either for emphasis or to make sure the reader gets it? Redundancies can be cut. Explaining things in detail isn't always necessary, either. Often, we forget that the reader will understand things without every detail being spelled out, so there's a lot that can be cut without confusing the readers.

Then you can go through and look at each scene. Is the scene vital to plot or characterization? If not, no matter how pretty it is, it needs to go. I've trimmed many scenes because they simply had no place in the story, no matter how much I liked them. Keep a file of "excerpts" and copy/paste any segments that you're going to delete from your novel. That way, you can reuse them in a later work. It's easier to delete them, too, if you know they're saved somewhere and aren't truly being erased.

The book I'm editing is sitting at 87,000 words. The new WIP is currently 42,000 and I'm not even close to half way in yet.

I have my hit list though for when draft 2 comes around.

Well, my novel, originally planned to be 50k, is now 120k.

Damn.

I think it's because I keep adding more on. New layers to the plot. The man behind the man turns out to just be a pawn for the man behind the man behind the man. But there are a lot of unneeded scenes in there. You could just be the kind of writer who writes a ton on their first draft, but edits a lot of it out.

pandaponies said:

I don't want to have to "murder my darlings."

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...um...

As to the rest, I think you're in good company so you're not alone in this!

I actually have a hard time writing that much stuff...IMO it's easier to write too much and cut it than not write enough and go "okay, what's missing that I now have to fabricate..." Because at least all your meat and bones are there; you've just got to cut the fat off.

You can post some in SYW to get an idea of things you can cut, or, once you're done, find some betas...they will help you kill your words dead.

I routinely cut a third from a novel first draft by the time I'm done revising and polishing -- often while enlarging the plot. Excess verbiage happens. The trick is to learn how to prune during revision, severely yet judiciously.

In other words, I don't worry about first draft length.

pandaponies said:

Does anyone else have this happen a lot?! *huff*

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Welcome to my world.

Don't sweat it. Not right now. Just write the story. When it's done, you can decide then what needs to be cut, if anything. Some stories just take a lot of room to tell.

pandaponies said:

I don't want to have to "murder my darlings." Does anyone else have this happen a lot?! *huff*

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nobody wants to murder their darlings--that's why they are darlings.

the difference between folks who sell and folks who do not is, in part, that those who sell kill them anyway.

pandaponies said:

I don't want to have to "murder my darlings." Does anyone else have this happen a lot?! *huff*

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I used to be a taker-outer--meaning, my first drafts were long and much needed to be cut in revision.

Then at some point, probably after I read a certain author who influenced me, I started writing very spare and have become a putter-inner. That is, I write very spare first drafts and need to add in details.

But this style frustrates me more than it helps me, so I had to sit down and decide how to change my style. This process is still ongoing.

Jodi

pandaponies said:

I don't want to have to "murder my darlings."

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Oh, and as an aside, I dislike the phrase "murder my darlings" as much as I dislike "golden word syndrome." I'm going to start a rant here--not against you, but these phrases in general.

These phrases are too vague to be helpful. A writer should get rid of anything that doesn't make the story work, and "doesn't work" can mean many things. It's case specific. I don't believe in removing my favorite things just because people say you must--but only because they interfere with something in the story, only because they don't work with the work as a whole.

My golden word syndrome hatred is similar. It treats all words the same. Some words can be changed and make the work better. But some words can't be changed without changing larger elements like plot or character or overall voice or the like, and at some point one doesn't want to keep changing that.

Basically, I think better advice is keep what works get rid of what doesn't.

Okay, rant over. Phew.

Jodi

Domino Derval said:

The nice thing is that the darlings aren't so darling after six months of letting the manuscript rest, hours upon hours of planning edits, and a few scathing critiques from your beloved betas.

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we all need this on a t-shirt. stat!

pandaponies said:

^Haha quicklime, true!
As for the easier to cut when it's fresh/easier when you've waited 6 months camps, for me it's easier if I wait 6 months . If I can leave things long enough to where I practically forget I wrote them, it's easy to come back and be like "What the hell are all these adverbs doing here? Gross

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This made me smirk

I agree, if I leave it a while before looking back on a WIP its easier for me to see whats wrong. When I write a scene the picture I have in my head is what I want to portray, I cant switch to "what do these words say" straight away so I have to leave it a while, THEN read the work and let it put the picture in my head, and sure enough bits of it dont feel right.

If I edit straight away I edit the picture in my head not the words on the page, if that makes sense, whereas it isnt the picture in my head that needs looking at, its whether the words portray that picture thats important. After Ive written it its clear to me whats progressed, and which details were important. So I leave it, then read it, and the oddities stand out, or bits of planned conversation just didnt happen.

just replying to the 1st post, i haven't read through other responses yet.

yep, i do this. my most recent creation (before my current WIP) got to 29k before i just petered out and stopped writing it. it's 'resting' right now - who knows for how long.

my current WIP is almost 15k. i am desperately trying to figure out what the ending will be and how i will get there, before i type another 15k and realize i am nowhere near the end.

i feel for you! good luck tying it all together.

I was thinking of starting a similar thread because I have the same problem. My word count is way too high. Every time I revise, it gets higher. I'm giving it a break, but it won't leave me alone. If you find something that helps, let me know.

I agree with blacbird. Seems a bit info-dumpy or even filler-filly. Keep writing to your heart's content. Once you reach 100K, rejoice... then go back to editing mode and hack off about 10K.... if writing it hurt, then prepare to realize that all that precious time you spent writing those 10K will be gone with the wind.....muahahahaha.