Hi friends.
I’m taking the next two weeks to work on some last minute tweaks to my new novel based on feedback from friends, generating some new work, and preparing for our Mini 1000 which starts on August 15. While I busy myself with these things, I’m digging up some past hits from the archives which some of you newer subscribers might never have seen before. This week is all about editing, specifically when I did big cuts to my memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You, and my most recent novel, A Reason to See You Again.
These were fun to re-read! Hope they’re helpful.
Jami
Jan 16, 2021
Hi friends.
I completed a new draft this week. It’s a big one, which took me about three months to finish. It was based off a draft I had submitted to my editor in mid-October, which she gave me notes on a week later. The version I submitted to her was 92,000 words. The draft I just completed is 75,000 words. So, somehow, I cut 17,000 words from this book.
Holy shit, that’s a lot of words.
I’ve never actually done anything like that before. When I write my novels, I tend to write sparingly, even underwriting in spots initially. If I ever go long it’s just to try things out; it feels more like an exercise – I might run a character through a conversation with another character, for example, just to get to know them better – and the results often just sit in my notebook, never making it to the screen. But the agreement with my editor with this book was that I would go long, write it all out, and then trim it later. And that is what I did.
So believe me I know: if you’ve got an unwieldy draft sitting in front of you right now, it’s the worst. It can feel overwhelming. How do I attack this monster? How do I whip this thing into shape? And how do I throw away my beautiful, beautiful words?
I thought it might be helpful to break down how I cut out those 17,000 words. Obviously what worked for me might not work for you, as I’m speaking specifically of editing a memoir. Also, not everyone has access to a professional, top-of-their-game editor, especially one they’ve been working with for nearly a decade. And there were lots of little things I did along the way that would be impossible to capture! The times when we work in a haze or a fury – who can remember those moments clearly? And how do you bottle instinct?
But, looking back, there were three parts of the editing process that were most helpful in terms of big cuts.
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