Snippety Snip
“There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith
It’s hard enough to have the courage to write a book. Cutting your story down can seem like chucking your life’s blood--perfectly good blood that SOMEONE can use, dash it all!
Still, cutting down your manuscript might be an essential step to getting it ready for publication. I just finished cutting nearly 60 pages from a manuscript that was just under 300 pages long. That’s 1/5 of my manuscript that ended up getting cut. And as hard as it was to do it, I think I’ve got a better story on my hands because of it. I like to call this the Snowflake Phenomenon.
Snowflake Phenomenon: Go find a piece of white paper. Nice and white and flat and blank, isn’t it? Like fresh snow without any tracks on it. Do you remember how to make a snowflake from paper? If not, click on the snowflake picture above (you may have to click on it in the comments section) and it will take you to a website that will show you how. Start snipping! Go ahead--cut away. Little snips here, big cuts there. It might take a bit of practice--you might need to start over with a fresh sheet of paper--but soon you’ll figure out how to make a gorgeous, unique snowflake. You may find that you can make a really nice snowflake without doing much cutting. Or, you may discover that the more paper you cut away, the prettier your snowflake becomes. Now apply this to your manuscript, which is represented by the solid piece of paper without any cuts. Make sense?
So now we see that making cuts is an essential practice for a writer. How does one do it? Think of that blank piece of paper. Would it be difficult to cut away at it, trying to make a snowflake, without folding it first? Imagine poking the tip of your scissors through the paper a million times and making tiny snips. Difficult. Folding your paper first is a nice trick for making it easier to cut. It also makes your snowflake turn out nice and symmetrical. Just as there are tricks to making snowflakes, there are tricks to cutting down your manuscript.
A friend of mine gave me some great cutting pointers. They’re so good, in fact, that they’re going to be published as an article. I don’t want to put her advice here, so I won’t. Sorry. Instead, I’ll put some of my own tips:
*Streamline: Create a chapter-by-chapter or scene-by-scene synopsis of your book. Now, go through that synopsis and set aside any chapters or scenes that don’t directly progress your plot. Look at these chapters and scenes carefully. You may end up needing to cut some or all of them out of your manuscript.
*Study Your Characters: Do you have a character who exists solely to say a few things that your reader needs to know? Try combining characters so you as as few as possible (use your judgement). Characters can perform double duty. Cutting a character from a story can effectively reduce page count. I just cut two FAVORITE characters from my story, bringing my page count down 10 pages. Notice that I just mentioned reducing page count? There are two types of cutting, in my opinion: cutting to revise and streamline a manuscript, and cutting to reduce page count. You may have to do both.
Now it’s time to get nit-picky:
*Study Each Sentence: Can you make a sentence tighter? Do it. Do you have superfluous words? Cut them (again, use your judgement).
*Study Each Paragraph: Does the final line of your paragraph take up a whole line? If it takes up less than half, shorten your paragraph so the final line take a whole line.
*Study Each Chapter: Does the end of your chapter take up half or more of a page? If not, consider revising it so it’s shorter. In other words, make full use of your page allotment.
I’m sure I could cut this post down if I obeyed the rules I listed above. But heck--that’s what’s great about internet posts! They can be long! I’m just letting my blood flow. Last, but not least, another quote to consider when you’re cutting (and when you’re writing in general):
“I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” ~Elmore Leonard