Julie Israel

Your first draft is finished. You’ve taken your break from the manuscript, and now you’re ready to come back to it with fresh eyes — and maybe an edit letter. The burning question: How are you going to cut your book down to size, as dictated by industry standards for your genre?

Whether your word count must drop by 5,000 or 20,000, the good news is that most of us overwrite by default. This makes it less painful than you might imagine to trim the oft-cited 10% off the top — but if you need a running start or some ideas to shave closer, here are some takeaways pulled from my own recent revision of a first draft.

1. Start big (picture — aka, Purse Dump). When I need to cut 10,000 words — pretty standard for YA — my first map is the outline. Seeing how my threads, arcs, and overarching plot move from chapter to chapter is like dumping out the contents of a purse or cupboard on the table, taking it all in, and asking: What is redundant? What do I not really need? What isn’t working—or exciting me? What adds no value, or doesn’t belong? What can I simplify/reduce? And then removing some items wholesale while rethinking others, and watching the space transform. I love Purse Dump Method, because it forces you to really consider both the purpose of each part, and the function of the whole.

When you start bigger picture—your chapters laid out in bullets—you set the scene for clean surgery.

2. Rewrite. A sub-step of “identifying whole threads, chapters, or plot points” you don’t like/need may be “rewriting the material to replace it.”

In my most recent WIP, I had a thread—let’s call it the “ghost” thread, as parts of it are gone—whose conclusion I realized was drawn out and overindulgent, and not fully serving the story. But the ghost thread still needed a conclusion, and I’d need fresh chapters to replace the four I was gutting.

So, I took some time to think about a different, tighter wrap-up to serve both story and character—wrote it—and cut the first one. Despite writing three new chapters, my word count went down by 3,300.

3. Simplify (your scenes). In our stories, every scene must accomplish something. Sometimes, when you’re reading back one you wrote, you realize there is unnecessary blocking between points A and B.

Let’s say, for example, that the point of a scene is for Kennedy to stand up for herself. We don’t necessarily need her to confront a bully who heckles her on stage if Kennedy already asserts herself to the friend who, before she walks out on that stage, asks “Are you sure about this?” Maybe one exchange is more dramatic, but standing up to both a friend and a bully is redundant – so one could be cut.

If you recognize a note hit multiple times OR unnecessary stepping stones between points A and B in a scene, you can easily pare down, and save yourself words in the process.

4. Pacing cuts: Summarize. As writers, we have to balance what’s happening in the moment with what’s happening over time. Sometimes, when a scene is dragging, it’s because we’re in the moment when we should’ve been in the CliffsNotes a page ago. For example, I might find some dialogue that runs too long and see an opportunity to rewrite it as a montage, and come down by 100-300 words in the process.

Look for anything that screams “This meeting could’ve been an email.”

5. Pacing cuts: Whittle the summary. Just like dialogue running long, summary can drag its heels, too. Which is why I go in on the page with an eye to every passage, looking for things like information that repeats unnecessarily, prose that bores the reader or belabors the point, and portions that just don’t add value. At this level, you may find you are able to cut some passages entirely, while hedge-trimming just a sentence or two, or half in others.

6. Line edits: Say less. While simply trimming can reduce purple prose, there are also opportunities to find something said in many words, and rewrite it in fewer. For example, in my WIP, I mention a certain set of apartment stairs several times: Indoor, several flights, uneven and antiquated, creaking wood, they climb between floors in a Z shape with banisters, and a landing on each level. But if I wanted to invoke those notes more concisely? Then “ancient, switchback staircase” or “creaking wood stairs” would do.

Remember, you don’t always have to spell out every detail. Less is often more, whether nixing the frills or folding more information into fewer words.

7. Line edits: The usual suspects. Last but not least, you can reduce your word count throughout your manuscript by rereading with an eye to the things writing instructors and books on writing tend to warn about: unnecessary adjectives/adverbs. Passive voice instead of active (“The pizza was stolen by the seagull” vs “The seagull stole the pizza”). Filler words (“really” “very” “just”). Gratuitous, unnecessary dialogue tags.

BONUS! Line edits: Favor concrete over abstract. This one is a personal preference, so take with salt. But when rereading my own drafts, I know my eyes are more likely to glaze over if a sentence is full of abstract nouns, or lacks action, texture – words with tooth. Therefore, if a sentence/paragraph is swimming in abstract, dull language, I’m going to try to dice it down to the bones – or even rethink its purpose, and perhaps rewrite it from a better angle. And yep, you guessed it: This usually results in fewer words (but even if it doesn’t, it’s probably worth it).

What are your favorite ways to cut down word count?