What is your word count?

by Adrian Sroka
31st January 2013

I have cut from 137.000 words to 97,000. A mere 40,000 words.

I am struggling to further reduce my word count to 85,000-90.000.

I have no intention of cutting more words to reach my target unless I believe it benefits my novel.

Do you have a word count in mind after your last thorough edit.?

Replies

I work it the other way.

I start with a word count in mind (100k). Invariably I end up with more, but so far not lot more - my first two books ended up at 112-113k words each. The first had 116k at 'first' draft and the second 113k, so with this one I added roughly the same amount as I cut to get to a final MS.

I agree - don't cut just for the sake of it. The old adage 'cut, cut and cut again' might work for some but if your narrative's fairly tight to begin with it just takes away from the telling, I reckon.

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Jonathan Hopkins
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