Unexpected edits

Here's another tale of the winding adventures of a writer to tell you about.

I thought I was done editing my book. Seriously. I had it at 475 pages, 140,000 words, and while I thought that was long I really didn't think I could do much to shorten it. I let my wife read it beginning to end, during which time I worked on other projects. A thought kept poking into my head, however. Want to know what it was?

Make it shorter.

I know, crazy. I thought it was already as short as can be, but that thought kept pestering me. Then I read this entry on swivet (a blog by an agent, not an agent blog) followed by this one and I knew that I was right in thinking I needed to shorten it. Suddenly, thoughts of a million major ways to make the book shorter began coming to me. So, after my wife had finished reading, despite having already done the BIG edit, and despite feeling like the book was good as it was, I sat down to the task of making it even better by making it shorter.

I'm happy to say that I succeeded. I've finished this edit I did not expect to do, and now the book is 429 pages and approximately 125,000 words. That is a lot of editing! Keep in mind that the book was almost 500 pages when I first wrote it, so I've cut nearly 20% of my original material. There are also more cuts to come because there were some BIG things I wanted to change, but I couldn't until I saw what changes would need to be made at later points in the book. I hope to have the book below 120,000 words when all is said and done, but I'm not going to force it. Every edit I've made, every sentence I've cut, every scene I've replaced by a shorter one has been in an effort to make the book better, not just shorter.

So this post is me trying to teach by example. The writing process doesn't always end when the writer thinks it does. Sometimes unexpected edits come up, hate it or love it (Fortunately, I love editing). Those edits need to be done. This doesn't mean edit your book forever. Don't get in that vicious cycle. Just don't be afraid to do an extra edit if neccesary.