Write Tight: A 10 Step Diet for the Verbose Writer

Below is an article by Lois Winston that I found quite helpful and hopefully my writing friends will too.



Write Tight: A 10 Step Diet for the Verbose Writer © Lois Winston


THE END. What a sense of accomplishment to type those words upon completion of your manuscript. After months or maybe years of labor, your baby is ready to leave its cozy Microsoft womb and fly off to that “A” List of agents and/or editors. Except for one problem. Somehow your bundle of joy wound up tipping the scales at 20,000 words over your targeted line’s weight limit. Now what? You curse. You cry. You stamp your feet. You reach for the chocolate. Feel better? Probably not. Baby is still a porker. However, all is not lost. Put baby on the following diet, and in no time she’ll shed that excess word weight.


STEP ONE:

Reread your manuscript. Is every scene essential to the plot or the goals, motivations, and conflicts of your characters? If not, no matter how much you love what you wrote, ax the scene. Each scene must serve a purpose. No purpose? No scene. Yes, I know it hurts. So instead of hitting the “delete” key, cut and paste the scene to a Loquacious Blubber file. You may be able to use it in a future manuscript.


STEP TWO:

Repeat STEP ONE for all dialogue. If the dialogue is nothing but chit-chat which neither advances the plot nor tells the reader something essential about the characters, exile it to the Loquacious Blubber file.


STEP THREE:

Do a search of “ly” words. You don’t have to omit all adverbs, but wherever possible, substitute a more active, descriptive verb to replace your existing verb and the adverb that modifies it.
· Blubber: Joe walked purposefully across the room.
· Tight: Joe strode across the room.
· Savings: 1 word


STEP FOUR:

Instead of using many adjectives to describe a noun, use one all-encompassing adjective or a more descriptive noun. If certain information isn’t necessary to your story, omit it.
· Blubber: Elizabeth grew up in an old, large house with twenty rooms that sat on four acres of land.
· Tight: Elizabeth grew up in a Victorian mansion or Elizabeth grew up on an estate.
· Savings: 11 or 12 words


STEP FIVE:

Say it once, then move on. It’s not necessary to repeat an idea or image in different words in the next sentence, the next paragraph, or on the next page. You don’t need to beat your reader over the head. She’s intelligent enough to “get it” the first time she read it.
· Blubber: A kettle drum pounded inside Elizabeth’s head. Her temples throbbed. Her skull pulsated with pain.
· Tight: A kettle drum pounded inside Elizabeth’s head.
· Savings: 8 words


STEP SIX:

Identify needless words and eliminate them. Every writer has at least one or two pet word she overuses.
· Blubber: Elizabeth just wanted to know Joe better before she dated him.
· Tight: Elizabeth wanted to know Joe better before she dated him.
· Savings: 1 word


STEP SEVEN:

Avoid laundry list descriptions by substituting more descriptive nouns and adjectives.
· Blubber: Joe wore a blue and green plaid threadbare shirt with a missing button at the cuff and a pair of frayed black jeans torn below the knees.
· Tighter: Joe wore Salvation Army rejects.
· Savings: 22 words


STEP EIGHT:

Do a search for was. Wherever it’s linked with an ing verb, omit the was and change the tense of the verb.
· Blubber: Elizabeth was listening to Joe.
· Tight: Elizabeth listened to Joe.
· Savings: 1 word


STEP NINE:

Choose more descriptive verbs and omit the additional words that enhance the verb.
· Blubber: Joe walked with a swaggering gait.
· Tight: Joe swaggered.
· Savings: 4 words


STEP TEN:

Omit extraneous tag lines. If it’s obvious which character is speaking, a tag line is unnecessary.
· Blubber: Joe turned to face Elizabeth. “You don’t understand,” he said.
· Tight: Joe turned to face Elizabeth. “You don’t understand.”
· Savings: 2 words


NOTE:

The above word diet is part of a healthy writing style and recommended for all authors, whether or not they need to drop 20,000 words from their manuscripts.

http://www.loiswinston.com/article7.html