Writing to Word Count

by Linda Thorne

If you’re an author who has ever entered a writing contest, you’ve been subjected to word count requirements. Submissions to agents and publishers normally have maximum word counts too, except sometimes the limit may be a number of chapters in a book rather than actual words.

It’s amazing how the number of our words can significantly be reduced without changing a story. I’ve managed to cut a 3500-word short story down to 1000 while keeping the story intact.

My debut novel, Just Another Termination, started off with a 120,000-word first draft. It was awful. I eliminated a couple of non-essential characters and their roles, but still more fat to trim. I’d fallen victim to the mistaken idea that readers need to know everything. For example, I wrote over four pages that described the different stages my protagonist’s husband went through to move from LA to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to take a better job. He left my protagonist behind to sell their Los Angeles home, moved into a hotel near his new job, and then bought a home in Mississippi and moved into it. This all happened prior to my lead character joining him. Too much information.


I took these four pages of information dump and turned it into a two-sentence summary blurb. That and another 40 words sprinkled into other sections of the book was all that needed to be said on this subject. I had several other places where I could scratch 90% of the descriptions I’d written.

Here are some other things I did to reduce word count and tighten my book: 

• I dropped one of my subplots. I had to many in the first draft of my debut novel, Just Another Termination. In my second book yet to be published, A Promotion to Die For, I  think I’m right-on with the number of subplots.
• I got rid of a few characters. I had to eliminate a couple of characters in Just Another Termination and hated it. I’ve already eliminated two characters in my current work-in-progress, A Promotion to Die For.

I’ve heard to watch the words used on backstory in the beginning. Cut them down and trickle the information throughout the book. This is more difficult with my current WIP, A Promotion to Die For because my inciting incident happened thirty years earlier but is pressing into the current time frame of the book. Sometimes authors must ignore the naysayers when their book doesn’t fit into the “rules.” Critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Susan Isaacs wrote a book called, Lily White, where one chapter was in present time and the next in the past. To help differentiate, chapters in the present were written in regular font, where those in backstory were in italics. This went on with present/past chapters alternating until past and present met in time at the end of the book. Even though the author broke some (lots) of the “rules,” it seemed to work perfectly for this novel. I really enjoyed Lily White.

In A Promotion to Die For, I only have a few chapters that are written in back story, but I did need some full chapters to bring in the the inciting incident from three decades ago.

When my debut novel was finally published, it was closer to 80,000 words. I’m trying for the next one in the series to be about the same. Eighty thousand words is my general comfort level for mystery novels.

Amazon Buy Link 

Lindathorne.com