He began to edit
The agent who expressed some interest in the manuscript of The Sleep of Reason had asked me to trim some words to give it more urgency and momentum. It started out at 106,000+ words, and now it’s down to a lean 96,000+ words.
I trimmed a lot of fat — my but I write a lot of relative clauses. There were some scenes that really weren’t essential to the plot, some musings by the protagonist that were gratuitous. Some flabby sentences and tortured syntax.
What I found thoughout, however, was a certain verb construction that really weakened the narrative. My character would “begin to wonder” or “begin to worry” or “begin to realize.” Sure, once or twice that might make sense to show the dawning of some idea to him, but that didn’t need to happen an average of twice in each of the twenty-one chapters!
So the manuscript went off to the agent yesterday evening, and now I’m crossing my fingers and holding my breath.
Life goes on, and I can go to Larger than Life again.
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August 23, 2010 at 2:17 am
It sounds like you’re getting somewhere. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for you.
August 23, 2010 at 4:41 am
congrats on getting the edit completed!
August 29, 2010 at 7:04 pm
My fingers are crossed! Best of luck.