For a long while I’ve been working on editing a manuscript. I’ve spent a lot of time just rereading and tightening up the story. Tonight (or should I say this morning really) I spent an hour putting those edits into the file. I got four chapters done.
It felt like no time passed at all. How can something so simple be so enjoyable? I know this makes me a geek. I’m embracing my geek.
When I finished off the editing part, I said now I just have to put it in the electronic version and make a chapter summary. Well I’m doing both at once. I have my spreadsheet open to summarize the chapters, including keeping a word count.
The romance genre publishers look for manuscripts about 50,000 – 75,000 words long. Mine manuscript was at 100,000 plus. I’ve got it below 94,000. I have a long way to go. However, I decided I wasn’t going to dump large chunks before I did the chapter summary.
I’ve only worked through 4 chapters but there may be a whole chapter I can get rid of. This will be about 650 words. If I’m looking for big chunks than this might be one place to do it. I’m hoping this weekend I can get a lot of this editing and summarizing done.
The next step – at least in my mind – is to save the longer version. With a copy of it take and hack the heck out of it. When I’m done, see how the story tells itself. If it still makes sense then get rid of it and hope I’m more in the range for the genre. I’ll have to see how it goes….