Day 205: Too Many Words!

I wrote a story a long time ago that never got any traction called 'The Shaft.' It's a psychological horror story about a climber who goes and finds a mysterious rock formation with a bottomless shaft inside. I think it could work as a decent allegory for something, and recently I finally found a place that might like it. A publication called 'Winning Writers' has a yearly competition for short fiction that seems like a perfect fit for this story. The theme this year is 'risk' which aligns with the themes of 'The Shaft' very well. I've been editing the story heavily because A. it kinda sucked, and B. it just has way too many words! I've shaved 600 words off already and it still has like a thousand that need to go somehow. I'm not sure I'll actually be able to get it down to size, but I've got until February to make it work. For today's post, I'm going to put down all my little tricks to remove words, and maybe by doing so I'll remember something that can help me.

First up I just do a normal editing pass. It's easy to make phrasing mistakes that add lots of unnecessary words, but the good news is that these are easily taken care of in the first pass. I look out for all the regular proof reading stuff, but also ways I can take two sentences and turn them into one. I also look for places I can turn telling into showing, which also saves a lot of words. For example:

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and a creeping sensation of dread took hold of me.

Versus ...

Creeping dread slivered down my spine, putting the hairs of my neck on end.

21 words turned into 14 words, and it's much easier to read. If I could do this for every sentence, I'd hit my limit in no time. That would also mean it was an abysmal first draft though ... maybe that's why it didn't get any attention.

Another big thing to look out for is completely unnecessary sentences. I have a lot of these. For example:

I stuck to the wall, naturally avoidant of a dark, wide-open space. I knew this place wasn’t big enough to really get lost inside, even if I lost sight of the wall, but that knowledge didn’t make it any easier. Behind me, the strip of light that made up the mouth of the cave grew distant, and none of the light helped to illuminate the surroundings at all. I moved deeper, slowly, wary of any pitfalls that might take me by surprise, and though I didn’t seem to be getting closer to anything, my suspense grew with every step.

Compare this to ...

I stuck to the wall, naturally avoidant of a dark, wide-open space. Behind me, the receding strip of light around the mouth of the cave served only to enhance the darkness rather than banish it. I moved slowly, wary of any pitfalls that might take me by surprise, and though I didn’t seem to be getting closer to anything, my suspense grew with every step.

Ignoring the lame phrasing of the first paragraph for a moment, it was largely held back by that sentence in bold that I removed. It gives a little bit of insight to the character's inner thoughts, but beyond that it doesn't really do anything but distract from the oppressive atmosphere. If the knowledge that the cave isn't big enough to get lost in doesn't help him overcome the fear of the dark, then why mention it? It just destroys the reader's second hand suspense for no reason, on top of wasting a bunch of words.

The last thing I do to remove words is more drastic. If I'm still over the word count and can't get it down any other way, there's only one solution. Rework the whole structure of the story. And that's what I'm going to have to do with 'The Shaft.' Currently it has an even focus on the climb up to a place, and the climb down into the shaft he finds when he gets there. The only way to get rid of a tons of words is to shift the focus. I'll have to remove most of the climb to refocus on the cave and the shaft he finds inside, but hopefully doing so will give me some leftover words to use on those parts instead. If that doesn't work, then I think the story is simply too long to fit as I want to tell it. I guess I'll find out as I continue to edit it.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley