None of us set out to write War and Peace. Although it seems like a beautifully written book, it’s also drudgery to read through!
I remember thinking I was really something for making it through Shardik, the monstrous book by Richard Adams about a giant grizzly in the steppes of Russia worshipped as a god by primitive peasants. I don’t know what the word count was, but it dwarfed all the other books on my bookshelf.
When I wrote my first novel, I had in mind a particular sequence. I still didn’t know much about writing, and it’s created a big headache.
Because my book has topped out at 196,000 words.
Now, if you’re truly terrible at writing, here’s how you fix it, Stick it on a shelf for a year or two, and write five other books.
Now that you’re a lot better at writing, here’s one of two possible solutions.
Solution one – Chop every scene that isn’t crucial. This is easy when you’re first starting out. Just look at the scene. Does it move the story along? No? Kill it. Put it in the research section of Scrivener so you’re not losing all that work, you’re just removing it from the story. Here’s the sneak way to get it back in your novel. When you’re talking to your agent about it, tell them you wrote a really good scene about buying a box truck. You hated to lose it, but you chopped it from the book. Your agent may well say, “Send it to me”. Then you send it, and now she can’t imagine your book without it.
Solution two – here’s for the people that have a lot of writing talent. It’s very probable you’ve got 62 chapters in your novel, that all of them are crucial to the story, and you’ve chopped EVERYTHING you needed to chop, and you’re still – like me – at 195,000 words.
Write out your spark sheet as if you’re plotting a new novel. Put your six or seven word synopsis on every line. Somewhere in the middle you’ve got to plot in a break.
Switch genres. A simple action novel can become a suspense novel. That imposes a new template in your mind. “Where can I put the conspiracy?” Ah… I’ve got it…
And now you can split your War and Peace sized novel into two books. 196,000 divided by 2 is…93,000 words. NOW the idea of chopping scenes is easier. You’ve just got 6,000 words to chop from each book. And if you’ve got the book TIGHT where it’s now a page turner instead of a shelf breaker, the agent and the publisher are going to just say, “Well, you know, that’s how many words it takes!”
Conclusion
Publishers are really shy about publishing another Shardik or a War and Peace. Those books were written when the price of a novel meant you could stop by the pharmacy, spent $10 and buy 5 books. They used to have a “Buy 5 books, get one free” deals.
Not any more. A 200,000 page book costs a LOT to print and ship. It’s extra shipping, and that’s expensive. It eats into the profit margin, and profit margins on books are most definitely not as high as other forms of entertainment.
To get your massive tome published, you’ve either got to cut three out of every four words, or your going to have to split your book in two.
If you can’t do one, aim for the other!
