Because no one wants to see a four hour Hamlet
Not even if you are Kenneth Branagh.
I love Hamlet. I really, really love Hamlet. Every single word. But I won’t watch the whole play unabridged in one sitting. I have the Branagh movie on my iTunes. I listen to it in 15/20 minute fragments every once in a while. But not all four hours at once. And I usually skip through the scenes I don’t always care about – even when the player king has one of my favorite lines in the play. Because… it isn’t important to me overall.
So… my little wake up call yesterday. I paid attention to the recommendation of word count for submission of first time authors. And formatting recommendations. ACK! My novel is TWICE the recommendation. A little Internet research shows I’m up there with Crime and Punishment, less than Gone with the Wind… but not by that much. Huh.
So that leaves me with two options. Delete, delete, delete. It can be done. I’ve already identified scenes insignificant to the overall plot. But they are scenes that I think weave a nice fabric for the backdrop… and hide some clues. But the clues can be relocated.
OR… I divide it into multiple books. Then I can be a cliché like all the other vampire novels and make it a series. Better yet, a trilogy. Then again, that’s a selling point, right?
It means more work. It means butchering my beloved manuscript. I wasn’t decided that it was completely done. I anticipated the necessity of some work and fine tuning. I do not delude myself with perfection… but this isn’t what I was thinking.
This is all to impress an agent. When I have absolutely no credibility as a writer. Is that selling out? Conforming myself to an industry that is on the verge of a revolution? Or do I use this seeming challenge to dive head first into the revolution? Do I forgo the agent thing altogether and explore a completely different option?
I’ve thought about a sequel… but I think the story ends where it ends. A sequel would undo my Shakespearean concept of resolution and the theme of karma. I have ideas… but not enough to weave into a story. Within the current novel, there are some options for expansion to fill out into separate pieces. But I’m not entirely sure I want to do that… because where do I end them?
Then again if they aren’t printed… if I explore this revolution and think electronically… doesn’t that change everything?
Too much to contemplate on a late humid Saturday. I’ll come back to it tomorrow and pull out the scalpel over an iced coffee.
Comments
yes. I hear ya.
I have a strong belief (now) in deleting.
It's the most terrifying thing at first. But you always save the copy - you always have the original there. BUT... then you slowly consider, and after some time away from the manuscript, you realize pages/lines/ideas might be important to YOU, but they're not that important to the story. Or the characters. Or the reader. Or (yes) the agent/publisher/etc.
So then you chop. YOu highlight and delete. And then you realize that it feels pretty amazing. and before you know it you're sculpting your work into something even more beautiful, compact, impressive, hard-hitting, and powerful.
Worst case scenario, you determine it made it worse, and you go back to the full version.
But word count matters. and it's something you should seriously consider... and I refused to chop any of my 340 pages for years and years. And now I have a 280 pages book that I feel is MUCH better and effective than the original. Do I miss some of those scenes? sure. I think I even lost a character or two. But the story is much better for it.
Just some thoughts. I'm not really thinking of what i"M typing - just responding to I just read. Perhaps this helps, perhaps not. Either way, I totally understand your quandary.
And I ADORE YOU. :)
But... in business, two is better than one. Make two volumes of 100,000 words... and it makes more money. If the writer is a worthy risk of not just one brand new novel, but two.
But, cutting is also a good thing. I'm all about losing dead weight. As a writer sometimes, it feels like you are actually killing something to justify the classifcation of the extra weight as dead.
Sigh...