There are a lot of writers who reach the end of their project and can’t wait to throw the pen down, but there are also plenty who just don’t know when to stop.
If you’re an inexperienced writer it can be difficult to know when enough is enough. You think you need to hit a specific word limit when what you really need to do is hit the sweet spot of your project.
I recently saw a novel from an author who’d been working on her story for nearly a decade. It was general fiction; girl meets boy, life intervenes, etc. It was the first time she’d shown it to any one (what an honour! It takes a lot of courage to share your words for the first time), and she was incredibly nervous about my assessment.
I did a written report as I normally do, but I rang her first. I wanted to speak to her to gauge how she felt about her work.
“Tell me,” I said. “What is your expectation today?”
“Well,” she responded, “First, I’d like to know that I haven’t wasted the last decade of my life. Second, I’d like to know my biggest weakness. Third, tell me I’ve got a shot at publishing.”
Three was easy; everyone can publish. There are so many routes to publication these days that a monkey on a typewriter can publish a bestseller.
One was also easy to answer. Of course the last ten years weren’t wasted. No time spent doing what you love is wasted. Not one drop, and for those readers who have been hassled by family and friends for dedicatedly working on ‘that damn book’, take heart. You’re not alone. You keep doing what makes you happy.
Two, however, two was the difficult answer. It’s rare that someone will ask me that question outright. I never lie, I don’t see the point, and I don’t offer fluff either. “It’s too long,” I told her gently, and waited through the silence that inevitably follows such a statement.
“How long is too long?” she asked eventually.
“You’ve got 300,000 words for a general fiction novel. The average is roughly 55,000 to 80,000 words.”
“Oh.”
Silence.
“Is the story bad?”
I told her it wasn’t, and that was the truth. The narration was really quite lovely and I found her characters likable, charming and endearing. The novel was no great epic, no thrilling saga set across generations, it was just a sweet, cheerful story about two people figuring out life together, the sort of story that anyone can pick up and enjoy.
So where had she gone wrong?
Well, I’ve spoken about this before. Writers are forced to make choices all the time. As the arbiter of time and space in the little universe we control, it is required that we give our characters a finite amount of room in which to enact their lives.
When we broaden their horizons too much, the narrative is forced to grow and compensate for all that additional space. It must be filled or the reader is left with a story that is uneven and patchy. The downside of course is that if we compensate once, we are likely to do it again. And again. And possibly even again. Before you know it, you’ve blown your word count well out of the water.
Now don’t take that to mean that I’m advocating for the writer to shift their priorities from story development to align with the word count, far from it, but a reader, an editor and a publisher can always see where a writer has lost control of their story and are writing for the sake of their characters, or because they simply can’t stop.
Part of being a writer is making tough choices. You might really, really love Character A and want to keep them safe, happy and from harm, but often, the best scenes in a story often come when you put your characters under duress. Character B might be a righteous pain in the proverbial, but you could make them a hero with one deed. It comes down to the writer’s choice.
So what can you do to let go of your story? A couple of things.
Have someone else look at your work and offer feedback. I know. It’s terrifying, nerve-wracking and could potentially be utterly soul-destroying. My advice here is to go to someone you trust ABSOLUTELY, someone who you know will talk to you honestly, but won’t hurt your feelings in the process. If you’re feeling a little braver, consider an impartial third party. Someone who doesn’t know you, but offers an assessment or appraisal service. Your story doesn’t need to be complete, and you should always be able to negotiate on price. For a fee, you’ll get back a report that may detail the strengths and weaknesses of your manuscript, potential fixes and recommendations regarding publishing. With a new set of eyes on your manuscript you should be provided feedback that will drive your manuscript forward without necessarily adding to the word count.
You can also put your manuscript away for a month. Quelle horreur! Fresh eyes, is what I’m getting at here. You’d be surprised how strange your manuscript looks after not touching it for a month. You might even wonder if you wrote certain passages. I know I’ve had moments where I’ve had a go at myself for writing absolute rubbish. Fresh eyes helped me see it.
Do a word count. If you’re writing general fiction and you’re 100,000 words over the standard, consider doing a self-edit. Go through your manuscript and look for scenes that are redundant. Does it move your story forward? No? Remove it. Notice how I didn’t say delete it? Just because a scene’s not right for that story doesn’t mean it isn’t right for another. Save it for a rainy day.
Set yourself a date to finish your book. This one’s harder and will probably only work for those writers with iron clad discipline. When you hit ground zero, it’s time to edit. Sometimes tough love is the answer.
It’s so easy to get attached to the worlds we create, the story that comes from somewhere deep within. Putting down your pen or shutting off your computer can be the hardest of tasks, but muse on this thought. You might just have the story that I’ve been dying to read my whole life. How am I ever going to do that if you’re continually working on it? I want to read what you’ve written. Why would you keep me waiting? I want to know what’s on your mind. I want to talk to you about your story.
You see, being a writer comes in two parts. One is the writing where you exercise your craft and create magic. The other part is being the face; the person who can talk about what drove the words, what inspired the magic and what is to come next. That part is the inspiration to others – the creature who influences, motivates and pushes someone else towards completion. It’s not just your story that matters, but you. Your story might be something, but you are more. You mean more to your reader.
So ask yourself, have I done enough? Am I ready to put my pen down and ask someone else to read my book? Am I ready?
Have the courage to say yes.
