I'll do some more trimming for the final version, I'm sure, but I was doing counts last night, and here's where it stands:
Initial version completed May 2003: 202,183 words
Next version completed 2004: 183,000 words
Version that went out to agents: 141,465 words
Current version: 118,872 words
120K is a decent count for an epic fantasy. 140K was pushing it.
I do, however, love the idea that I basically cut 60K from the first version: I took out the equivalent of an entire book.
Revision fascinates me.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
tDW Final Counts:
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2 comments so far. What are your thoughts?
I hate revision, I love revision. congrats on getting the book down to a lean under-120K. The greatest problem I see with writers (published) is word bloat - just think of Stephen King's slim Firestarter compared to the later works or even Robert Jordon - once published and in demand, it seems writers love to love themselves. Dorothy Sayers said that her rewrites eliminated or changed 7 out of every 10 words. That's quite the challenge.
Hope your book gets accepted quickly!
If I ever get this series contracted and published, I have several readers who are to KICK MY MOTHERFUCKING ASS if I ever become a wordy, verbose Jordan (you guys know who you are).
Though I'd like to make whatever he's making with those books.
Ideally, I want to do something with the rocking, crisp holy-crap-all-this-shit-is-going-on feeling of Zelazy with the more epic feel of something by Robin Hobb or George R.R. Martin.
I want adventure, character, setting, plot, epicness, but not excess.
Dare I say it --
that would feel a little self-indulgent.
heh heh
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