Russell's Writing Blog

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I'm 46, Married with two sons. This blog will document my attempt to get my children's novel published.
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Showing Tag: "editing "word count"" (Show all posts)

Keep chipping away

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Thursday, May 23, 2013, In : Writing update 
Another week into the editing and I'm down to 88,000 words.  There are definitely diminishing returns in this editing lark (because I am trying not to make changes to the actual story) but i'm quite impressed with how far I've come. The book started at 118,500 words, so that's 30,000 gone.  I think I will aim for maybe 11k more and that will be challenge enough. 

I've done some research and the first Harry Potter book was 77,000 words, the first Skulduggery Pleasant was 75,000, the first Arte...
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Slowly does it.

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, May 11, 2013, In : Writing update 
Well, as predicted the editing has slowed down as it progressed to the second sweep.  I'm down to about 95,000 words so maybe 20,000 still to chop and am just over halfway through my second pass through the book. I'm saving bits and prieces for the next book but nothing major.  Thus far I've managed to do most of it by thinning the existing text, shortening conversations and using tighter language, but I think I might get to the high 80,000s and then be left with only the actual meat of the s...
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