In an effort to apply one of the lessons I learned in Dave Wolverton’s writing workshop — and to cleanse my mental palate before biting off metaphorical chunks of my novel — I turned to a completed short story with the aim of cutting its 12000+ words down to fewer than 10000.
Primarily I stripped a tedious opening “chase” in which I revealed a lot of world-building details but not much else down to its essential elements: the world is dangerous, and the character gets caught. I also cut out two sections from a second point of view (POV), sprinkled what was really needed from those sections in a few other places, and even added an additional fight scene.
In all I think I cut 3000 words and added back 500 or so, and last night the word count stood at 9970. Now, to see if any editors like it….
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