I've been on a diet - a word-loss one that is....

For the past few weeks I have been editing my novel for the third time (or is it the fourth, I lose count).  This editing involved reviewing the plot, checking grammar/typos and looking at style and content.  What was clear from the end of it was that I  hadn't shed much weight.  At 107,510 words I was still toting a hefty tome.  My goal was to reduce it down to 100,000 but I've only managed to shed 2,000 in the editing process.

So desperate measures were required.  I needed to go on a diet.  But how?

As we do with real diets,  I consulted the professionals.  In my research I came across a fabulous self editing manual called 'The Word Loss Diet: Professional Self-Editing Techniques' by Rayne Hall.  This book is available in book format or as an ebook.  It is probably one of the most useful writing books I have ever read.  Why?

Because like any good diet manual, it gives you easy to understand rules and exercises.  Where a diet book will tell you how to count calories and what to replace them with; this book tells you what words are 'obese' and how to slim them down.  By following some of the editing exercises she suggests, a writer could lose up 20% of their words without any major change to their plot.

For example, could you do without could?  Huh? - I hear you ask.

Instead of telling us that a character could see, could hear, could smell, could feel etc, let the character see, hear, smell, or feel.  Thus, 'could see' becomes saw, 'could hear' becomes heard and 'could smell' becomes smelled and so on.  It would be even better if you cut see, hear, smell, feel.  If you have established the point of view of your story, you don't need to say that your PoV hears the sounds, smells the smells and sees the visions.

Here's an example:

Obese (before diet) - She could hear horses galloping down the lane.
Overweight (mild diet) - She heard horses galloping down the lane.
Slim (strict diet) - Horses galloped down the lane.

or

She could sense that something was wrong.

She sensed that something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

The best way to find these unnecessary words is use the Find and Replace function in Word.  It's a tedious and laborious method but quite effective.  It gives you the chance to find these words, kill them and therefore reduce your word count.

The same method applies to many other surplus, calorific words, such as began, turned, looked, turned to look, started, see, seemed, replied and continued.

Another popular overuse with new writers is 'sighing'.  Everyone sighs all over the place, and their 'hearts' are always 'beating' or 'thumping', clocks are 'ticking' and so on.  And don't get me started on 'smiling'.  There are so many smiles going on that the actual effect of the smiles wears off when EVERYONE smiles.

When I did the Find and Replace exercise for some of the above words, this is what I found:

I used  -

TOLD 324 times
COULD  291 times
SAID 228 times
LOOKED 226 times
REPLIED 136 times
SEE 130 times
LOOKING 123 times
SMILED 118 times (my characters are a happy bunch)
LOOK 105 times
TURNED 104 times (they all get a bit dizzy)
COULDN'T 97 times
FEEL 97 times
STARE 85 times (they're a nosy bunch)
HEAR/D/ING 81 times
HEARTS 56 times (well, it is love story)
CONTINUED 55 times
BREATHED 54 times (thank god they are breathing, but 54 times!)
SIGH/ED 54 times (see what I mean about everyone sighing)
BEGAN 45 times
SEEMED 42 times

There were many multiple uses of other words too.  I couldn't believe how often one of my characters looked at the clock for example.  Or how frequently they 'turned to look' at something, or 'turned to speak'.  Apparently, next to the word 'look', 'turn' is the most overused word in beginner submissions.

If anything, this exercise helps you hone your writing.  Without even realising it we slip these unnecessary words in.  But if you can seek them out and reduce them, your writing will be so much more sleek and slim and punchy.

The book also gives tips for writing snappy dialogue, removing abundant adjectives (how many times have we all said something like - a teenaged person, instead of a teen) and adverbs (saying it rained heavily which uses threes words instead of it poured which uses two), and tightening the plot.  All of these things can help to produce a lighter manuscript.

Good luck.