Word Counts

I discussed earlier the uses of going through each page of your draft and listing all of the adverbs, adjectives, nouns, and verbs, as well as a count of how many times each one appears. I've found it helpful to take your final list and highlight those words that appear more than two times. Work on those first, limiting yourself to one word each. Then move on to those two-timers and see if you can get them down to one.

I wanted to post some of the word counts I've found. There are some interesting ones...

On the first page of my draft I had:

Squirrel - 4
Driver - 3
Looked - 3
Held - 4

On Page Two:

Windows - 3
Discussion - 3

On Page Four:

Came - 4
Eyes - 3
Back - 3

On Page Five:

Again - 5
Back - 6
Before - 3
Away - 3
Down - 7
Never - 4
Out - 4
Up - 6

Imagine all of these words on ONE PAGE. They are not immediately apparent while reading, but if you think of all of the word possibilities that you missed by using "never" four times, or "up" six times, it's a real loss.

In Chapter Two, I encountered:

Bills - 4
Chair - 5
Door - 5
Desk - 4
Had - 7
Hand - 3
Mother - 5
Phone - 5
Went - 7

I noticed that in Chapter Three there were certainly less repeated words on the first page:

Bag - 3
Driver - 3
Would - 3

But all of these I managed to use only once or two times throughout the page. Pretend that you absolutely cannot mention something more than once - a whole realm of sentences will appear to you that incorporate what you wanted to say about an object or action, that you might not have thought of earlier without the word restriction. You start to think of a) why you mention the desk so many times, b) if you really need to.

Here are some additional counts in the pages of Chapter Three:

Dirt - 7
Disappeared - 3
Captor - 3
Body - 4
Light - 3
Fog - 4
Skin - 3

It's fascinating what we can do with words; how we tend to repeat the same ones over and over. When you look at each place where a word is repeated, new words and discoveries will without-a-doubt appear to you.

Happy Writing!

A Submission!

Okay, so I have submission here from my friend Shampoo Hornseby. He was kind enough to do an edit with me, so we’ll be posting live.

Me: Hi, Shampoo. Nice name, by the way.

Shampoo: What does my name have to do with anything?

Me: Well, it is interesting. I’d be more likely to pick up a book by a Shampoo Hornesby.

Shampoo: My mother gave me that name.

Me: So it’s not a pen-name.

Shampoo: Of course not!

Me: Okay. Well, let’s get to the edit. Shampoo says that he’s probably the world’s expert on trolls.

Shampoo: I am the world’s expert. That’s not a good way to start, dearie. You’re supposed to be sure of everything that you write – and I am an expert.

Me: Okay, then. Good point. So you’re the expert on trolls –

Shampoo: Yes, all kinds of trolls. I know the most about Bulgarian trolls, Green Mountain and Black Rock Lagoon trolls.

Me: Okay…

Shampoo: It’s all in the book. My autobiography.

Me: Right. So let’s go through your first page. Here it is:

My plane was at 9:30 in the morning and I was late. But I sped through the windy roads to get to the airport and arrived five seconds before the flight left.

Me: That’s not a very strong hook, Shampoo.

Shampoo: But I was late!

Me: Yeah, but is it important that you were late to flight?

Shampoo: It was important to me at the time!

Me: Yeah, but is it important to the rest of the story if you were late? I mean, does it effect what happens later?

Shampoo: I was making a pickle and pumpernickel sandwich, I’ll have you know, and I have to get the mustard perfectly spread before I even think about leaving my cave every morning.

Me: You live in a cave?

Shampoo: Yes, with my mother. She was helping me with the sandwich.

Me: Okay, so how about you lead your story with this:

My mother insisted that the mustard on my pickle and pumpernickel sandwich be evenly spread before I left our cave. I arrived at the airport five minutes before my flight.

Shampoo: That’s all fine, but you’ve left out the windy roads bit.

Me: You don’t need it.

Shampoo: But ‘windy’ was a well-chosen adjective!

Me: Yeah, but who cares if the roads were windy? Do you need it in there? I could see it being important if they were so windy that you drove off the side of the road by accident. That would be exciting.

Shampoo: Don’t be silly, girl.

Me: What else do we have?

The stewardess who let me on my plane was tall with long blonde hair that ran down to her hips and she had beautiful green eyes. I sat down in my seat and it was very small.

Me: So, let me guess, you end up flirting with the stewardess and you two run off together?

Shampoo: Don’t be lurid!

Me: Then why did you go into such detail about her?

Shampoo: Because!

Me: Do we see her again in the story?

Shampoo: She gave me a lovely bag of peanuts.

Me: How are the peanuts lovely?

Shampoo: They were lovely.

Me: Oh, never mind. If you mention the peanuts, I’m cutting the sentence.

Shampoo: Well, I never…

Me: Let’s keep going. You don’t need to go into detail about the stewardess. And saying the seat was small is pretty much a given. Who hasn’t complained about airplane seats being small?

Shampoo: Well, it was small!

Me: Yeah, but you can show your writer-ly gifts here. Use some description that shows how inventive you are. Give me another description of the seats. What else did you think about other than ‘small’?

Shampoo: Well, I remember thinking that a Rajmussian Tiger Troll would have a hard time sitting in them with its large behind. The sores on its rear wouldn’t help it either.

Me: Now that’s funny, and it further proves your expertise in the troll field. Okay, what’s next?

The plane landed at the airport and I got off. I hailed a taxi and went to the place of my interview.

Me: I’m going to stop you here. Do you need to write about the plane ride at all?

Shampoo: Well, I did fly on the plane.

Me: Yeah, but this interview sounds more interesting to me. Why not start with the interview?

Shampoo: Yes, but I did fly on the plane.

Me: Well, let’s cut it for now and start the book at this interview. What’s next?

I was going to interview a troll name Melf in his cave. Melf was angry looking. He had long green hair and a body full of warts. He stood sixty feet above me. His toenails were red and very long. He spoke only in grunts, but I still understood every word he said. He smelled awful, but I spoke to him anyway. Being the last of his breed, I needed to interview him about his breed for my book, or else he might be dead soon.

Me: Okay, a lot to work with here. You don’t need to say you were going to interview a troll named Melf, since we’re about to see you interview a troll named Melf. You can cut that sentence.

Shampoo: You’re harsh.

Me: Angry looking is pretty vague, Shampoo. What if Melf throws a rock at you when you enter his cave? That would show me that he’s an angry troll.

Shampoo: He didn’t throw a rock at me, he threw his feces.

Me: Okay..that’s disgusting, but it’s a better way to show what Melf is like, rather than saying ‘angry’. Let’s see what else we have…you’ve written a lot of description. You can cut the bit about Melf’s grunts. When you ask him a question, he’ll answer with a grunt; this will show the reader how he speaks.

Shampoo: Ah ha.

Me: And notice how you use the word ‘breed’ twice in the same sentence. That should be avoided, even within the same page if you can manage it.

Shampoo: How can I manage that, dearie? This sounds complicated.

Me: Well, how about this:

Melf the troll (Me: Can you be more specific about what kind of troll he is? Shampoo: He’s an Atlantic Garden Troll, what of it?)

Melf the Atlantic Garden Troll hurled his feces at me.
“I’m here for your interview, Melf.” I stepped aside just in time.
“Urgh.”
I looked up sixty feet to see his global face.
“Urgh.”
Translated, he said: What do you want?
“I am sorry about your mother,” I grunted back. She left him the last remaining troll of his kind.
“Urgh, urgh.” He beat his fists against the ceiling of his cave. A slab of rock fell on his red toenails – his scream vibrated through my body. I smelled rotting tripe from his exposed armpits.

Shampoo: I see what you did there.

Me: See how you can lose obvious statements such as, “He spoke only in grunts, but I still understood every word he said.”? That’s already inferred when you’re able to translate his grunts.

Shampoo: And my description?

Me: Add it in slowly. See how I combined his red toenails with the slab of rock falling down? There, you’re showing his angry temperament and the color of his toenails. Instead of saying ‘he smelled awful’, be specific with ‘rotting tripe’.

Shampoo: Hmm…

Me: Well, I think that’s enough for now. Say goodbye, Shampoo.

Shampoo: Goodbye, all. I’ll need to mourn my lost sentences now. I’m going to steal your scissors, Inoperative Squirrel.

Surviving a Chapter

I wanted to summarize some of the stuff I've been talking about in the last couple days. I'm calling this "How to Write a Chapter". I'm going to sort it by major steps.

HOW TO WRITE A CHAPTER:

-- Write a purpose at the head of each chapter, defining what is to be accomplished within those pages.

-- Write the chapter as you want it to be.

-- Print, and read through, highlighting anything that catches your eye -- makes you “think”.

-- Work page by page, making a list of adverbs and adjectives. Do a count of how many times the same adverb or adjective appears within a page (or over all of the pages). Have this page side-by-side with your chapter, so that you can see each clearly.

-- Start with the words that you used multiple times and work on eliminating them. Question why you used that same word so many times.

**Are there any synonyms that come to mind?

**Do you think you’re going for a particular theme by using that word so much?

-- Pretend that anything with multiples needs to have only one.

-- Look at the places where there are adjectives. Question every one.

**Do you need it?

**Is it better to say “she had flowing blonde hair”, or “she had blonde hair”?

**How important is it to describe her hair as ‘flowing’?

**How important is her hair?

**Do you need to mention the color of this person’s hair?

-- Look at the places where you used adverbs.

**Is it important that a man “slowly read the paper”, or can you say “he read the paper”?

-- If you felt the need to embellish a verb with an adverb, could this mean that you’re not using the correct verb?

**Is there a better verb out there that can encompass the original and its adverb?

-- In this way, you work backwards through a progression of questions that starts first with the specifics of each word, and then traces back to broader questions concerning purpose and necessity.

-- Locate every adjective and adverb on your list, and after you’ve questioned it and established its worth -- or lack of it -- move on to make a new list of all the nouns and verbs. Do the same count of them, and look at each one in the chapter, using the same questions:

**Do I need it?

**What will the sentence look like if I don’t use it?

-- If you happened to use the word ‘had’ five times in a page, take each one of them out and see how the sentence can be rearranged without. If you mentioned a character eating an apple three separate times, question whether or not you really need this action. Can it be replaced with something else?

-- If you notice you have a lot of verbs, such as: “He walked into the room and sat down and crossed his legs” look at what verb is the most important. Is there any way to get around the use of one, if not all, of those verbs? Find the one action that moves the scene along.

-- Cut detail. See how the pages look.

-- Question every word on your two lists. Pretend that they cannot be there. Pretend that someone kidnapped your dog and will hurt it if you don’t cut at least thirty words off of each page.

-- Do a re-write of the chapter, incorporating the changes you made. I recommend making your edits on the printed page with a pencil. Print out the edited version and date it.

-- Go through the new version, looking only at dialogue. As you look at each spoken line, see what happens if you cut it out.

**Are you losing information that needs to be said?

**Are your characters saying things to one another that are already known between them?

**Are you using dialogue to explain something to the reader?

-- Pretend that the reader already knows these people and their situation.

**How does the dialogue sound when you approach it from that angle?

**Do you need dialogue at all?

**Can the purpose of the chapter and scene be achieved only through action?

-- You’ll want some dialogue, of course, but imagine what your characters would say to one another if nothing needed to be explained. How would they interact?

-- Most of all, focus on your purpose here, and use the dialogue to that end. What needs to be said between the characters? If that kidnapped dog was going to die if you had more than two lines of dialogue in your chapter, what would those two lines be? Pretend that you need to have as little as possible. A life depends on it! See how immediate your narrative becomes. Don’t worry about taking things out – you can always put them back in!

-- Rewrite the chapter using the cuts and changes that you made. As you re-write, keep an eye out for your sentences too. Those words aren’t to be trusted just yet. Can you still lose some of them? If you even question a single word, cut it out and see what the sentence looks like without it.

-- Remember, question everything. Do you need it? What is it there for? Pretend you’re an immigration officer, deciding whether or not to let a traveler into the country.

-- Keep an eye out for the number of similes and metaphors that you’re using.

**Are you using too many?

**Are there instances where you could use a metaphor or simile to give the reader a better description?

-- Remember: Focus. If you know what you want to say within the chapter, it might be easier to figure out where a simile or metaphor could really benefit.

-- Keep an eye out for where you can add in a bit more detail by switching one boring noun for another. For instance, in my first chapter, two characters are surrounded by trees. I replaced those with “birch trees” instead. Now the reader can envision the color bark, the shape of the tree. You’re giving them a whole new picture rather than just saying a very generic “trees”. Look for any place where you can be more specific. Instead of saying “he ate some cereal”, how about “he ate Cheerios”? See what a difference it makes, and in most cases you won’t have to add any extra words in.

-- As you edit, keep retyping the chapter and printing it out.

-- With your current version, look at the setting.

**Are your characters surrounded by something? Or are they standing in some void?

**Are they making use of the room they’re standing in?

**Are they making too much use of where they are so that it’s impeding with the narrative?

-- Try to put in something unique about the setting when you can. Remember: specific details. You can express something about a room with only a few words.

**Is it dusty?

**Full of light?

**Is it an echo chamber?

**Does it eat sound?

**Does it smell like frying chicken or dead squirrel?

-- Don’t overdo it explaining every part of the setting, but remember that your characters are actually standing, sitting, or lying somewhere.

-- Once you’ve made your setting edits, print up again and read through the chapter. Pay attention to how it all sounds now.

** Do you feel there’s a voice to it?

** Is your main character coming through?

-- If you’re being a mad killer of words, it’s possible that you’re going to cut out some of the emotion, and the narrative will become too sparse. Now you have the opportunity to build up.

**Are there places where you think you can use a little extra?

-- Hopefully, by the end of your edits, you’ll have a better appreciation for words. It should be much easier to add in a sentence now, with an eye for keeping it integral to the narrative.

Slash and Hack

I'm currently exploring the art of editing, or The Slash and Hack, as I've come to think of it. Fellow aspiring authors out there have probably heard before the damage you'll have to do to a manuscript before it's ready. Cut, cut, cut! Of course, we rarely listen to those sage scribes that have come before us, because it's usually impossible to fathom how to write a book until you've really spent some time, you know, writing a book. It's taken me four years to get to a point where I'm ready to question every word I have. Getting those same words (which are chopped up in the dead zone of a computer's bowels right now) out on the paper in the first place was hard enough, but to get rid of them? You'll know the thrill when you see it, people. The realization that you don't need most of them. Yep, I said it.

I'm working through Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages right now. If you don't have it - get it. It's illuminating. I'll try to post a progression of pages tomorrow, where you can see how I worked from six pages down to four just by following Noah's suggestions.

Here's a good way to start editing a draft:

-Read through with a highlighter and pinpoint any areas that you have to think about. By "think about" I mean anything that strikes you (good or bad), that your brain needs to process a bit harder to read, or a word/phrase that gets your salivary glands pumping, or your muscles twitching, something that sounds weird or awkward, or phrases/words that seem different from the others (again, whether good or bad). I'm still finding it difficult to learn how to recognize when I'm making a greater effort to read a sentence. But if my thought process is thrown when I'm reading, no matter in what way, I highlight.

- Work page by page (yes, daunting, but worth it!)

- Then, on a separate page list all the adverbs and adjectives that you can find.

**I'll admit with a blush right now that I had to re-teach myself the difference between all of these grammatical definitions. Thank you public school!

**Instead of listing the adverbs and adjectives, I went through with a highlighter instead. It
helped bring them to a better focus, in my opinion. Try using a different color highlighter to
differentiate from the first read-through.

- Next, list every noun and verb. This list will probably be much longer than the previous, so I found it easier to use a separate word document. I also kept a log of how many times each word pops up and variations on each. After completing the list, print it and date it, then review it with your page side by side. For example:

**I used 'door' twice on my first page, and 'driver' three times, I said 'held' four times, and 'looked' three.

**This was all on one page. Just trying to write each of these only once provides all sorts of new sentences that I would never have thought of. Give it a shot.

- Look at each word and determine whether or not you really need it. This is where you ask yourself the question: what am I trying to say here? For another example:

I had two uses of 'rarely' within two paragraphs, and I used some version of 'firm' four separate times within six pages.

- One read-through won't immediately bring these words to your attention, but once you notice them, you're better able to come up with more unique and concise ways to say things. Just by reviewing these words, you'll realize that many of them are pointless. You won't be able to go to sleep that night just thinking, Oh no, I have seventeen mentions of a dead squirrel in the first five pages! Trying to remove all the times you say 'dead squirrel' will inspire better sentences.