Prune, Cut, and Chop

try not to bleed too much …

I often say that stories, or books, have a natural length. It takes a certain space to tell a story. There’s a flow, go with the flow. That doesn’t mean drafts shouldn’t be tightened or unnecessary digressions shouldn’t be removed. All writers know that not everything that comes out of their feverish minds belongs on the page. A story is not like life in that regard, it can’t be too messy. It shouldn’t be too ordered either, but that’s a subject for another post.

Occasionally, I’m conflicted. That nice balanced story that found a natural rhythm and length does not meet the requirements. What requirements, you ask? Whose? I write stories because I love to tell them, not because some overlord forced me to sit at my keyboard and get that book going. You know, like Annie Wilkes in Misery. I’m free. I can write whatever catches my fancy. Except … I like to have people read my stuff, which means submitting to get published. Not every writer follows that model. People post stories on their website, or blog, or publish their books independently. Farm to table, no intermediaries. That doesn’t mean their work isn’t reviewed and commented on. It’s always a good idea to get extra pairs of eyes on the piece. When you’ve immersed yourself in a project, for weeks or months, you just don’t see clearly anymore.

I decided a while ago that I was going to run the submitting obstacle course and put my work in front of perfect strangers. People who have no idea who I am, and why the hell would they give me the time of day. Many writers have covered the submission/rejection tango and I’m not going to get into that. My topic today is requirements, guidelines.

All publications and publishers have them. Some are obvious. Don’t send Victorian Romance to folks putting out a Cryptid-themed anthology … although, I could think of ways to get around that, some Beauty and the Beast remix, but you see what I mean. If a publication wants science-fiction don’t send them Oliver Twist.

The thing that tripped me two weeks ago was the word count requirement. It usually isn’t a problem. If a magazine is focused on flash fiction, they put the limit at 1000 words or less (about 2-3 pages). I don’t approach that kind of story with the engine at full blast. I’ll tell a tale than can fit in a small box.

Most of the short fiction I write falls in the 2000-4000 words range that is middle-of-the-road for most publications. If I go over the count they’re looking for, I can trim here and there, and it’s no big deal.

In the case that inspired this post, I had a real problem. The theme of the anthology was a great fit. I knew I could come up with a solid plot and compelling characters. So I set to work. And the story flowed. About midway I knew it would be on the long side. There was a lot going on. I even thought, if I push this, it could be a book …

I tweaked and polished, and was very happy with what I ended up with.

Then I looked at the webpage to see where to send the thing and #@!^&! aargh!

It was a stupid mistake. I should have been more attentive. No excuse for bungling it. I was almost 1/3 over the word count limit. The editors would reject the story without a second look.

What to do?

• Option 1: Shelve the story. Send it somewhere else. It’s sexy, it rocks, it will find a home.

• Option 2: But that theme is perfect, and it’s a cool publisher. Could I …?

Sometimes stories benefit from a haircut. In short fiction, tighter is usually better. Drop that exposition, get to the meat right away. But sometimes the cuts take away the magic. The plot is still there and the characters’ bones, but something hard to define is gone. The Glass Marble story featured in the Family and Other Ailments collection is longer than what the magazine originally published. When the time came to build the book’s table of contents I reverted to my original version that was 50% longer. The narrator is a mix of teenage defiance and impulse to do the right thing. More brush strokes on the canvas make the character more interesting, the atmosphere is richer, layered. I like the expanded version better.

In this case of “the perfect story for this anthology that is unfortunately too long”, I wondered if I could meet the requirements without losing the soul of the piece.

Worth a try.

The initial pruning was easy. Get rid of unnecessary dialogue tags, the he said/she said the reader can do without because it’s clear who’s talking. Remove little bits and pieces of sentences that aren’t essential. Does that enumeration need three elements, can this adjective go? Does it matter that the morning is windy? That kind of trimming is painless, but it only chips at the rock.

Bigger cuts were needed.

Chunks of paragraphs had to go, establishing sentences, atmospheric side comments. It wasn’t enough. I had to delete a secondary character which led to rewriting scenes. Did it change the fundamentals of the story? No. Was something lost? Tricky question. It’s a crime story, the murders are not described in gory detail but they are disturbing. The dialogue between the cops lightened the picture. It’s raining, they’re soaked, sneezing, maybe catching a cold. Without these sympathetic touches, the story is darker, harder. The tone has changed, which created ripple effects later in the narrative, and required more cuts to stay in what was now a “noir” mood. The story is the same but told with a slightly different slant.

I pruned, cut, and rewrote until I hit the mark (with no room to spare I may add), but I did not chop. No acts of draft butchering were committed.

Do I like the longer version better? Probably. Was the exercise worthwhile? Definitely.

Now we’ll see what the anthology editors think of it.

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