Wow. I haven’t written a blog in several months! I’m not surprised, nor have I been doing nothing, but now that I’m going back into the query process, I better start reaching out to the greater world again.
After spending a good solid two (plus) months devouring bronze age life and material, I re-envisioned my world without iron, and it turned out pretty awesome. I knew it would expand my material to above the page limit. Transitioning from the word “king” to “wanaka” requires a description that adds to the word count. Also, titles like “Princess” took me a good hour to research an appropriate word for, be it Hittite, Akkadian or Linear B, and even then I have to explain what the title means. I ended up with a whopping 7000 words above the limit (a solid three chapters). Ugh.
So, I reread the manuscript, ruthlessly cutting out words, editing everything from reinstated points, rephrasing sentences to simple prepositions. I found myself rethinking big words versus small words, because “it” counts as another word just as much as “Labryteria”, but the character count makes me feel like I have more bang for my buck! These edits felt good; sometimes I tend to get dramatic in my love stories. Overall, I’m pretty happy with it.
The point of cutting is to reach the upper fantasy genre limit of 120k words, and it makes sense. Not only do some agents completely reject manuscripts over that limit, but so do publishers and readers. If you think about it, as a reader, if you see an unknown author with a giant book, you’re less likely to invest your money and time into it than an author you’re familiar with OR another unknown author with a smaller book. And in the end, we are trying to sell books.
So, after cutting and revising, I reread it again. Now, as other eyes look it over, I’m working on my pitch material. I hope to begin the submission process in September. Cheers!
