“In writing, you must kill all your darlings,” William Faulkner famously wrote, suggesting that the process of editing requires a certain stoicism, and the suppression of affection towards superfluous material, no matter how much we love it.
In the midst of many outright rejections from agents, I got an email last week from an agent saying: It’s a fascinating story and I do think it has a lot of potential. At the moment, it’s not quite working for me though. I think it’s probably quite a bit too long at 120,000 words and would probably benefit from losing about a quarter of that. I’d be happy to chat to you and give you some feedback.”
Well Boom damn it!
I’m holding firmly onto the many positives woven into that very short sentence:
1. “It’s a fascinating story.” – yay!
2. “I do think it has a lot of potential.” – yay and yay again!
3. “I’d be happy to chat to you and give you some feedback.” – thank you thank you!
We had a really positive and constructive talk on Thanksgiving day in which she pointed to some areas of my book (based on my book proposal outline) that she thought would benefit from a good old trim.
After four years of writing this thing, you’d think I would be distraught at having to revisit the story and trim my darlings…. but alas, I actually feel very motivated.
A fellow writer reached out to me via instagram to suggest some advice to help with my editing: “ as you read through your work, ask yourself who the fuck cares about this section?”
Wise words from a very wise woman.
I have my marching orders, I have gone through my outline and have started to identify where I can ruthlessly eliminate any words, characters, side plots or turns of phrase that I personally love, but that do nothing for the story, and that frankly no-one will give a fuck about.
I need to get down to between 90K and 95K words – a challenge for sure, but a challenge I feel motivated to embark upon.
Wish me luck.
Novice Memoirist 
Leave a comment