Set a goal

Maybe you really just want to tighten your story, so you don’t have a specific number goal. I think you should set one anyway. Hopefully you’ve learned how wordy you tend to be and how wordy your voice should be, so you can adjust your goal accordingly.

My goal was dictated by word count—I wanted the third book in the series to be close to the length of the first. That gave me 7000 words to cut over 300 pages, an average of 24 words per page (always round up; you can’t count cutting part of a word).

I wanted to give myself a cushion for smoothing rewrites and for pages that were already pretty tight, so I made my goal 30 words a page. When I move to the next page, I check the document word count and try to knock it down by 30. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t, sometimes I blow it away, but it gives me a specific goal to shoot for and stretch for rather than just cutting “some” words.

Highlight your weak, empty &/or echo words

I use a macro to do this, and I love it. I’ve set it up to color code “empty” words. Words that can often be cut entirely are “highlighted” in black, making them invisible. If the sentence reads just as well without it, I can cut that word. Sequencing words like before/after/while/as are in dark blue. A lot, a little, pretty, etc. are in another color. Suddenly, finally and slowly are flagged in red. The macro also turns several pronouns orange (text color) so I can make sure I’m using the strongest possible words. You might also highlight “because, “since” and “so that,” as telling flags. This doesn’t include the 60 words I track to monitor emotions, visceral reactions, body language and overused words I want to track by comparing the full sentences.

This does highlight a lot of things that I don’t need to highlight (because I haven’t gotten down the “whole words only” option yet), like “AS much AS” or “adJUSTment,” but because I’m going to be reading every page, it’s okay.

When I finish working with a page, I take out the highlighting and text color changes. Then if I scroll past it, I know it’s done.

Go page by page

Why go in random order? Sometimes it’s easy to start reading and following the story. This way, I can’t get sucked into the story and forget to edit closely. I use Random.org to randomize my page numbers.

The longer explanation of the process: I use Excel. I put “1” in A1 and fill the cells in a series to make a list of my page numbers, 1 to 300 or whatever. Then I have Random.org generate a list of random numbers, 1 to whatever (should be at least as high as your page count, but can be higher) in one column. I cut and paste that list into column B of the spreadsheet. I select both columns and sort the range by column B.

Why don’t I just use Random.org’s list? True random numbers will skip some digits and duplicate others, so some pages will be skipped. This way makes sure every page is on the list.

Of course, my page count goes down as I do this. If I cut a page off chapter 4, all the subsequent pages are shifted up, right? So sometimes, especially as I approach the last quarter of the edit, my random page has already been edited, I scroll until I can find one that still has those highlighted words from the previous step.

The actual editing

As I mentioned above, some of the first things I look at are empty, overused and commonly misused words.

Contractions

These are words that can be distilled, reduced or cut altogether without altering meaning.

• Try to/and (technically it should be try to, not try and, but try and is very common in speech)
• start to, begin to
• Reach for
• was going to >> would/will
• to be able to >> could/can
• at him, to her, for me, especially if there are only two people in the scene.
• Now, right now (can be especially awkward in past tense)
• Seems to, looks like >> well, does it?
• And, and then, but. Do these clauses belong together? Do they HAVE to be together (choppiness is a valid reason to join them).
• Of him, of it, of yours >> his X, its Y, your Z.
• The _A_ to the _B__ >> B’s A
• have to have >> need
• figure out where/what Q is >> find Q
• that
• that is/are/was/were

Progressive & paraphrastic tenses

• Along with was going to above, do we need “I was calling” or will “I called” suffice? (Not sure? Check out this discussion on progressive tenses.)

Stacked prepositions

Usually one of these is redundant.

• Out of (from?)
• Off of
• down on (write it down on, sit down on)
• over to
• Rephrasing to avoid prepositions–I gave the book to him. I gave him the book.

Evil phrases

These empty phrases don’t mean anything and just pad the word count. They can usually be cut:

• In order to >> to
• The fact that (cut)
• at this point

Null subjects

Null or dummy subjects are common in English, but they can create weak sentences:

• There was/were, It was, Those/These were
• There were four men in the room. Four men stood in/ringed the room.

Unnecessary subjects

This is very dependent on the genre and voice, but you might be able to get away with cutting unnecessary subjects, such as in dialogue. “Are you going to the party?” in real life might end up “You going?” or “Going to the party?”

Redundancy

• Nodded his head up and down
• shook his head no
• the driver in the front seat (obviously they sat in a seat)
• the smile on his face (where else do you smile?)

Semantically empty phrases

This is one of my favorite places to cut. I have a tendency to have a lot of commentary, shades of meaning, hints of backstory. That can be great, but it can also really start to weigh down the story. I try to look critically at a lot of these phrases. Can readers infer that if someone’s holding the elevator for the POV character, it’s “for me to catch up” (and cut those 5 words)? Do we need all of the info in “We weren’t planning on a Russian side trip when we packed, so our heavy winter gear is back home” or will “We didn’t pack for a Russian side trip” convey the message and the humor a lot better? (With 11 fewer words.)

One word or two

Use a dictionary you trust (I use Merriam-Webster Online) and check to see if you’ve got your words right. Is back seat one word or two? Back up? As a verb, adjective or noun?

POWER writing

This edit isn’t just to make the book shorter. I’m doing it to make the book stronger. Following Margie Lawson’s advice, I’m adding rhetorical devices and power words. I’m tweaking the cadence, moving words to more powerful positions and creating more vivid imagery. I have lists of rhetorical devices on my screen, chosen by what effect I’m going for in the scene.

Sometimes this adds words, sometimes it takes them away. To go back to my above example, I decided “side trip” was weak, and settled on “detour” instead—cutting another word and ending the paragraph on the more powerful alternative.

What do you think? What ways have you found to streamline and strengthen your writing?

(I didn’t allot time for writing this article. You’re welcome anyway.)

So, how do you figure out what you should be working on in a week, month, year? You’ve got to create your writing master plan. There are lots of great ways to do this, and of course you can use any method that works for you (just like in everything else with writing). I’ve been doing this for five years now–and I’ve done it for up to three years at a time. Here’s how I do it.

To get started you need:

• a decent idea of how long each phase of a project typically takes you (and how long it can take worst case)
• office supplies: post-it notes, paper, index cards, poster, whiteboard, magnets, whatever works for you. I’ve used a computer spreadsheet in the past. It’s very helpful if you can rearrange the various pieces, so post-its, cards or magnets are extra useful.
• a list of the major engagements/vacations/busy times of your year.
• a year calendar for reference.

Step one: brainstorm

As with any good writing project, at the beginning, we need IDEAS. First, on a piece of paper or on the computer, list all the projects you’re in the middle of, whether they’re active or not. (Projects you’ve truly abandoned don’t have to be on the list.) Drafting, revising, editing, polishing, publishing, wherever a current project falls, write those down on the list. Now, add projects that you know you want to (or need to) write—the next book(s) in your series, that shiny new idea you just got, the sekrit project that’s been simmering forever. Finally, add in a line or two (or more) for any shinier, newer ideas that might come along this year.

Step two: prioritize

We’ll be doing this a lot.

Next, pick out the most important projects to you: the ones you want to work on the most, the ones that make you happiest, the ones that have contracts and deadlines—however you define important. I typically pick three bigger projects per year (i.e., full-length novels: one to write, one to edit, one to publish) and three shorter projects, although sometimes I’ll change up the balance, fewer big projects and more small ones. If you can do more, GREAT! I always have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew, so I’m constantly coming back to my list and moving things to the next year. It kinda sucks.

Step 3: break it down
(dance break optional)

For each project that made it to your short list, break it down into its smaller project phases: drafting, revising, editing, querying/publishing. Each of these phases gets its own post-it or index card. These are the pieces that we want to be repositionable. It’s useful to write down how long you anticipate this phase taking (be generous, super super generous in giving yourself time for this!) It’s also helpful to color code these. I prefer to color code by project, with all my cards for one project the same color, but it might also work to color code them by phase. My pictures here aren’t color coded. Sad. One more tip here: you could also number them so you don’t forget you need to write a project before you edit it.

I feel like I work best in blocks: editing a whole project for a month or even two. You might work best changing your focus project every week. If that’s the case, you might want a card for each week of a project—for example, four drafting cards if you’ll spend four weeks drafting, six revision cards if you’ll spend six weeks revising, etc.

This year did not go the way I thought.

Step 4: make the calendar

On another piece of paper or surface, lay out the calendar. I’ve done this week by week for a year in a spreadsheet, or month by month on paper—in my bullet journal/planner, so it’s all ready. Once you’ve laid out the calendar, mark off any chunks of time you know you won’t be writing (much): vacations, conferences, events, work or family obligations. I don’t bother with the occasional day off here. Also add in any firm deadlines here. I like to put NaNoWriMo on my calendar.

The less you know about these big pieces of your schedule, the more leeway you’ll need in planning, of course.

Step 5: IT BEGINS AT THE END (with deadlines)

Now you can put your cards on your calendar! I start with the firm deadlines I’ve already written in and work backwards from there. If it’s a publishing date, when do I need to have the book to my editor to get it back in time for formatting? I need to be done with my edits by then, so I stick that post-it/card before that date, with time for betas in between (you can also have a card or post-it for sending a work to betas). Same with revisions—I give a window for beta readers and then place revisions before that. Be mindful of the events you’ve put in your schedule, of course.

Step 6: passion projects start at the beginning

Once my deadline project phases are all in position, my calendar is scary full, I prioritize my other projects. What do I want to work on the most? How long will the next phase of that project take? Where do I have time for that on my calendar? Here’s another spot where we want to make sure we keep the phases in order!

If you don’t have time for a given phase, can you move things around to make time for that? I try to move things earlier rather than make more pressure later. For example, maybe I have a month of revision on a deadline project and I stuck it in March, with betas in April and editing in May. I want to work on a project I love, but I need two months for its phase. I can move up revision on the deadline project into February, if there’s space, so I get two consecutive months to work on my “passion project.” Or I can break up that task.

Step 7: evaluate

Now comes the hard part: ask yourself if this is really a realistic amount for you to do in a given week or month. If it’s too much to manage in a month, you have too much to manage in a single year. So do I. This is another time to reprioritize.

In this step, I also look at whether I’m changing up tasks enough—four months in a row of a grueling level of editing, even if I’m changing projects, is a recipe for burnout. I try to change things up between drafting, revising and editing.

Also here, I make sure I’ve got either a phase or a project I really love as often as possible. Sometimes revision or editing can wear me down while drafting tends to fill me up in a different way, so I try to schedule drafting a couple times throughout the year. But that tends to pile up my editing projects, so if I can’t draft, I make sure I’m working on a passion project frequently.

Keep in mind that—unless you’re under contract—it’s okay to move projects off your calendar. When I was planning this year, I originally had six publication dates scheduled. I realized it would be impossible for me to work on my pet passion project if I ran to that schedule, so I pushed one of those books back a year. It hurt on some level, but I knew if I tried to keep up with my original schedule, I’d end up burned out or fall impossibly far behind, or both.

Step 8: record

Once you’ve got a reasonable calendar laid out, write it down. I did this with post-its for this year, so I took a picture, then peeled them off the months one at a time and wrote the text down. Now my year plan is safe in my planner (and on my phone).

You have a master writing plan!

Now what?

Once you’ve laid out your plan on this macro level, you can drill down to a “micro” level. After finishing my year plan this year, I immediately jumped into my January plan back at step 1. I took my list of things for the month from my master plan and “exploded” them into individual tasks. For example, if the project phase is drafting, you might explode that into three days of prewriting, and then X of words per day. If you’re revising, you might spend three days working on issue A, five days working on issue B, four days in a general readthrough, two days entering your notes, and a day (or a minute) sending it to betas. I made a list of these and any other tasks I might need to do this month for my business. Then I wrote them on post-its (still not color coded) and made up a 4×6 grid (four weeks, six days—on the seventh day, I rest). I worked backward from a deadline, then put other tasks into the gaps. I evaluated the plan, shuffled a couple things, then wrote it down (putting dates by the tasks in the original list). Voilà! My master plan has translated into a day-by-day goal list.

Various planner pages. Mostly showing off my new stamps…

But, like I said before, this article wasn’t on that list. So . . . I’d better get to work!

With three prequels, it can be hard to decide where to start the Spy Another Day series. I like to think think you can jump into the series with the first prequel novella Spy Noon (available exclusively on my mailing list), with the prequel novel Spy by Night (listed as #1 on Amazon), or with I, Spy, the original starting point for me and the series (now listed as #2 in the series).

If you’re the kind of reader who HATES spoilers and/or loves to read complete series, start with Spy Noon. If you’re the kind of reader who loves to get a little more insight into the characters you already know and love (even though you already know how the story might end), you can jump in with either Spy by Night or I, Spy.

The prequels, especially the novellas available exclusively on my mailing list, were written to show some fun backstory. Spy Noon covers when Talia meets her coworker Elliott (who figures heavily in I, Spy), and Mr. Nice Spy covers an event that happens fairly early on in Spy by Night, but MNS is from Elliott’s POV.

About the book

Saving her country from terrorists could cost Special Agent Molly Malone her heart.

If misfortune should ever follow you, may it never catch up.  — Old Irish Proverb

Molly Malone didn’t think things could get worse. Her first undercover assignment as a new FBI agent isn’t going well, and the Irish terrorists she’s trying to get close to won’t take the bait. To cement her cover, she’s forced to team up with her ex, Special Agent Zach Saint — and play an engaged couple in love. Swallowing her hurt and anger to salvage the mission is almost more than she can bear, but if she doesn’t, she’ll lose her chance to get close to the terrorists and confirm their plans. Her Irish luck alone won’t get her through this one, but can she put her life and heart in Zach’s keeping again?

Zach Saint doesn’t want Molly in the middle of danger, yet that’s exactly where he finds her. Determined to help, he agrees to a fake engagement where he can stay close and keep her safe. Events quickly spiral out of his control, however, when he realizes two things: his feelings for Molly never went away, and a lethal terrorist attack is imminent. Working together is difficult and learning to trust each other again nearly impossible. But, if they want to bring down the terrorists and have a chance at a future together, they’ll have to do both — and the clock is ticking.

A two-week in-depth class on character arcs I’m teaching through Savvy Authors!

Join me for Character Arcs: all dressed up and nowhere to grow starting Monday, April 17, 2017. We’ll be digging deep into creating our character’s internal journey of growth and showing it on the page, from backstory to beginning through the climax.

The course lasts two weeks and covers brand new material (even if you’ve been in previous character arcs classes and read my book!). Here’s the syllabus:

• Week 1—Building the arc
  • Discovering your character’s arc
  • Digging into your character’s past
  • Arcs for other characters (including antagonists & romantic interests)
• Week 2—Structuring the arc
  • Creating the “illustrating” incident
  • Two steps forward and one step back through the middle
  • The climax of the character arc

Cost: $35 ($25 for premium members of Savvy Authors). I hope you can join us!

Register now!

Photo credits: character arc logo—Ruth and Dave