Welcome back for our midsummer edition of Keep Writing—although we use the term “summer” very loosely here at KW since the sun has apparently decided to boycott Alaska this year and treat us to three months of cold rain instead. Spare us your popsicles, your flip-flops, your gingham picnic blankets and fringed beach umbrellas; we’ll be over here shivering in our galoshes. If you’re new here, warm welcomes to you: Please help yourself to the barrel of free umbrellas and cozy up by the Crock-Pot of split-pea soup in the corner. We have a good old-fashioned, nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts craft piece for you today that focuses on revision, but if more general essays about writing are more your speed, a relative feast awaits you in the archives.
For all our outlines and good intentions, at some point every writer will be faced with an inevitable truth: They have written something far too large and sprawling for its maximum word count. They are trying to park an RV in a space designed for a Mini Cooper. They are attempting to wedge a sectional sofa into a tiny studio apartment. They have arrived at a raft race with a five-star Below Deck-style yacht. They are trying to pilot the Ever Given down the Suez Canal.
At this point, a writer has two options beyond flailing, panicking, and moving to Antarctica. They may realize, with the heaviest of hearts, that the vessel does not suit its lane: They are trying to compress a book into an article, a memoir into an essay, a novel into a short story, an ode into a haiku.
Or they may sharpen their razors and begin to cut.
Word count maximums are a funny boundary in an art form, and one many writers understandably bristle at. They often feel less like guiding bumpers in a bowling lane as much as a pair of too-tight trousers, preventing us from moving and breathing freely. Who is someone else to tell us how long our poem, essay, story, or book should be? Shouldn’t we, the writer, get to decide if a narrative wants to be 3,000 words or 30,000? Why must we adhere to an arbitrary word count in order to publish our stories?
And I see both sides, having worn both an editor’s and writer’s hat over the years. From a writer's and a reader’s perspective, I hate that average word counts dictate much of book-length publishing.
A brief aside for those unfamiliar: manuscripts in traditional publishing are generally expected to be within a set word count range as dictated by the book’s genre. So while young adult (YA) novels can be as short as 50,000 words and sci-fi/fantasy (SFF) can range as high as 125,000, for example, the odds of a writer publishing a non-SFF YA novel at 125,000 words or a fantasy epic as short as 50,000 words are low—even if those are the ideal lengths for the writer’s story.
So if a writer does wind up with a tight 50,000-word SFF novel or a lingering 125,000-word YA novel, only a few options remain:
A.) Self-publish.
B.) Seek publication at a small press—one that specializes in SFF novellas, perhaps, or turns a blind eye to longer word counts.
C.) Pad or cut the story until it meets the demands of the traditional publishing market.
As a fan of both tight novellas and sprawling epics, it is painful to consider the number of stories edged out of traditional publishing purely by the nature of their word count—especially those written by voices who have historically been edged out of traditional publishing already.
But publishing is a business, and publishers do have a duty to try to please their customers, aka their readers, who all come to a given genre with set expectations. A romance reader generally expects a shorter read than a SFF one; a thriller fan expects a faster-paced story than a literary fiction one.
And as an industry, publishers also have a duty to watch their bottom line. A long epic costs more money to print and is often a harder sell to busy, time-pressed readers. And a novella is hard to sell at a high enough price point to make a profit since readers are loathe to spend typical novel prices on a work a third of a novel’s length.
Literary magazines face similar challenges. There are only so many pages in an issue, only so many volunteer hours in a day. If a journal’s staff does not have space—either physically or mentally—to consider works over a set word count, they will say so in their submission guidelines and spare writers the trouble of submitting. Unfortunately, this makes the publishing path even more difficult for those sitting on a 10,000-word or 15,000-word work, lengths that are often too long for most journals and too short for longer-form publishing.
We—myself very much included— generally tell writers to choose the story length that best fits the narrative instead of worrying obsessively about what the market dictates. I stand by that advice because I don’t know that butchering something down to size or padding it with fluff will ever help a writer sleep any easier at night. If we can’t control the market, if we can’t control the reactions of agents, editors, and readers, the least we can do is put out work we’re proud of.
So if your narrative really wants to be a yacht, let it be a yacht; don’t force it to be a dinghy. If your slick Ski-Doo really wants to be a Ski-Doo, don’t paste on so many bells and whistles it begins to sink.
But sometimes, too, we find ourselves with a work that is so close to being what we need it to be. A yacht will never become a dinghy, but a rowboat certainly can. Maybe we have a station wagon that needs to be a sedan, perhaps, or a double bicycle that only needs to carry one. This is the kind of cutting that requires a steady hand on the scalpel: dangerous work indeed, but still entirely doable.
These are the kind of cuts I love making, when we whittle our work down into its truest essence. And these are the kind of cuts I can help with—not trying to butcher a memoir into an essay, but rather trying to turn a ballooning narrative into a more manageable one.
When it comes to trimming excess at the sentence level, I have a short list of ten tools to add to your editing arsenal:
Make the big scene/section cuts first. Let your manuscript sit untouched for as long as your deadline allows, and then read with a careful eye for what big chunks need to be jettisoned first. There’s no sense in micro-editing a sentence that will ultimately end up on the cutting-room floor, so do as much of this as you can before fiddling with line edits. Because...
Every single sentence in your draft will need to stand trial. Once your bigger cuts are made, it’s time to hyper-focus on each word. There is no skipping ahead, no pressing fast-forward on sentences you love. Each one must have something to offer readers, and each one probably has something that can be culled, too.
Verb is the word that will make your drafts sing. Seeing subjects in action—watching what they do—is the fastest way to know them. Verbs are the strongest tool we wield to show readers motion and action. Interrogate each one to make sure it bears the weight of each sentence. Use your find tools (ctrl+f, or cmnd + f if you’re fancy) relentlessly throughout this process. Search for “to” and “be,” “is” and “are.” And see if verbs can take the place of adjectives, adverbs, or clauses. We are running to the grocery store as fast as we can becomes we sprint to the grocery store. The old truck sounds like it’s about to die as it pulls into the parking lot becomes The truck sputters and coughs as it rattles into the parking lot.
Similarly, watch for explainers that become unnecessary in context. If you immediately describe a wilting produce section after we sprint to the grocery store, “grocery” may become unnecessary—the reader figures out what kind of store we’re in based on the details you provide (which is more satisfying for readers to boot). If a woman is crying, we do not need to be told she is sad; if we see fidgeting and trembling hands, we do not need to be told a job candidate is nervous. Have faith in readers to follow the trail of breadcrumbs you provide. Hold each clue up to the light: Do readers need to know this? Can they figure this out based on what you’ve already provided?
Replace pronouns with stronger words (or delete them entirely). She runs her hands nervously along the steering wheel can become She runs unsteady hands along the steering wheel. In the previous paragraph, I changed Have faith in your readers... to Have faith in readers. Pronouns are a valuable tool in clarifying subjects or avoiding repetition, but sometimes they weigh down a sentence instead of boosting it.
Mind! Those! Adverbs! Why is this writing advice repeated ad nauseam? Because it’s good advice. Would you rather have Hortensia say something “angrily” or have her scream it? Would you rather she “walk home happily” or “skip?” These are easy cuts to make if you have a strong verb on hand to replace them.
In fiction: Replace dialogue tags with actions.
“I still don’t know if I should take the job,” she said, twirling the telephone cord around her finger. “What do you think?”
Can easily become:
“I still don’t know if I should take the job.” She twirled the telephone cord around her finger. “What do you think?”In nonfiction: Let the quote stand on its own. Resist the temptation to provide a lengthy introduction or summary for a source’s quote. If it isn’t strong enough to stand alone without plenty of padding, ask yourself if it’s strong enough to stay in your story.
Embrace the sentence fragment. A mix of short, medium, and long sentences can provide the rhythm and texture that make a draft sing. Don’t be afraid to make your short sentences even shorter, even if it technically breaks the rules of grammar you learned in grade school. Doing so can make a sentence sound punchier, terser, friendlier, or more conversational, depending on the sentence. She’d already made four bean dips by the time we arrived. It was classic Mom can become: She’d already made four bean dips by the time we arrived. Classic Mom. Another example: Everyone’s head turned to look at her. Their mouths opened as their forks stilled and knives clattered might be improved by changing it to: Everyone’s head turned. Jaws dropped. Forks stilled. Knives clattered.
Weigh your list of threes. Writers are enamored with lists of threes for good reason: They draw a neat triangle around our subject, fully fleshing them out. They paint a full picture. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. It’s tempting to describe a yard with a lawn chair, a kiddy pool, and a fleet of plastic pink flamingoes. Or a bull moose with a mangy coat, a scarred flank, and a broken left antler. But sometimes our love for a list of three outweighs a narrative’s actual need for it. Many moose have mangy coats; what is most interesting about this bull moose is its broken left antler. The lawn chair in the yard is not as compelling as the fleet of pink flamingoes. Sometimes a list of three is required to paint a subject in its richest, fullest, most three-dimensional light; other times—especially when we are describing a minor component of a story—we must have the courage to lean on one carefully chosen detail and trust that it will say enough.
Cutting is never easy and rarely pleasant. But it is strangely freeing in its own way, to see our crisp, shortened sentences take flight without the weight of our own excesses to bog them down.
This month’s extra-credit exercise: Take a draft you’ve been toying with and see if you can cut it by 15 percent. (It will likely require multiple passes with a brutal red pen to reach your goal, and that’s to be expected.) Sit on it for a few days and then read it again, adding back any cut details or words you acutely miss. Then check your final word count again, compare it with the original, and marvel at all the excess you managed to trim without noticing what was lost. Treasure how fresh and potent this draft feels in your hands; how visceral and pointed the language has become; how urgent and timely it seems now that it only speaks its most pressing truths.
Until next month—
Keep writing,
Nicki
August 2023 calls for submissions
You know the drill, dear readers: Not only do we have a gracious plenty of themed calls for the month of August below, but several July calls from last month’s newsletter are still open for your perusing pleasure as well.
This month’s listings in brief
Spotlight: Block Party Magazine: “Home” submissions
About Place Journal: Submissions on “The More-Than-Human World”
Cowboy Jamboree Press: Submissions inspired by Willie Nelson
Spotlight Pick: Special double edition!
After all that talk of novellas above, how could I not spotlight a call for novella submissions? But since I know not everyone here has a polished, finished novella lurking on their hard drive, I’ve also included a broader call for submissions that deal with the theme of “Home.”
Here’s the first deadline:
Block Party Magazine: “Home” submissions
“Straighten the paintings, sweep the porch, and welcome us HOME in Block Party’s 5th issue,” editors encourage. “HOME is your first apartment with the broken locks, the friend who ties your laces, the songs you sing in the car. HOME is where you fit, where you can kick your shoes off and feel wrapped in warmth.” Send up to 100 lines of poetry or 2500 words of fiction/CNF. Payment is $10; submissions are free.
Deadline: Aug. 15
And now the second:
University of Tampa Press: Novellas!
Feel more like a novella-ist than a novelist? Send manuscripts between 15,000 and 40,000 words to the University of Tampa Press for consideration in the press’ new novella series. All genres are welcome, including speculative. While the work may contain previously published excerpts, the manuscript in full should be unpublished. Decisions will be made within roughly 8 weeks of submission. No submission fees.
Deadline: Aug. 31
Good luck with both, brave submitters!
About Place Journal: Submissions on “The More-Than-Human World”
For its next issue, editors of About Place are asking for submissions on “The More-Than-Human World:” “For most of history, we as humans have used plants and animals just as we saw fit, and how we’ve used them in art and literature is no exception...But what if we decenter ourselves and write instead to get a sense of a more-than-human being, each entirely complex and individual, real and breathing now? What if we don’t just write about them but for them, seeking to accurately depict their struggles and joys by fostering a literature (and even literacy) of non-human beings?” Send up to 3 pieces for both poetry (maximum: 50 lines each) and prose (maximum: 4,000 words each).
Deadline: Aug. 1
The Amphibian Literary Journal: “Haunted” submissions
The Amphibian is a literary journal “for the culturally amphibious.” “Our main inspirations are the thoughts and impressions of people who write in English and live in two cultures at once,” editors explain. “There is no limit on how you experience two cultures, it can be countries, gender, language, ancestors, neuro-divergence, any way that you experience your difference and explore it using the themes of the issues.” The theme for the next issue is “Haunted.” Send up to three poems of any length “within reason” or short stories/flash up to 2,000 words.
Deadline: Aug. 1
Dipity Literary Magazine: Poems about antiques
Got an interesting antique in your midst? Consider writing a poem about it for Dipity’s “Antiques Roadship” series. Send up to three poems about an antique you’ve personally acquired. Submitters should also provide a brief backstory on each poem’s item as well as a few photos of the antique. All styles are welcome, but submissions should focus on only one antique per poem rather than a collection of antiques (although it’s fine if multiple poems are about the same item).
Deadline: Aug. 1
Grimoire: Submissions starring “Stone Cold Bitches”
Grimoire, “an online literary publication of the dark arts,” publishes one themed issue each year of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, art, and more. This year’s theme is “Medusa: The Stone Cold Bitches Issue” and the editors’ many cited examples of such “femme-presenting antiheroes” include Merricat from Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Beyonce’s Lemonade, sirens, snow queens, revenge ghosts, femme fatales, Bunny by Mona Awad and Beloved by Toni Morrison, Lady Macbeth, and “burning your ex inside of a bear.” No restrictions on poetry, but prose should be less than 4,500 words. No submission fees.
Deadline: Aug. 1
Creation Magazine: “A Heatwave Issue”
Creation Magazine’s heatwave-themed summer issue will “focus on intense passion, ranging from romance to solar flares, through the compelling lens of literature, art and photography,” editors explain. Send fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, literature analysis, art, interviews, and hybrid works. No submission fees.
Deadline: Aug. 6
Cowboy Jamboree Press: Submissions inspired by Willie Nelson
Send stories, poems, and creative nonfiction inspired by Willie Nelson, especially Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger album, for consideration in this upcoming anthology from Cowboy Jamboree Press. No submission fees and no word count maximums that I can find.
Deadline: Aug. 15
History Through Fiction: Historical short fiction
Send historical fiction under 4,000 words to the independent press History Through Fiction for consideration in their first annual Short Story Contest. Any historical setting is welcome as long as the story is set before the year 2,000. Stories will be judged on six factors: theme/message, historical relevance, character/plot/setting, narration/POV, writing mechanics, and overall impact/quality. Grand prize is $200, a podcast interview, a Pushcart Prize nomination, a custom cover design, and publication in History Through Fiction’s “Member-only Content Area.” The second- and third-place winners will receive publication in the same member-only section in addition to $100 plus a written interview (for second place) or a $50 gift card to bookshop.org (for third). There is a $9 submission fee, although all submitters will receive a written evaluation of their submission as well as a code to access the member-only area to read the winners plus a 25% discount for novels sold via History Through Fiction’s online store.
Deadline: Aug. 15
Free the Verse: “Do You Smell Burning?” poems
The theme for the quarterly poetry magazine Free the Verse’s next issue asks, “Do You Smell Burning?” Send up to three poems as well as a brief third-person bio. No submission fees.
Deadline: Aug. 29
Deep Overstock: “Knots” submissions
Send works relating to “knots” to Deep Overstock for consideration in their 22nd issue. All genres are welcome, but for prose, editors “strongly prefer” pieces under 3,000 words, “especially flash fiction under 1,000 words.” Send one to two pieces of fiction (three if under 1,000 words) or up to seven poems. No submission fees.
Deadline: Aug. 31
Inkd Publishing: “Betrayal” genre fiction
For the next installment of its “Hidden Villain” anthology series, this press wants speculative fiction (fantasy, sci-fi, etc.) that features a betrayal of some kind. “We encourage you to weave the theme into an engaging story with well-developed characters and deep emotion,” editors note. Also: “Suspense and thrillers are encouraged over horror for this anthology, but a great horror story will rise to the top.” Send one unpublished story ranging from 2,000 to 8,000 words. Payment is $.02 per word plus Draft 2 Digital royalty shares. U.S. contributors will also receive a paperback copy; international copies will receive “at least a digital copy,” depending on shipping costs to the contributor’s home country.
Deadline: Aug. 31
No Bad Books Press: LGBTQ+ Alice in Wonderland stories
The upcoming anthology Queens in Wonderland will feature LGBTQ+ stories with an Alice in Wonderland theme. Stories should be 1,500 to 5,000 words. Payment is $20 and a digital copy of the anthology; physical copies will be sold to contributors at cost. No submission fees.
Deadline: Aug. 31