Monday 10 October 2016

I Have Become Death, Destroyer of Words


As a writer, the general aim of the game tends to be to write words- ‘gasp’ what a revelation. And that’s always how it’s been over the years. However, I have become the antithesis of such a mind-blowing concept. I have spent the last few months killing words.

This all came about when I submitted the sequel to The Book of Prophecy to the publishers and it didn’t go so well. The biggest issue was the waffle and too much time spent inside the mind of characters. It was time to correct this mistake. So I put on my psychopathic clown-face (check me being relevant to the news) and went on a word killing spree.

I slaughtered 30,000 words from the 155,000 and was pretty shocked at how that can occur. I guess I put it down to how I like to be very descriptive of thoughts and emotions. Yet, this just slows down the story and is really tedious and over the top. Lesson learned (I hope). When that killing spree was over I decided to look at some older work and have dropped 14,000 from a 94,000 piece.

It’s tough having the blood of so many innocent words on my hands and it feels counterproductive on the surface, but it's actually so important. The pace and style of a story is paramount and I think I’m finally learning the skills to keep content streamlined by cutting out the ‘ghafla.’ *Dune reference alert*

As always, I guess only time will tell if my massacring is of value.

In other news, I was at Gloucester Comic-Con this weekend selling books for http://www.grimboldbooks.com/ and it was a very enjoyable experience. It was lovely to chat to so many people who were enjoying the Con. To see such happiness and joy in a place where people can be themselves was wonderful. A massive thank you to all those who came and said hello and who purchased books.

The next Con will be Bristol Writers Con on the 29th. Until then, it will be killing more words, mwhahahahaaaaaaa!

(Sobs inside at having to slay them all, but their sacrifice will not be forgotten)