The Case for Shrinking Your Novel

Today’s post is by author and book coach Amy L. Bernstein.

Some novelists are capable of writing deeply satisfying doorstoppers that exceed 100,000 words and hold a reader’s interest all the way through.

But many of us, even the most committed big-world fantasy writers, can’t pull that off.

It’s tempting to believe that as your draft tips the scales at 90,000 words or more and you still haven’t reached the end, the verbiage is a sign that you’re digging deep into your characters,  building tension and suspense, and generally offering the reader an immersive and nuanced experience.

All of that may be true! But alas, quite often, it isn’t true.

It’s a struggle to maintain tight pacing, plotting, or pithy dialogue across such a sprawling canvas. As our word count balloons, we bog the reader down with extraneous characters, lengthy backstory, long sub-plot digressions, and boatloads of telling rather than showing.

This is a common challenge facing first-time novelists; over-writing comes with the territory. And self-publishing can be an enabling force whenever an author chooses not to hire an editor who’s bound to suggest that they cut, cut, cut!

Over-writing is also a symptom of creative self-doubt. You don’t trust yourself or your reader to pick up clues, read between the lines, or to suspend disbelief as the tale unfolds unless you cram in every single detail you can think of. When writers lack confidence in their ability to communicate clearly, writing more can feel like the only way to get the job done.

In any case, writing too long isn’t only a novice’s problem. My sixth novel weighed in at about 96,000 words when I submitted it to my publisher. That felt about right to me, given the scope of the dystopian science fiction I was telling.

But I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong!

As my major push to revise the manuscript progressed, I lopped off roughly 8,000 words. You might think that a cumulative cut that deep would make the novel bleed out—to wound its beating heart so grievously, the story could not survive.

Nope.

Believe it or not, I wrote a number of new scenes and still managed to cut back on verbiage.

To state the obvious: It’s all about what you write, not how much you write. Quality over quantity—and making every word, every idea, earn its place on the page.

The revision process has been a powerful journey of discovery for me as a writer. I’m sharing five newfound insights about ruthlessly cutting my manuscript—and why that’s a good thing. (For the sake of brevity and clarity, the examples are not from my novel.)

1. Stop telling the reader what they already know

In scene after scene, I was interrupting dialogue exchanges and action scenes to offer a post-mortem on what the reader already knows, is learning, or at least suspects. I didn’t need to pile on by explicitly stating the character’s emotional state or interpret what had just unfolded. If your POV is clear and reveals character, and the dialogue is doing its job, you don’t need to add much, if any, commentary that amounts to telling, not showing. 

“I can’t come with you,” Elizabeth said. She was filled with apprehension, desperately worried about what the future might hold. “We’ll never work out, you and I.”

“You don’t mean that. You’re just scared.” George took her hand.

2. Cut scenes that don’t serve the story, the pacing, or the protagonist

There’s usually far more excess baggage in your manuscript than you realize. For example, scenes that unfold in real-time, e.g., minute-by-minute, have their place, but if every scene is this granular, the pacing may come to a grinding halt. Summarize where you can, immerse the reader where you must.

George turned on his computer and opened a new document. He stared at a blank screen for at least 10 minutes, willing the jumble of thoughts in his head to cohere into the love letter he had to write to Elizabeth, telling her how much he truly needed her and how he couldn’t imagine a future without her by his side.

To take another example, supporting characters need to earn their place in the story: Do they foil the protagonist? Set plot twists in motion? Ratchet up tension? Function as lover, villain, threat, emotional touchpoint? If you can’t justify their role as a story device, eliminate them—or at least, don’t let them hog the stage.

Elizabeth’s Great Aunt Adelaide had once told her that if she went looking for love, she was sure to find trouble. Adelaide, who died years ago, was a feisty spinster who dressed like a flapper well into her 90s and smoked cigars on the verandah of her nursing home. She spoke her mind and didn’t care what anyone thought of her. Adelaide had a point.

3. Get rid of an overly intrusive narrator

A strong narrative voice can function like a main character, but when that voice tips over into commentary too often and at great length, you’re either writing a deeply literary novel that privileges ideas over plot, or you’re getting in your own way.

I want a strong narrative voice in my novel (commercial rather than literary), but I need to pick and choose the moments where that voice should shine—and it’s not on every page. Recognize the distinction between essential explication that puts the reader in the scene and unnecessary pontification. (Cut the latter!)

The fire was raging now, the timbers breaking and crashing one after another. Soon, the house would be reduced to a pile of smoldering ash. What is it about fire that makes it impossible to look away even as its terrifying power consumes everything in its path? Are we forever paying homage to fire as the life-empowering force our ancestors discovered? Elizabeth and George watched from the street, helpless, as their future burned to the ground.

4. Trim nonessential internal dialogue

Main characters should reveal their inner lives (unspoken thoughts) from time to time, especially if that contributes to conflict and complex motivations. But I was overdoing this to the point that passages of internal dialogue were not revelatory. Nobody wants to hear everything going on inside anybody’s head (in life or in fiction), so you need to choose these moments wisely. I was providing too much low-stakes and/or redundant internal thought. Note that I cut all but the last line of internal dialogue, below—because that gets to the crux of George’s compelling thought in this scene.

For weeks after the fire, George didn’t see or speak to Elizabeth. He was processing the aftermath on his own and figured she was doing the same. Then she called out of the blue at six in the morning.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “You?”

“Slept like a baby, if you must know.” Why would she call now, at this hour? She must want something, but what? So typical of her—assuming the whole world feels whatever she’s feeling. Maybe it’s really over between us.

5. Don’t allow wordy sentences to bog you down

I was fairly appalled to recognize how wordy many of my sentences were. I habitually used 15 words where 10 would do. The pace can really pick up quite a bit when extraneous words (especially adjectives and narrated movements), passive voice, and unnecessary dialogue tags disappear. Note how the less wordy version of this scene focuses the reader on its emotional center, keeps us in close-third with Elizabeth, and the other details aren’t missed.

Wordy Version:

It was on the tip of Elizabeth’s tongue to tell George that she really didn’t mean what she’d said—the dreaded “L” word!—and she hoped he’d pretend he never heard it.

“I take that back!” she blurted, far more loudly than she intended. Heck, she might’ve scared the birds out of the trees! And strangers on the street did actually stare as they walked by.

“Okay, Okay,” George said, as he took a step back from her and then gave her a wry smile, his eyes twinkling.

Tighter Version:

“I take it back!” Elizabeth hadn’t meant to let the “L” word slip. She’d blurted it out without thinking.

George smiled wryly. “It’s okay.”

Was it okay? Or was this the moment he would begin to pull back?

Reading ready-made examples like these, it’s easy to spot the flaws and appreciate the revisions. But when it comes to doing this in your own work—away from an unbiased editor’s red pen—then the task is tricky.

While there is no sure-fire way to learn how to self-edit, I believe one of the secrets is to understand your story inside-out first. That is, lock down the act structure, the protagonist’s journey, the stakes and obstacles, and all the key scenes (the so-called tent poles that propel the plot through twists, reversals, and big plot points).

Once you really know how the story flows, you’re ready to tell that story—and tell it better.

I rewrote and revised my novel at least four times over two years or so before I reached the point where I could see the problems caused by excess verbiage.

Writing is indeed a process filled with discoveries, mistakes, steps taken backwards and forwards. Revising inevitably makes you question your competence, your choices, your publishing dreams, and whether you shouldn’t have skipped breakfast.

It will drive you crazy. But that’s half the fun. The other half is finally arriving at the finishing line, knowing that you wrote (and rewrote) the best book you possibly could.

Amy L. Bernstein

Amy L. Bernstein’s latest book is Wrangling the Doubt Monster: Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration, shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize. Her new novel, Seed, will be published by Running Wild Publishing in 2027. Amy teaches writing and creativity workshops and brings an empowering message to writers and multi-media artists around the world. Her weekly Substack, Doubt Monster, explores the realities of living a creative life. Learn more at amywrites.live.