Cutting

So, I have this story, see...

;-)

Don't we all!

This one, "Nightingale," is an adaptation of a less-familiar Grimm tale, Jorinda and Joringel. The problem is that it rounds out at more than 11,000 words. Have you ever tried to sell a story that long? If so then you're feeling my frustration. Most markets don't even consider works over 5000 words, let alone 10,000, and I've pretty much exhausted the potential markets that might be interested in an 11,000 word story. So I have to cut. I have no choice.

The good news is, I feel like the story holds enough potential material to develop it into a novel, which I'm working on. The bad news is that I'd really like to sell the short story, too. Which means I have to cut.

But it's such a good story! Wow! It's a good story. I keep leaving it aside to let it steep awhile, then coming back to it and reading it and thinking, "Did I really write this?" (Remember the bit about me compartmentalizing information?)

So I'm beginning the process of cutting.

So far I've only managed to cut token bits--an average of 10 or 12 words per page, when I really need to be averaging 30 per page in order to cut it enough to bring it down below that magic 10,000 word mark.

So, here are a couple of links to some good articles/blogs on cutting:
http://www.writersdigest.com/articles/trenga_nix_those_nominalizations.asp
http://www.freivald.org/~jake/cutting_blog/index.html