I currently have a WIP I'm trying to cut down from around 15,000 to 10,000. When I look at the total amount, I find it daunting, so I tried to break it down. 5000 words cut from 75 pages is about 67 words per page. That target number is not so scary, and I have been busy trimming things down.
But that target number is wrong. (I'm trimming anyway, but as an intellectual exercise I realize the math doesn't work.) The problem is that as I cut, I'l have fewer pages.
So does anyone know the formula for reaching the correct target number?
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Traditional word count methods assumed two hundred fifty idealized words per full page Standard Manuscript Format, monospaced twelve point typeface (Courier New): twenty-five lines per page, ten idealized words per line, or 65 glyphs per line, includes alpha-numerals, punctuation, and word spaces.
Other typefaces, often default Times New Roman, skew page and word count estimates due to that is a journalism typeface that condenses page space consumption, is a proportionate typeface that kerns each glyph in proportion to its case and relationship to neighbor glyphs. And a given writer's diction and syntax also influence word count, by traditional methods and word processor counts. Times New Roman words per page vary as much a third more from Courier New SMF's traditional estimate methods.
If 15,000 words is a word processor count -- each software brand uses different algorithms and skews word counts low or high from SMF estimate methods. Word count's function is for an estimate of publication page space consumed. Measures and estimation methods differ for book publication and periodical publication, and vary from publisher to publisher. Ten thousand words submission guidelines assumes a periodical publication. Periodicals traditionally used column inches measures rather than pages. Word processor counts, though, are anymore the measure of choice for many, most, or all publishers, irrespective of book or periodical publication.
A baseline formula is: word processor count divided by 250 equals typescript pages Courier New typeface SMF. A bald estimate of 15,000 words to SMF page count yields sixty pages; 10,000 words yields forty pages. 75 pages draft? Much white space; that would likely be cut from periodical publication format. MS Word might or might not count some of the white space as words. WordPerfect does not.
The word count sum difference equals 5,000 5,000 ÷ 15,000 = 0.33...
Math check per traditional count method: 15,000 ÷ 250 = 60 pages SMF 10,000 ÷ 250 = 40 pages SMF Sum = 20 pages to cut 20 ÷ 60 pages = 0.33... (1/3rd)
250 words per SMF page × 0.33 = 82.5 cut words per page average
Though, 75 pages × 0.33 = 24.75 fewer pages, about fifty pages yield. Or 15,000 ÷ 75 = 200 words per page average; 200 × 0.33 = 66 or 67 cut words per page
Several pages may afford more cut words, and several pages may afford fewer cut words. For what this is worth: a best practice is to save an original draft and edit a copy, in case cut content is wanted later. ---- Edit Added
Rather than edit to a word count by numbers, perhaps edit for superfluous words? Cut wordiness: adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, trite idioms, to be verbs, progressive tenses and gerunds, run-ons, passive and static voice; simplify though preserve concise, robust, and dynamic emotional expression.
For example, wordy, and all the above:
_Speculations of a wild blue sky_ imagination _and a very dear and so clever mind for_ her _was going to be no-brainer thinking to get into_ a writing workshop.
Vivid imagination compelled her fiction workshop acceptance.
Two-thirds cut.
[ April 02, 2019, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :
quote:Originally posted by babooher: But that target number is wrong. (I'm trimming anyway, but as an intellectual exercise I realize the math doesn't work.) The problem is that as I cut, I'l have fewer pages. [/QB]
At this point you don't have fewer pages; you have the same number of pages, each shorter by NN words. Once you reach The End, THEN repaginate, and now you have fewer pages but each with the original per-page wordcount.
Easy trims come from stuff like:
should be able to vs could (what is usually meant)
proved to be a mess vs proved a mess (one less layer for the reader to parse)
and where a weak verb or weak descriptive required further explanation, to fill in what the weak word could not, frex:
He carefully placed his hands and feet on the narrow ledge, moving his arms and legs like a spider vs He spidered along the narrow ledge (real example)
the panel made of glass moved inward with a grating noise vs the glass panel grated inward. (another real example)
Usually when you feel the need to add a qualifier, like "with a grating noise" or "in a loud voice" that's a redflag that a weak description got patched with a bunch of wobble words.
Raw drafts often contain enough of these wobble-words that a casual cleanup-edit nukes 20% of the wordcount.
Also, if you get all the way to the end of a chunk of dialog, then tack on _he said_ -- well, if you could wait that long to inform us who spoke, the dialog tag wasn't needed anyway.