McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Cutting with a hatchet!
KevinEvans:
Sigh,
This perhaps should go in the angst corner, but it involves writing.
We have finished an entry in to a short story contest, (near future, space exploration stuff) Story came out about 16K words, contest size limit is 8K words.....
Cutting every other word sounds funny.... We are down to about 12K but are still swinging the hatchet. We have already scrutinized every word for it's ability to advance the story, trimmed interesting but nonessential plot lines, and are in the process of sweating down each paragraph to it' optimum size. Our biggest worry is squeezing the life out of the story, that is trying to keep a poblano chili from tasting like tofu. any ideas?
For those interested, the contest is here;
http://www.ralan.com/contests/listings/baenmem08.htm
Note; If we cant get a story that fits the first contest our backup is this one,
http://www.heinleinsociety.org/contest.html
Regards,
Kevin
KevinEvans:
Now down to 8300 words....
does any one know what is standard for a word counter?
Kevin and Karen
Murphy's Stunt Double:
Holy Jiminy! :o I wouldn't have thought you could chop a story practically in half and still have it make sense.
If I remember from my typing class days, a "word" is standard 5 characters. Not sure if that helps you or not.
AverageGuy:
Manuscript, a word is five letters plus a space. Courier new, right unjustified, double spaced, gives you I think about two hundred fifty words a page (with adjustments for any breaks/lines you skip). But don't hold me to that. Word probably counts every group of letters, so "a" is a word, but so is "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis."
meg_evonne:
I was told that editors, agents etc used the official microsoft word count as standard.
Good for you for the axe, but I'd probably have said----no way and found another contest! So more power to both of your for your determination! I hope you win!
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