Fighting the flab

How big should your novel be?

I don't want to get bogged down on this as different genres tolerate different sizes. It also depends on both publisher and the author. (Note how each Harry Potter novel was fatter than the last.) Fantasy--which often run to three volumes (I blame Prof Tolkien)-- and historical sagas tolerate a fatter word-count. Then again, the thick tome you pick up in the bookshop may in fact be a cracking read; the pages  turn quickly and pleasurably. Whereas that slim, elegant volume may be written in dense prose that reading it is akin to wading through custard. (Not that I've ever tried.) I remember once wailing to an editor that I found it hard to write a novel of less than 100,000 words. She said that although I 'wrote long, I read quick.' Ungrammatical it may have been but I understood what she meant. I write historical fiction in which I aim for no more than 120,000 words but I long to write something lean and spare in under 80,000. (I have been a size 16 for decades which, although is not too bad considering I'm quite tall, I would love to be size 12, but it ain't gonna happen. Not now.) In other words we have to accept what kind of writer we are and what we're writing.

Having said that, I have yet to read an unpublished manuscript that couldn't have been improved considerably by being pared down considerably. As I keep saying, there's nothing wrong with first drafts being flabby. It's inevitable as you get everything you want to say in the novel down on paper. It's great to find that you've written a full length novel of say, 95,000 words with a beginning a middle and an end, full of strong characters and a compelling plot. Pour yourself a big glass of champagne or something stronger. That's quite an achievement, believe me. Most people find writing a short thank you letter to great-aunt Maud for her hand-knitted socks a slog. Come to think of it, I still do.

Don't start editing immediately. You'll be eager to do so and set out with gusto to make sure Jane doesn't morph into Joan or Dave ends up in Winchester and not Manchester, seeking out those missing quotation marks and finding and replacing those words you can't help over-using such as just and really. Don't. Leave those until later. 


Most flab I find in manuscript I crit is down to repetitions. I read one a while back where a 40 year old women with three teen-aged children finds out she's pregnant. Let's call her Rita. She is happy enough in herself to be pregnant because she's a maternal woman with a stable happy marriage but she's worried that her husband won't want another mouth to feed and the children will find it gross and embarrassing. She also had just decided to branch out in a new career. It's coming to terms with her pregnancy that forms the core of the novel. So far, so good. Only on every page we get Rita worrying about the same things over and over again. It's not that she doesn't do anything. She does and the story moves forward, albeit at a snail's pace. The ting is that before she does or says everything the writer has to remind us how worried she is and even more annoying, why. Every time she talks to her son she imagines what his reaction will be, every time she sees her lovely daughter cooing to her new boyfriend on her mobile, she worries what the boyfriend will think when he trips over a houseful of toys and a pram in the hall etc etc. It was as if the writer is afraid the reader might forget This Very Important Problem.

I know I've mentioned this before but repetition is the curse of too many manuscripts. Don't be too heavy handed so that readers haven't a clue what the problem is. Keep it clear and sharp.  I reckon on average you can shed several thousand words this way that can be replaced by something different, even a sub-plot to give the end result more texture and depth.

Another are of flabbiness is that scenes go on for too long. Once a scene has done its job: pin-pointed a change in circumstances, dropped another spanner in the works or introduced another piece of vital information, move on. Don't dwell on it to Make Sure We Get the Point.

The reason doctors bang on to their patients about losing weight is not the current media obessession with skinniness. (That's another matter entirely.) It's because, the more excess fat a person carries , the more medical problems will ensure--from joint pain to high blood pressure. And whilst I hate bony androgynous girls, too much fat is not attractive too look at. Although I don't want to push the metaphor too far, a manuscript that is light on its feet, lithe and subtle is far more readable and therefore more likely to be published. Tough but true.

I'm now beginning to repeat myself, which shows how easy it is to do, especially when we want to make a point. Job done. I'm off.