Smallerizing

Last time we talked, we were in the midst of embiggening Son of Music Novel. As of last night we’re switching to the shrink ray. We already looked at the work on a macro level and decided that there were no entire scenes that were superfluous, so Jen started on page one, working line-by-line to tighten things up. Kent has a few pieces of side-work to finish up, then he’ll make his own pass through in Jen’s wake and see what further fat there is to trim.

With two of us working, this part of the process can be a bit tedious. Every change gets marked for approval, no matter how minor. That’s not how every writing team operates, but it’s how we like to work. We enjoy the discussions it sparks. At least usually.

We’ve set ourselves a target — we’d like to get this beast down to 150,000 words. Is that feasible? It’s hard to say at this stage. What we do know is that this editing pass won’t be the last one. After surgery the patient will rest while we turn our attention to a different project, then later we’ll come back for another attack, this time with finer tools.

A good writing partner is someone you like spending quarantine time with.