Clip, Clip Here: Pruning Your Word Count by Kathy Halsey

[Disclaimer: All GROG posts this week come to you while many of us are at the WOW Retreat. Read with caution! LOL]
Hum along with me as I sing from the Wizard of Oz, "Clip, clip here, clip, clip there. We give the roughest claws that certain savoir faire in the merry old land of Oz." A makeover feels wonderful, doesn't it? Hair trimmed, nails clipped, manuscript tightened. Yes, even our work needs trimming, especially if we write picture books. Lately I've been called the queen of "slash and burn."I don't mind owning that title. Let me tell you my tricks of the trade.

Trade Secrets

• Look for "orphans." Linda Sue Park shared this secret last year at the LA SCBWI annual conference. Skim your text for paragraphs that only have a few words hanging out alone on a line. Re-read that 'graph and cut it until there's a nice chunk of text w/no "hangers-on."
• Think carefully about monikers. Main characters with middle names or titles can spell trouble for word count, and they are tiresome to read aloud, too. Here are a few examples from my work or other critique partners: Lil' Boogie, John Jr., Gracie Mae. If you must use a complicated name, use it once and then shorten it through the rest of the story.
• Tag lines can be slashed in dialogue. Once a conversation ensues, you really may not need the "said Kate," or "exclaimed Evan." Trust your reader to know who your characters are by their distinctive voices. 
• Scan and cut prepositional phrases. Instead of saying, "the mouth of the river," try "the river's mouth."
• Modify the modifier. If you must use an adjective or adverb, just use one. 
• Print your manuscript and peruse it for repeated phrases that add nothing. We all have those repeated lines that can be slashed. Usually these are transitional words such as "next," "now, "then." If there's a page turn, it serves as a physical reminder of time, so slash away.
• Dummies! Not calling anybody out here, just know that I don't always create a picture book dummy, but when I do, I usually cut a ton of words.
• Pare verbs. I'm prone to stringing verbs together in my first drafts. So I watch for constructions like "I went to see a movie," and whittle it to "I saw a movie." 
• Chunks of text - How a draft looks on a page is important. I look for what I call "dense" paragraphs which are huge chunks of text. I reread these to see if I can thin them out. 

Ah, feel better? You look marvelous with that new trim and so does your lean, mean manuscript.

Story Toolz: Resources for Authors

This week, we are going to take a look at tool that is a simple, but very exciting set of resources for authors of all ages.  The site was created by Chuck Heintzelman.  The first thing you'll notice about the tools is the simple interface.  You can see below that there are seven separate tools.   (click on any image to enlarge.)

The first tool is the the Story Idea Generator.  This tool is quite a bit different than any other story idea resource I have worked with.  It generates three random conflicts for you.

 

 If you don't like the conflicts that pop up, just hit:  Generate New Conflicts.  I was curious as to where these conflicts come from and when I clicked on the concept tab, I was given some really cool background.

 

I'm not sure if you can read the text there, but it says the conflicts come from the Internet Public Library's list of 7, 20 and 36 plots; these conflicts are "...generic enough that you must supply your own details."  Chuck also shares Holly Lisle's classes that expand on these ideas.

 

 

The second tool is the Random Conflicts Tool. It does just what it says, it generates random conflicts.  I was intrigued by his 'How to Use This Tool' notes:

 Word Count Meters are simple, effective ways to track the writing on a particular project.  If you are writing a chapter book, or novel, you can use one of these tools to share and track how much you have written.  I could see this being used on a writer's web page or blog to update his or her readers.

 The readability tool analyzes your writing and gives you very specific details about your prose.  If you register (free) with the site, you can load as much as 50 KB of data.  If you choose to not register, the limit is 5 KB.  I entered some of the text from a recent blog entry that I completed.  When I did, I was presented with the following resources regarding my text:

 I'm not very familiar with text analysis, but the detail in this free tool seems impressive. 

 Next, let's look at the Half Title Generator.  As Chuck says in the about tab: "The title is used as a starting point for his story creation. It may change over the course of creating the story, but it's the seed that started the process. 

I compiled every nomination from the Hugo Awards and the Bram Stoker Awards. I cut the titles of each nominated work in half and used that as the data to power this generator."

What I really like about this particular tool is that you choose 'halves' of stories and then the generator combines them in interesting ways.  It then presents them to you in the pink window and you can 'eliminate' those you don't like.  What a cool way of pushing yourself to think differently!

The last tool is called Cliche Buster.  Chuck describes the function of this tool:  

"This utility scans your text and presents you with a list of any clichés found. Sometimes you'll get false positives. For example, compare the following two sentences.

1. Fire swept through the old school building.
2. Without internet access, he'd have to do his research old school.

The first is not a cliché, but the second is. The Cliché Buster will report both instances because it matches the words "old school."
StoryToolz currently scans for 2,673 clichés."

There you go.  A simple, free and very unique set of tools to either jump start your creativity or to bust any writer's block you might be experiencing.  To top all that off, there are some extra tools that will help you analyze and evaluate your text too.  I hope that you will find these tools useful.  Would love to hear how you think you might use them in the comments section. 

Next week we will have an interview with the creator of Story Toolz, who himself is an avid writer.