Revision Update: How Novels Turn Into Short Stories

Well... not exactly. But you get the idea.

My first draft was up at about 110,000 words. Today I completed the fourth draft, and the word count is down to 93,743.

Not every one of those 16,000-or-so cuts hurt... but a lot of them did. Still, the story is a lot sharper and stronger as a result--which, of course, is much more important than word count.

Draft Four is now in the hands of my First Reader. Will there be a Fifth Draft?

Revision Update: Draft Three Complete

Big day today: I completed the third draft of my next novel. It's now in the hands of my first reader, my wife, Joanne. This is the first time she's read the entire story. Until today, she's only seen Chapter 1. My biggest challenge will be to resist hovering nearby while she reads.

And continuing with my strange fascination with the effect of my revisions on word count, as you can see from the graph below, the third draft claimed many of my darlings.