So, I've been thinking about submitting "Trepidation" to a BYU young-writers competition that's coming up. The entries have to be from 1,000-4,000 words long. So I transfered (sp?) my story over to word just to see where I was at (thinking that I wasn't even close to 4,000 words). Remember this story isn't even over, IT'S 4,285 WORDS LONG! I deleted all the extra stuff that I put in parentheses, all of the intros to each part, all the titles, EVERYTHING and it's still 200 words too long! What do I do? I'm hoping to wrap it up in 2 or 3 more parts, so it won't be that much longer, but it's already to flippin' long!
What do I do?
6 comments:
Honestly, I know it's overwhelming right now, but it can actually be kind of fun. You just start trimming. You read a line and maybe you think of a way to say the same thing in a couple fewer words. And sometimes you make a conjunction out of two words. And sometimes you highlight an entire sentence and cut it, and it freaks you out that the paragraph is fine without it (even better, in fact!). You can trim it. I have no doubt. A little here. A little more there. Think of it like a game and you'll do fine.
I once trimmed an 1100 word essay into 600 words. I thought it would be half as good as the original, but it turned out being twice as good.
I feel your pain. Last year when I was revising a story to enter, it started with 6,000 words and four days later it was 4,000 exactly. Whew, that was hard work. And it was kind of like putting my child on a chopping block and cutting off a few limbs. Ouch. I enlisted Grandma Crowley's help, and she was a life saver. You might give her a call and a copy, have your mom go over it with a red pencil, and definitly have your dad read it over with you. I'm sure you can do it. And if not, there's always next year.
By the way, did you find the cover sheet on Byu's web site? I couldn't find it anywhere, so I ended up emailing them and asking them to send me one. They did so it's ok, but it was kind of a hassle.
i say you rebel!!!! send it in with that many words!!!
You can do it, and it will be fabulous! I don't think I could give any better advice than Tiff already did.
Good luck!
(I'd be willing to try to help if you'd like me to.)
That's crazy. Too bad they have a limit like that. Cutting it down might take away a lot of the good detail and hard work you put into that. Oh well. I bet you can still cut down on many of the words and still make it a great story, though!
i agree with thomas. just send it in anyways
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