1. Admit you have a problem. Most adverbs, including those pesky adverbial prepositional phrases, are NOT your friends. Secondary characters who take over the story, as effervescent and charming as they may be, are NOT your friends. Meandering subplots and long-winded soliloquies are NOT your friends.
Goals, motivations, conflicts, and emotive characters are okay.
2. Brace yourself. Maintain a calm mind as you open the document that is your visual chaos of a manuscript. Remind yourself that all great feats start small and then tell yourself that you believe it.
3. Begin to edit by cutting the process into manageable chunks, either chapter-by-chapter or type-by-type (ie going through once to cut out unnecessary adverbs, going through again to trim secondary characters’ mindless trivia, etc.)
4. Stop when your hyperventilation and vertigo begin to blur your vision. Get up from the computer and lie down on the floor and repeat, “I can do this. I can do this.”
5. Return to your computer and diligently begin cutting again, working late into the night.
6. Somewhere around 3 am, panic that you’re removing way too much of the heroine’s delightfully feisty Aunt Mildred and add in all her scenes that you’ve previously cut. Then, as the additions felt so good, replace everything in a glory of self-affirming gluttony. Go to bed knowing you did the right thing, as editing too fiercely removes the heart of your true story.
7. Wake up, return the computer, and realize that everything you put back in actually did need to be cut. Horror-struck and chagrin, ditch the manuscript in favor of a large box of chocolate and a movie marathon, during which you dart evil looks at your computer.
8. Slightly nauseated from all the chocolate, resign yourself back to the editing process. Begin slicing and dicing all over again, grumbling under your breath about technology’s sneaky ways of overcoming your better judgment.
9. Become distracted by the realization that you’ve used the words “sighed”, “shocked”, and “thrust” WAY too many times. Begin cutting and changing accordingly.
10. While you’re at it, remove the word “rod” in all cases not referring to fishing or curtains, “member” in all cases not referring to clubs or cabinets, and “heaving” in all cases not referring to…
Well, just remove that one in all cases.
11. Realize that, apparently, without sighs, shocks, thrusts, rods, members, and heaves, your characters don’t have all that much to do. Wonder briefly what that says about you before realizing that this now means you get to add to the story legitimately.
12. Review the results and grudgingly admit that it really is better at 90,000 words instead of the original 120,000. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done and bask in the sense of completion.
Then realize that you still have to write the synopsis.
