147k words and counting . . . backwards.
Right now I’m trying to squeeze as many words as I can out of “The Dead Mountain”. Partly, that’s because the longer a book is, the harder it’ll be to get published. However, it also makes for a better book period. I can see the flow improving as I chop out the dead wood.
The downside of removing words is trying to work in details of the setting and characters. In the big fantasy tomes there’s plenty of space to start the story slow, and build up the history of the character and spend time in the setting. But this isn’t going to be a 250k chunk of paper that can be used to bludgeon someone into submission. I’m going to have to be lean on the details to get through the plot. I really like the plot and the idea of quick moving book feels appealing.
Physical descriptions of characters seems like an area of contention. I’ve seen advice to both describe in detail and not to describe at all. Necessity demands I take the minimal detail approach, but I can also the reasoning. If the reader forms an image in his or her mind, then they’re probably going to ignore the writer’s carefully written physical details. Worse, adding some physical characteristic after the character is introduced might be jarring when it’s at odds with the existing mental image. So the characters will have a light touch on physical details, enough to give the reader a guideline, but not trying to fill it all in.
The setting is trickier, it’s a fantasy book so the world can’t be ignored, the reader has to know things about it. Here is where I’m going to have to feel my way along and hope I can do an adequate job. I’m thinking about adding quotes from a fictional book written by a character in the story at the beginning of every chapter. Maybe that can help fill some things in without having to add exposition or scenes unnecessary to the plot in the story.
My goal is to have a story that doesn’t bog down but has just enough detail to keep the reader in the world. Time will tell if I can pull it off.
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