You've Come A Long Way Baby (a post on adding word count)

This ad is so ridiculously funny on so many levels that I couldn't resist. Which is more superior to men? Women? Or the cigarettes?  Anyway, back to the post.

As you can see from my progress bar, I completed the layering operation for BITE ME, YOUR GRACE. W000T! I didn't quite get it up to the 90K I was aiming for, but considering that the very, very first draft was only 55 K, I think I did okay...and I learned a lot about adding necessary word count.

By the time I got the deal with Sourcebooks, the manuscript was at 78K, but they wanted 10K more. "No problem," I thought. I already had a bunch of ideas. 

But then I went through the book and immediately saw some of my amateur attempts to plump up the book: Clunky descriptions, redundant dialogue tags, you name it. During the latest overhaul, I had to cut almost as many words than I added. 

Thankfully, I noticed a major thing that was missing in the book: Emotion. It seemed that whenever I described how a character felt about a situation, it was all tell and no show. Besides the fact that this was only my 3rd manuscript and I was still honing my craft, I believe there are other reasons for this flaw in the story...but that will be another post. :) 

I wish I could post a magical formula of how to effectively layer a manuscript, but I don't feel anywhere near being an expert on it yet. My advice is sheer trial and error, learning what works and what doesn't. Also GET A CRITIQUE GROUP! Mine has been invaluable with this experience. 

On another note: Fellow Casablanca author, Shana Galen kinda laughed at me a bit when she heard of my plight. Apparently she has the opposite problem.

Which makes me wonder: How many of you are slim with your word counts and how many always seem to need to cut?