Help! My Novel Needs Liposuction!

By Kim

For many years I was an unrepentant “pantser” writer. I never did a character sketch or outline unless it was a class requirement. I began composing each of my previous three novels when I heard a voice I couldn’t ignore and let that character’s story unfold organically. I hoped I had a coherent story in the end. If not, I revised. A lot. I fear that if I unearthed any of those manuscripts now I’d find them to be little more than beautifully phrased meanderings.

When I started writing Knight of the Brush (The Oak Lovers in its nonfiction incarnation) I was forced to take a different approach. Chapter summaries are an essential component of any nonfiction book proposal, and I couldn’t write a four hundred page biography without a detailed timeline of main events of the protagonist's life set in the larger context of history.

Carl Ahrens in 1911

My old habits proved hard to break, however, mainly because my great-grandfather, Carl Ahrens, proved himself as stubborn in literature as he was in life. He had to have the last say, and I eventually switched the book to fiction to let him. The old chapter summaries have been a waste of hard drive space ever since, though I've consulted the timeline occasionally.

About a year ago a critique partner mentioned she worried my book may becoming rather long for a first novel and asked what my word count was. I had been too busy following my muse to check before, of course, and was horrified to discover I was on track to write a 600 page epic. Click here if you’re curious about how I clawed my way out of Word Count Hell the first time.

You might think that exercise would prove a valuable lesson to me, and that I’d impose a little direction from that point on. Sadly, I did not.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, when I discovered The Oak Lovers was over 87,000 words long and I had at least 20,000 left to write.

I took a deep breath and renounced my "pantser" ways.

Why, oh why, had I not done so before? Mapping out the completed part of the book, complete with word counts per scene, instantly revealed a few unsightly bulges. Once I liposuctioned the fat away, I was left with a slimmer, more energetic novel. There’s snappy dialogue, conflict galore and (wait for it) a PLOT.

After dancing a jig, I took the plunge and outlined my way to “the end.”

Frequently asked questions I was previously unable to answer:

How much more do you have to write? 13 chapters

Can you do it in 100,000 words? Close enough.

When will it be done? I hope to type ‘The End’ in 2011. I’m a compulsive editor so the rough draft is actually draft # 503.


How about you? Are you a ‘pantser’ or a ‘plotter’ and how does it work for you?