My manuscript is 500k words. Now what?
You finished the draft. Congratulations! Then you checked the word count, and it’s five times what an agent expects from a novel.
People will tell you to split the book in two, or to cut hard. But they don’t tell you how.
So before you pick up the scissors, find out what you’re holding.
Step 1: Diagnose
Write a reverse outline or a synopsis: what happens, in order, chapter by chapter or act by act. Then find the main plot.
- What are the main events?
- Where do they sit in the story?
- Does the tension keep rising up to the climax?
Several problems can cause a long manuscript.
- One plot that keeps rising, just slowly. Maybe the same problem comes up several times: the hero is captured, escapes, is captured again.
- Several main plots stacked on top of each other, each with its own rise and its own climax.
- Too much exposition: a lot of scenes that don’t advance the plot.
- Or a combination of this.
Different problems require different solutions, so let’s dive in.
Doing it with cards
On a draft this size, the reverse outline is a job in itself. This is where Ghostkey’s Cards come in.
In Mara, open Cards and pick a structure: a three-act spine, a beat sheet, a hero’s journey. Its beats come up as cards on a board. Then click Fill from your book. Ghostkey reads your chapters and fills each card with what the manuscript actually does at that beat.
What you get is your book laid out as a board, one beat at a time. That makes the shape easy to see.
If you’d rather read it as prose, Wisp writes the reverse outline for you: a synopsis is usually the best tool for determining what to focus on.
Then the subplots
Do the same exercise for each subplot. What does it start with, where does it end, where does it cross the main plot? Some will turn out to be tightly woven in. Others will run next to the main plot for a hundred thousand words without touching it.
Step 2: Decide
Now you know where the words went, and you can decide what to do with them.
Lots of subplots? You may want to cut some.
A main plot that wanders? You may have to choose between events. If the hero is betrayed three times, one betrayal will hit harder than the other two. Keep that one, remove the others.
Not that much story, actually? Sometimes a book is huge not because a lot happens, but because the draft got lost in long explanations, descriptions, or dialogue.
Dialogue is the one people overlook. Cute or funny dialogue is fun to write, so it’s easy to write scene after scene of it. Readers may even enjoy it. But if none of it moves the story forward, it’s adding length, not story.
Step 3: Plan
Several main plots? Divide them into several books. You might not end up with several perfect books. More likely, you’ll have one solid book and a rough concept for a sequel, or a main book and a side novella. That’s fine. You can refine them later.
Many subplots? Decide which ones stay. A subplot worth keeping is one that complements the main plot in some way:
- another viewpoint on the same events,
- an internal journey running alongside the external one,
- the main character dealing with their wounds,
- etc…
If a subplot is about side characters and it’s there because you like them, it needs to move to another book. You don’t have to throw them away. They just don’t belong in this one. And think about it this way: you’ll get to spend more time with them!
Lots of exposition, description, or dialogue? Cut it. Sorry.
Step 4: Rewrite
Rewriting from scratch goes a lot faster than the first draft, because this time you know where you’re going.
You don’t have to rewrite everything, either. You can pluck the scenes that already work and move them where they belong. Some people rewrite with the first draft open beside them in a split view, keeping what they can and retyping the rest.
Whatever your method, keep an eye on yourself. The habits that made the first draft 500k words are still there. If you notice a third cute dialogue scene in a row, you know what to do.
A 500k-word draft isn’t a failure. It’s a lot of material, and some of it is more than one book. If you want help finding out which parts are which, Ghostkey can read the whole thing with you.