Recently I was given the opportunity to speak at an SCBWI conference held in Arizona. Equally terrifying and thrilling, I accepted the request and promptly asked what they wished me to speak about. I won’t go into the entirety of my speech, but in short they asked that I addressed the ways in which an agent defines success as it applies to authors while giving a few practical tips to those in the audience.
Among the practical tips I shared I chose to discuss the importance of brevity and making each word in your manuscript count. Long, verbose picture books are a thing of the past. In fact, as was discussed yesterday on Twitter, long verbose novels are also a thing of the past.
Editors are looking for tightly woven, character driven stories with a plot a child (or an adult/teen) can relate to. This goes for the vast majority of children’s and adult literature. Just because you can wax poetic about your main character’s new green velvet jacket with a matching pocket square doesn’t mean you necessarily should.
Make every word count.
Now, I won’t get into specific word counts, but I will say that for myself shorter is certainly better. During my time in Arizona I came across a new picture book during a critique that took my breath away in only a matter of 235 words. It was stunning. Should everyone now attempt to write a 235 word picture book tomorrow? Not necessarily. What I am suggesting though is that you choose your words wisely.
Make every word count.
Often I ask my clients to write “Twitter pitches” for their new books. Much like an elevator pitch, trying to fit your entire story into 140 characters or less is an exercise I find to be extremely beneficial. You’ll discover quickly how well you know your story, if you need to fix a potential plot hole and you’ll also find that chopping unneeded words may be easier than you’d previously thought.
Choose your words wisely. Make each word count before hitting send on that next query. Be certain that the manuscript you’re sending out contains only words chosen after careful inspections, critiques and revisions. This may take time and quite a bit of it, but if this is your passion then every word should count. Put your heart into your writing, including when you edit it to show me and everyone reading your work that you care enough to cut the unnecessary parts.
Make every word count, so that readers cannot wait to read each and every one.
