I am polishing a 6-page synopsis down to 3 pages, so I've got 60-grit sandpaper in one hand and a steak knife in the other.
I call it "polishing with extreme prejudice." So it feels like an action film.
Where I'm hacking through a jungle of short paragraphs with a metaphorical machete, and any word or phrase that crosses my path better think twice, 'cause my editorial guns are blazing.
It's a bloodbath. Semicolons dead on the ground.
Entire paragraphs sprawled out gasping on the cutting-room floor,
aka "The Killing Floor of Draft Number Six."
I'm a merciful mercenary.
Once the word-count reaches a truce, I will kill no more.
But ruthlessness is the game.
And yet I'm only pruning a vivacious garden of luxuriant literary lands.
There's no blood.
But white space is everything.
It leaves room for the reader's imagination.
1 person likes this
Hahahahaha! This is the most enjoyable editing description I've ever read.
1 person likes this
3 pages... are you sure that's a synopsis and not a treatment?
2 people like this
Be more ruthless. Get it down to 1/2 a page. Multiple pages are usually treatments.
Shadow Dragu-Mihai yes it will be a multi-page only for the treatment, the synopsis will be a one-pager, thank you it's always good advice and liberating !!
Adam Jestin yup, you're correct, I've gotten into doing multiple versions, longer for the treatment, the synopsis will be reduced to one page.
B A Mason thanks so much I never thought anyone would say that haha but yes right after Halloween that gruesomeness is right on point !!
2 people like this
Xaviera Iglesias thanks so much, I love noodling and writing and glad you enjoy it !!
1 person likes this
Hey Daniel Stuelpnagel when you're done I'd like to read it. Now I've gotten curious to what the end result of your editing massacre looks like. If it's okay with you that is.
1 person likes this
Wimp! : ) the power tools folks up in Towson would be so disappointed.
2 people like this
Sandeep Gupta it's true but earlier I ran it through the band saw and bench grinder ...
1 person likes this
Xaviera Iglesias thank you, I posted the long synopsis on my profile and will post the one-page synopsis shortly.