Wednesday 2 November 2011

250 Words- Why Did I worry?

The 250 words I mentioned on Monday finally came together Tuesday lunchtime.

My character was still giving me hints a couple of hours before I finalised the story.

I had actually tried three different openings in the previous fortnight, and actually those elements did feature in the final cut, so they weren't wasted.

In fact it was only as I was getting to the heart of my character that I made a discovery- it altered the angle of the story entirely...

My only problem was that by the time I had edited it to a state I was happy with, I found I had 251 words.
Now when a competition says 250 words is the maximum, then 250 words it is, so mini panic over I looked at a few of the sentences which could be jiggled around. In fact I even moved the position of one sentence completely and it worked so much better.

Eventually I found a way to lose one word, so I finally had my 250 words.

Now I can't reveal any details yet, but maybe tomorrow I will share it with you. Though no doubt I will want to rewrite it when I read it again...

4 comments:

Rosemary Gemmell said...

Good for you getting it down to 250 words, Carol. Sometimes it can be fun trying to cut words and invariably makes the finished result better (as long as it's not too much of a cut!).

Carolb said...

I'm finding it easier to get these short pieces down to the required length without losing too much, Rosemary. So I must be improving...

Anonymous said...

I once worked on a 250 words and could not understand why the count was not climing. Eventually realised I was checking character count and not word..xx

Carolb said...

I haven't done that yet, Rosalind, but can see how it could happen.
Thanks for commenting.