When I first started performing comedy improv, I had a problem. Since I am an author, I wanted to write the entire script for any skit that included my limited talents. I would talk until I got the skit going where I thought it should be going, and that is not improv. I was called out on my propensity to pontificate more than once until I finally got it through my thick skull that less is more. Why tell someone you don’t know something while explaining why when a simple shrug and a goofy look do the job. It will also keep the dialog moving, which is all improviser’s goal. The same can be true writing stories.
A few years ago, I assembled an excellent book called In A Million Years, composed of three interlacing time-travel novellas. I always thought that the book would do well since it has science fiction, historical fiction, and romance elements, but sales have only been mild. So, I decided to revisit the book to see what I could do to improve it. After running all three stories through Grammarly, I realized that I could shorten the book by about 1400 words and make two stories move along much faster.
The first story is called Saving Abraham. It is 10,700 words long and so tightly written that there was no need to shorten it. It moves right along with a Flesch Reading Ease rating of 76.5%, with only 5.4% of the sentences rated as Passive.
The second story is called Life In The Fast Lane (after the great Eagles song, for a reason explained in the story). It is now 9,223 words in length after I carved 500 words out of it. Most of the words were removed from the story's beginning, so the story gets to the main plot faster. Once there, it zooms along with a Flesch Reading Ease rating of 71.6%, with only 5.3% of the sentences rated as Passive.
The third story is called Woman In Black. It is still 10,963 words in length, even though I deleted over 900 words from it. All the words removed were that of a section that was really unnecessary to the story's overall plot. Most of these words added background, which was superfluous since Woman In Black is a sequel to Life In The Fast Lane. I have been thinking of removing this section for years. Now I am glad I did it because the book rockets along with a Flesch Reading Ease rating of 77.5%, with only 6.3% of the sentences rated as Passive.
Altogether, the book is 31.042 words in length with a Flesch Reading Ease rating of 73.6%, with only 6.8% of the sentences rated as Passive. This is a significant improvement over its first iteration.
Since I was doing this rewrite/relaunch of the book, I decided to create a new cover for it as well.
The moral of this post is: Don’t be afraid to look back and change your work. It may just make it better.