My first writing task of summer 2026 was to cut Dash Away down to a pitchable size. When I finished the draft in 2024, it was over 130K words. Industry standard for a contemporary romance novel is 80-90K. I figured I could at least pitch it if I could get it under 100K. So that was the goal.
I began by thinning each chapter, removing adverbs, double descriptions, and details not related to the plot. I worked on paper first, circling and revising sentences to make the prose lean and smooth. Then I moved to my sunny kitchen nook and firmed up the changes on my laptop. My goal was to cut a minimum of 20 words per page, but cutting 50+ was ideal.
Even though some world-building color had to go, and I had to kill many "darling" sentences, the process was more fun than I expected. I kept track of my progress, marking an X on a whiteboard for each 1000 words that I successfully lopped off.
After finishing the Minnesota-set portion of the story, I had cut the full text to 114K and was at the 92K mark, meaning that I could keep about 8K of the remaining 22K words. Drastic, right?
Luckily, I wrote those last chapters two summers ago, and my editor's eye was smart enough to cut with objectivity.
At first I thought I would just summarize Charlie's day trip to Austen locations around England. But it was quickly evident that two full days of London sightseeing had to go as well. And that forced me to rearrange her entire holiday schedule.
Although I need to reread the final result, I like the ending better now. I'm a little above 102K, and that is pitchable.
Wish me luck!
