In this essential episode, I welcome John DeDakis, former CNN Situation Room editor and author of six novels, to discuss his "weed whacking" service for shortening manuscripts. 

John cautions that content over 100,000 words becomes a disincentive for readers with short attention spans and for traditional publishers concerned about production costs for unknown authors. Non-professional writers tend to be wordy, over-explaining easily assumed details.

Pantsers tend to get wordy in first drafts, requiring right-brained writers to activate left-brained editorial discipline to cut and polish. John draws on his broadcast journalism background, where screaming arguments over five seconds proved that slashing content makes writing punchier.

His process follows macro to micro principles, starting with reading entire manuscripts without fixing anything to see it objectively, and in totality—which is the only time you'll view your book content that way before getting deep in weeds.

First, determine if you need to rearrange chapters. Then examine each chapter for sensory engagement, followed by microscopic word choice scrutiny, ensuring succinct sentences, and finally granular spelling checks, since agents care about details separating amateurs from professionals.

Reading manuscripts out loud really slows down your reading and is best for spotting typos and identifying clunky phrasing, with Google Docs and Microsoft Word offering read-aloud features in Accessibility tabs.

Be aware of the biggest rookie mistake agents identify: backstory dumping on first pages, with agents at conferences raising hands simultaneously when anonymously submitted manuscripts take them out of the moment explaining context from 15 years ago rather than hooking readers immediately with character dialogue and action.

Keep writing, keep dreaming, and keep creating. Your book is waiting to be born!

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Podcast Resources

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Visit John at his website www.johndedakis.com

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Lynn: Hi, friends and future authors. This is Lynn Smargis, back for another episode of Publishing for Professionals. I hope you are enjoying your summertime because, as we know, it is the middle of summer when this is going to be published. So, I am super excited to bring you another episode. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I have a guest expert on; I'm super excited to introduce him in just a minute. But before we jump into today's show, I want to give a big welcome back to my returning listeners. Thanks for joining me again. And another big welcome to my new listeners. Make sure you hit that Like and Subscribe button wherever you are watching or listening to this so that you can get every episode dropped to your podcast player every week. So, I'm so glad that you stopped by. Today, I have a great guest and an incredible conversation lined up for you. I'm joined by John DeDakis. He is a former editor on CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, which, if you are a Gen Xer like me, you would totally remember that show. DeDakis is also the author of six novels in the Lark Chadwick Mystery Suspense Thriller series. In his most recent book, Enemies Domestic, Lark is a White House press secretary forced to make her deeply personal "abort or not to abort" decision in a highly toxic, polarized political fishbowl, all while dealing with an attack on the presidency. DeDakis is a former White House correspondent, a writing coach, manuscript editor, and podcaster, and he teaches novel writing at literary centers and writer conferences nationwide. He's here with us today to share his expertise on the process of "weed whacking" and how to shorten your book when your content is just too long. So, John, thank you so much for joining me today.

John: You're welcome, Lynn. Thank you.

Lynn: I'm really excited to chat about this because I've talked to so many people who say, "I have this book and I wrote it, but it's just too long." But before we jump into your process, I want to first ask you—because "weed whacking" is your term—before we specifically ask you about weed whacking, I know some people who are listening to this may want to self-publish their book, or they may want to do a traditional or hybrid publisher. But no matter what route you take, there are certain, quote-unquote, "book word etiquette," right? Like, sometimes your book is too short, sometimes it's too long. And there's no really hard and fast rule, but what do you recommend for people who are writing a book, who want to write a memoir and/or a nonfiction book? What do you recommend as far as an average word count?

John: That's a good one. I think that the range of about 80,000 words is a good place to start. You can go a little under that. Most people tend to be wordy. If you're writing sci-fi or something like that, you're creating a new world, and so it's OK to go 100,000 or something like that. But when you start getting over 100,000 words and you're not a well-known author, it's a disincentive for people to want to read you or get you published because we live in an age of short attention spans. And not to mention the fact that it is expensive to publish a book, to produce a book. So, a traditional publisher is less likely to want to take a risk on you if your book is going to be bloated. So, I think it's wise to be disciplined and try to bring it in around 80,000 to 90,000 words.

Lynn: And I know if you're not a professional writer, people tend to be extra wordy. They tend to—I feel like when you're not a professional writer, and this happens like if I tried to do something and I wasn't a professional, I wouldn't be good at it either—but when you're writing your book, people tend to over-explain things that are easy to assume, right? Like "he walked through the door into the room." But if you say, "he crept up to the door because there was a sound behind it," that's a totally different visual. But people tend to add more words than they need.

John: Absolutely. And I think there's a great anecdote: Mark Twain, I think it was, said, "My letter would have been shorter, but I didn't have enough time."

Lynn: Right, I know! And the funny part is you think writing more takes longer, but it's actually harder to write shorter and concise content than it is to just write.

John: Right. And I think part of it, too, is the writing process. There are "seat-of-the-pagers" and there are planners. And the "pantsers" especially tend to get really wordy; they're just letting it flow. And that's wonderful for a first draft. But there comes a point where something's got to happen and you need to make it coherent. And so that means then that a right-brain oriented "pantser" needs to put on their left-brain editorial chops to be much more critical and disciplined about cutting and pasting and buffing and polishing.

Lynn: Right. And I think too, because it's your own work, you're way too close to it to know what needs to be taken out to make it more professional and what needs to be left in to make it sound professional. And I never say "should" because obviously people have their own personal feelings about what they want to have in their book. But like you said, there's a lot to be considered, especially with people that are pantsers. There's nothing wrong with being a pantser in writing, but it does take more editing on the back end.

John: Absolutely. And it's important just to be cognizant of the fact that you need to be able to speak directly to the reader. I mean, I wrote a memoir and it hasn't been published yet—it's still being shopped—and the first draft started at 125,000 words. Way too long! But that's the beauty of beta readers, because they're people who you don't have to pay to edit your work, but they love you. They're itching to get their hands on your writing to see how well you're doing, and you give them permission to tell you what's not working. For the memoir that I wrote, it was so helpful for people to say, "Too many names," "I don't know about these people," "Are they important?" or "This is where I started to fall asleep; this is boring." And I needed to hear that. It kills me to have to take out references to my best friends, but that's the hard part. It's the beta readers and the editors who can give you the tough love that you need.

Lynn: Right, right. And to your point, too, when you're writing a book to publish it, you're not—I mean, you can write a book and publish it just for yourself, I know people who have done that—but most of the time you're writing it for other people to read it. So, we want our books to be well-received, and in order to be well-received, we need to make sure that we're writing for our audience, not just writing for ourselves.

John: Yes. I mean, it's both. But in the end, it's got to connect. Why are we writing? We're writing to connect with someone else. And you don't want to give them an opportunity or an excuse to turn out the light. You want them to turn the page. And that means that less is more. You want to entice and encourage and make them ask questions about what's going to happen next, as opposed to over-explaining. That's probably the biggest rookie mistake there is.

Lynn: Yeah, absolutely. I see that, too. OK, so John, let's jump into weed whacking. What is weed whacking, and why do you offer it as one of your services?

John: You know, this is a moment, because I've never talked about this in public before. We are blazing the trail! It's something I've been doing for a long time as a manuscript editor, but I don't think a lot of people do it. Sure, I'm a manuscript editor or writing coach; I work with people on their drafts. But one of the things that I discovered is that there are some people, especially memoirists, who have a compelling story to tell, and it's just too long. I've got clients who've written these memoirs that are 250,000 words or 150,000 words. Way too fricking long! And they're too close to it, as you said, to be objective about what to cut. So, I created what I call my "weed whacking" service. You give me your manuscript—and I'm working on a client right now, it's 155,000 words—and he's hired me to bring it down to 80,000. I love doing this. Because as a reporter in broadcast journalism, time is everything. I remember a screaming argument I had in the newsroom with the assignment editor because my piece was supposed to be 1:30 and it was 1:35. We had this screaming argument about five seconds! You would be amazed at how you can cut your stuff down and it actually makes it better because it's punchier. I love it when someone says, "I only need 100 words for a bio" or something like that. I can slash and burn and bring it in. I love doing that; it's the buffing and polishing of it.

Lynn: That's awesome. And so when you are weed whacking, what is your process? Obviously, first you get the manuscript, but then what are typical questions you ask people?

John: I don't ask them questions. I read the manuscript; it needs to stand alone. I shouldn't have to ask questions. In the one I'm working on now, there's probably one question I'll ask, like "I need to know this; give me 50 words so I can drop it in." But the process is basically macro to micro. And this is not just for a weed whack; it's for your own rewriting process. It doesn't make sense to start small. Let me back up and talk about the rewrite process in general, because most people do rewrite their own stuff. If you write your manuscript all the way through, that keeps your forward momentum going, whether it takes six months or a year to write your first novel. My suggestion for a rewrite is, first, read it. Read it as if it's a completed book. You already know what the gold standard is for a good book; now read it to determine how close you come to reaching that standard. Resist the temptation to immediately dive in and start fixing stuff, because you're going to find things to fix all over the place. Just let it wash over you and see it in its totality, because this is the only time you're really going to see it objectively. From here on out, you're going to be in the weeds and too close to be objective. So, it's macro to micro. The first question is: "Do I need to quit and start over, or do I need to rearrange it?" Maybe it took too long to get started. Maybe the first chapter needs to be chapter six. So, you take chapter six, put it to the front, and tighten it up. Then you do a deeper dive. You look at each chapter and ask yourself, "Can I see what's going on? Am I engaging in all the reader's sensory details?" Then read the chapter again, going into a microscopic dive on word choices. Is this sentence as succinct as it can be? Finally, we get really granular: is everything spelled correctly? You might suck at spelling, but you're a professional writer and agents care about the details. Spelling is one of those details that separates the amateur from the professional. You want it to be pristine. So, you go macro to micro. Same principle for my weed whack: I'll read the whole thing to get a big picture idea, then figure out if I need to rearrange things, what can be cut completely, and where I can streamline. Then I'll make another pass that starts to buff and polish. I usually keep each draft separate so that I can see how it evolves, and if I cut something I shouldn't have, I can go back and get it.

Lynn: That makes sense. OK, my friends, we're going to take a break right here. When we come back, I've got a couple more questions to ask John about his process of weed whacking. So stay tuned, my friends, we will be right back.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lynn: Hey, friends and future authors. We are back with John DeDakis today, talking about his process of "weed whacking" and how to make your novel shorter if it is too long. But before we jump into the second half, I just want to ask you to share this episode with a friend. If you know someone who is writing a book, definitely share this so they can also learn more about the topic. All right, John, I've got a couple of questions for you. One of the things I always recommend to my clients is to either print the book—actually print it on paper—and/or read it out loud. I want to get your professional opinion on this.

John: I agree with you about there being no "shoulds." Printing it out is fine; I don't do that because I don't like to kill trees, but I have heard from people who do that it allows them to see it in a new light, changing the prism a little bit. I'm more of a fan of reading it out loud. If you're in a coffee shop, mouth the words to yourself, because it slows you down so you're more likely to see typos. You're going to get a sense of whether you've created tongue twisters or if it feels clunky. Reading it out loud is a definite way to take a really important, close look at what you've written.

Lynn: Yeah. And it's incredible how big a difference it makes. I was really surprised when I first started doing that years ago. You can tell where the words get clunky really easily when you read it out loud. And if you're at a coffee shop, you can just read it to your screen because most people are on video meetings anyway; no one would know the difference. I've also heard there are apps that will read it to you.

John: Yes. And if you are hearing your book, that's another good way to determine if it's going to put you to sleep or not. Hearing it read out loud to you is another way to hear the clunkiness or the problems.

Lynn: Yeah. Google Docs and Microsoft Word have this under the Accessibility tab. I have hearing aids, so sometimes I have it read to me through that tab; you don't even need a separate app. But there are other apps and browser extensions that will read your text out loud for sure. So, that's super helpful. The other thing I wanted to ask is—people who aren't in publishing don't realize what it's like when they want to submit to an agent. You said earlier that agents care about details and grammar. If they see misspelled words, they'll know it wasn't professionally edited and they'll immediately dismiss the manuscript. But besides spelling, what do you recommend people really look at to make sure they don't have it in their manuscript if they want to successfully publish?

John: I go to a lot of writer's conferences and meet with a lot of agents. Probably the thing that was a real epiphany for me was at a conference where three agents listened to the first page of an anonymously submitted manuscript. The agents raised their hand at the point that they would be sending a rejection letter. This is the first page! More often than not, they were raising their hands at the same time. When they explained why, they said it started out great, they were interested in the character and intrigued, but then the author started doing backstory. They took the story back 15 years and started to put in context and explanations. It took them out of the moment and out of the story. I think that's the biggest rookie mistake. There's nothing wrong with backstory, but you should sprinkle it in as your story goes forward. The most important thing is to get your characters talking; something needs to happen on that first page to hook the reader—and in this case, the agent. They get 150 queries a day and know what's working. You can't be the writer who says "it really gets great on page 100." They don't have time. They're doing you a favor by rejecting it quickly, but the problem is the rejection usually just says "not right for me." That's why it's good to go to a conference to get real-time feedback or get a beta reader. Backstory is a big problem.

Lynn: Yeah, I totally agree with that. The thing is, they typically read the first 10 pages. If they reject you, another publisher likely would too, so you need to figure out where your book is going wrong. I love that process where they raise their hand, because then you know exactly where you need to change. It's all part of the process of re-editing. I think a lot of people don't understand how time-consuming and exhausting writing can be. People idealize it as locking yourself in a cabin for a month, but if you want to publish, you need beta readers and marketing. It ends up being very time-consuming work. So, what would you recommend for someone listening who says, "John, my book is really long, and I self-edited it once, but I don't know where to take more out"? What are some places people might look that they haven't thought of before?

John: I think if you've done as much editing as you can, it's time to bring in others—not necessarily even a professional editor yet. Beta readers, people in your sphere of influence—if you give them permission to tell you what's wrong, they'll give you valuable feedback. They might say it should be a movie, and you need that affirmation, but you also need their honest feedback on where they didn't understand or where they were taken out of the story. That kind of feedback is invaluable.

Lynn: Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you 100%. Well, John, I know some of my listeners are going to want to get to know more about you. For YouTubers, I've got John's website up here. John, do you want to share your website address for the audio podcast listeners, and where can people find your books?

John: Excellent. Thank you for that opportunity, Lynn. I'm at JohnDeDakis.com. Because it's a tricky Greek name, I'll spell it for you: it's J-O-H-N-D-E-D-A-K-I-S. It's got thumbnails of all my books and links on how to order them in print, on Kindle, or as audiobooks. There is a link to my upcoming classes, online events, writers' conferences, and retreats. There's also a page about my motivational speaking. I work with corporate wellness programs, bereavement groups, and such, helping people struggling with grief use writing as a way to heal through journaling, storytelling, or memoir. I've also got all the different editorial services I provide. On just about every page, there's a portal you can use to send me an email.

Lynn: Awesome. I love that—writing to process grief—because I think that's really important and something we don't do enough of. Often in America, if someone close to you passes away, employers expect you back next week. They just say "snap out of it."

John: Snap out of it!

Lynn: Yeah, and it's not a "snap out of it" thing. If that person was close to you, they were a big part of you, and the process takes a long time.

John: And it doesn't even have to be the loss of a loved one. It can be a pet, a job, your innocence, any number of things.

Lynn: That's true. There are lots of things you can grieve, not just the passing of somebody. That is absolutely true. Well, John, thank you so much again for coming on to Publishing for Professionals. I know my listeners got a lot of value out of this episode today.

John: Thank you, Lynn. This was fun.

Lynn: All right, my friends. Well, you know, I love to work with new and repeat authors to write and edit their nonfiction books. So instead of using all your time to write your book, hop on over to www.writeforyou.me to find out how I can assist you. If you're not sure where to start, book a discovery call on my website today. I'm ready to stand by your side and walk you through the publishing process. Until next week, this is Lynn Smargis, reminding you to keep writing, keep dreaming, and keep creating. Your book is "waiting to be born."