When Days of Reckoning started out, things flowed pretty well. The ideas were plotted out, just the details of the how, why and when. And fingers flew on the keyboard, shaping the story and creating tone for the series. And then it was done, or so I thought.
The first run through was a whopping, bloated and sorely over-wrought 191,00 words. Yep, 191k. When I found out that equated to just short of 800 pages and most fantasy novel targets are around 100 to 125k.... that's a near 50% cut required. After I can't remember how many rounds of cutting, it dropped over 50k to the current 126k mark. At this point, I think I'm nearing the end of the editing process; I'm at that magic point where I can say there is little else I can do to it.
To edit from 191k to 126k sounds like a lot, and it certainly is. Would an agent have another go at it and find another 10-20k to tweak and/or change? Of this I have no doubt and would welcome the input, if it meant getting it to print.
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