I’ll do some more trimming for the final version, I’m sure, but I was doing counts last night, and here’s where it stands:
Initial version completed May 2003: 202,183 words
Next version completed 2004: 183,000 words
Version that went out to agents: 141,465 words
Current version: 118,872 words
120K is a decent count for an epic fantasy. 140K was pushing it.
I do, however, love the idea that I basically cut 60K from the first version: I took out the equivalent of an entire book.
Revision fascinates me.
