Helen Corner-Bryant
Q I started writing a fantasy book fifteen years ago whilst living in the paradise of Barcelona. Fifteen drafts later, I have it 100% to my liking – the story is as original and captivating as can be. But my biggest problem is the word count! It was over 250,000 words and the best I can do is cut it to 225,000 words. An editor here in Ireland advised me to break it into three different books. I’m trying, but I don’t want to have ‘cliffhanger’ endings on the first two. My question is: is there another way around this? I know that no publisher or agent will even ease their eyes on 225,000 words of an author’s work, especially when he has never been published before.