Boiling a Zombie Master

I review a lot of zombie books, but when I want to just read one for fun because I know it'll be great, I turn to Joe McKinney. Author of The Savage Dead (which you can and should preorder now from Amazon), Dead City, The Crossing, and lots of other action-packed, suspense-filled thrillers, Joe was kind enough to provide me with a 490-word piece of nonfiction, In Praise of Spooky Old Buildings.

It's a charming homage to a land that once was, and a sad sigh for the spread of that blight we call suburbia. The challenge here will be keeping the nostalgic tone as we boil things down.

It's both an honor and intimidating as hell to work with a piece from one of my favorite authors. Let's see what we can do with it.

The Original:

Houston, 1983 - I was thirteen, out trick-or-treating with my friends.  My costume was one of my Mom’s old slips, upon which I’d written Id, Ego and Superego.  You guessed it.  I was a Freudian Slip.

The loot gathering was good that year, because I grew up in a rather affluent suburb.  (“Where their lawns were wide and their minds narrow,” to quote Ernest Hemingway.)

But it didn’t seem so terribly oppressive then.  In fact, I rather enjoyed those days.  My neighborhood was on the edge of what had once been a vast cotton farm, many thousands of acres wide.  By the time I came along, the fields had run to riot and a dense forest of trees grew where once there had been furrows.  It was a marshland full of deer and rabbits and wild dogs and wild hogs and even the occasional alligator sunning itself on the banks of some scummed over little pond.  My friends and I spent our summers roaming that empty landscape, our dogs by our sides, pellet guns gripped by the breach like we were the Green Berets on patrol on the border of Cambodia.  We boys were like gods then, carving empires of the imagination from the air on a daily basis.

But those fields weren’t entirely empty.  There was something else in there with us besides tall weeds and swamp trees.  Just a few hundred yards in from the fence that was supposed to keep us out, hidden behind a large copse of trees, was what I guess was an old cotton processing facility.  It was little more than three large, interconnected metal silos, nearly every inch of which was covered with graffiti.  But in its moldering, rusting decay I found it resplendent.  I was drawn to it in much the same way as water finds its own level.  There was an irresistible gravity around that abandoned structure that both held me hostage and set my mind free.  It was like a flint for my imagination, for with the smallest of effort I found I could turn those silos into cities, the loose machine parts scattered around them into a cemetery of dead cars.  That lonely collection of silos took me to dark and apocalyptic places.  And I loved every minute of it.

But that Halloween, as we wandered the neighborhood, collecting our loot, we happened by the new construction that would, within the coming year, spread our neighborhood with crystalline profusion into the empty fields we loved so much.  Cookie cutter houses would take the place of my beloved cotton processing silos, and another empty place on the map would get filled in with names like Spring Forest Lane and Oak Terrace and Verbena Drive.

But for that night, that magical last night of October 1983, the palace of my imagination was still intact, sitting like a sentinel at the outskirts of my own October Country.

May that land forever live.

The Condensation:

Houston, 1983 - I was thirteen, out trick-or-treating with my friends.  My costume was one of my Mom’s old slips, upon which I’d written Id, Ego and Superego.  You guessed it.  I was a Freudian Slip.

One doesn't trick-or-treat "in", so we can boil "out". Ditto the "my" in "my friends." Because he's trick-or-treating, we don't need to say that it's a costume.

The "I'd" so close to "Id" made my brain stutter a little, so despite that the phrase is innocuous and might not need it, let's replace "upon which I'd written" with "scrawled with".

We can combined the last two sentences, eliminating the "I was".

Houston, 1983 - I was thirteen, trick-or-treating with friends.  I wore one of my Mom’s old slips, scrawled with Id, Ego and Superego.  You guessed it; a Freudian Slip.

The loot gathering was good that year, because I grew up in a rather affluent suburb.  (“Where their lawns were wide and their minds narrow,” to quote Ernest Hemingway.)

We don't need to say it was that year, because we've already said it's 1983. We can also enmesh the two thoughts--the what and the why--into a single, tighter sentence. In the process, "rather" is clutter.

The quote and attribution we can almost leave alone--what other Hemingway would we quote?--though we can dispose of the parenthesis.

We gathered tons of loot in that affluent suburb.  “Where their lawns were wide and their minds narrow,” to quote Hemingway.

But it didn’t seem so terribly oppressive then.  In fact, I rather enjoyed those days.  My neighborhood was on the edge of what had once been a vast cotton farm, many thousands of acres wide.  By the time I came along, the fields had run to riot and a dense forest of trees grew where once there had been furrows.  It was a marshland full of deer and rabbits and wild dogs and wild hogs and even the occasional alligator sunning itself on the banks of some scummed over little pond.  My friends and I spent our summers roaming that empty landscape, our dogs by our sides, pellet guns gripped by the breach like we were the Green Berets on patrol on the border of Cambodia.  We boys were like gods then, carving empires of the imagination from the air on a daily basis.

This is a large paragraph. As usual, we'll address that if necessary after we see what boils out.

I think we can boil out the "but", because it naturally follows from the previous sentence...

...and now a small tirade on the word "seem". There are few situations where "seem" should be used--the best example being when the POV character is guessing as to the thoughts or feelings of another character. Otherwise, "seem" might as well be "was", because even if it's not true, from the perspective of the narrator it is. Thus, while "seem" is not as ubiquitous as "to be" (and all its conjugations, especially "was"), it stands out like a bright pink whack-a-mole when we're looking for ways to tighten our prose. The way Stephen King feels about adverbs? Yeah, that's how I feel about "seem". So anyway...

We can omit the "terribly", or omit the "oppressive" and use "terrible".

"In fact" is clutter, as is "rather".

I'm going to separate these first two, boiled sentences out for the moment, because on the final read we're going to merge them with the paragraph above.

It wasn't so oppressive then.  I rather enjoyed those days. 

Moving on, "was on the edge of" = "bordered", and "what had once been a vast" = "a former", and we can cut the "vast" because it's redundant with the thousands of acres (from which we can boil "many", because "thousands" is already plural.)

"By the time I came along" is clutter, because we're talking about 1983, when the author was thirteen--we don't need to establish the time again.

"Forest of trees" = "forest"; we'd only need to specify if we wanted to identify a type of trees, or if we were being allegorical ("forest of telephone poles", for example)... Otherwise, forests are "of trees" by definition. "grew where once there had been furrows" = "had overgrown old furrows".

...but this clashes with the next paragraph, where the landscape is referred to as "those fields". I think, then, that we need to eliminate (as opposed to boil out) the word "dense"--though this is a guess on my part, and were this a real editing job I'd of course discuss it with the author first.

The next line's a doozy, because it rambles on purpose, but I can't help but look at that "It was" and think that there's a better way to say it. The solution is to take this already run-on sentence and combine it with the one before it. Other than that, "scummed over" needs a hyphen, and while we could dispose of "little" in "little pond", there is a minor loss of content there, and that'd be breaking the rules of my own blog.

"My friends and I" = "We", and I think "our summers" needs to go, both because it can be boiled out and because it wasn't just summers, as evidenced by the Halloween references throughout. I'm inclined to boil out the "our" before "our dogs", but am afraid that this might clash with the wild dogs from the previous sentence, so we'll leave it in. "like we were the" can lose everything but the "like", though, "on patrol on" = "patrolling", and "border of Cambodia" = "Cambodian border".

On a side note, mentioning the Cambodian border here is an excellent way to re-anchor us in the mindset of a thirteen-year-old in 1983; it carries with it all the baggage of too-young-to-have-experienced-Vietnam-but-old-enough-to-carry-it-with-us that "the jungle" wouldn't have. It's small but significant choices like this that make extraordinary writing look easy.

"We boys" can lose the "boys", and "like gods" can lose the "like", and we can boil out "then". As empires can only be carved from the air in the imagination, we can boil out "of the imagination", and given the general precociousness of boys given a place to play, we can boil out "on a daily basis".

Looking at the final product, we can combine the last two sentences and make them more active still.

My neighborhood bordered a former cotton farm, thousands of acres wide.  The fields had run to riot, old furrows overgrown by a marshy forest full of deer and rabbits and wild dogs and wild hogs and even the occasional alligator sunning itself on the banks of some scummed-over little pond.  Our dogs by our sides, pellet guns gripped by the breach like Green Berets patrolling the Cambodian border, we roamed that empty landscape as gods, carving empires from the air.

But those fields weren’t entirely empty.  There was something else in there with us besides tall weeds and swamp trees.  Just a few hundred yards in from the fence that was supposed to keep us out, hidden behind a large copse of trees, was what I guess was an old cotton processing facility.  It was little more than three large, interconnected metal silos, nearly every inch of which was covered with graffiti.  But in its moldering, rusting decay I found it resplendent.  I was drawn to it in much the same way as water finds its own level.  There was an irresistible gravity around that abandoned structure that both held me hostage and set my mind free.  It was like a flint for my imagination, for with the smallest of effort I found I could turn those silos into cities, the loose machine parts scattered around them into a cemetery of dead cars.  That lonely collection of silos took me to dark and apocalyptic places.  And I loved every minute of it.

The first sentence can be eliminated entirely--we already know that the fields were full of trees and dogs and hogs and the occasional alligator.

"There was something else in there" = "Something [verbed] there". I'm going to go with "brooded", because it seems appropriate to me given the apocalyptic atmosphere Joe's imagination gave the building. It also allows us to boil out "with us".

"Just" is clutter, as is "in", and "that was supposed" = "erected". In "was what I guess was", we've got too many "was"es, so let's replace the first with a verb... I'll go with "lurked". On that same note, let's change "old" to "abandoned", which conveys the same information, plus a little more--and allows us to boil out the "abandoned" that comes next, too. We can boil out "what I guess was" because whether or not the author is ultimately right on that score isn't relevant.

We can boil out "it was", and as delicious as it is that one of Joe's phrases fails the "by zombies" test for passive voice, we can tighten up the latter clause by making it active. And while I'm certain that every inch was not literally covered in graffiti, the figurative nature of the phrase is sufficiently strong that we can lose the "nearly" with no fear of misunderstanding.

We can combine the next sentences' two parts into one single idea, and this makes a great transition into the next paragraph... (I'm going to insert a paragraph break here because (a) this one's pretty long, and (b) the physical presence of the building and the author's impressions thereof are sufficiently different to justify their own paragraphs.)

But something brooded there besides tall weeds and swamp trees.  A few hundred yards from the fence erected to keep us out, hidden behind a large copse of trees, lurked an abandoned cotton processing facility.  Little more than three large, interconnected metal silos, graffiti covered every inch.  But I found its moldering, rusting decay resplendent.

We can combine the gravity analogy in the next two sentences, and split off the dual hostage/freedom into its own sentence.

"It was like" is clutter, as is "of", "for", "I found", and even "could" (if "turn" gains an "ed"). "Loose" can go, because if they weren't loose, they wouldn't be parts and couldn't be scattered.

"That lonely collection of silos" = "Those lonely silos"...and yes, I like this adverb and think it should stay, King be damned!

The last sentence of this paragraph is exactly the right cliche for the moment, but I like it a bit better when merged with the previous sentence.

The irresistible gravity around that structure drew me to it much as water finds its own level. It held me hostage and set my mind free. A flint for my imagination, with the smallest effort I turned those silos into cities, the machine parts scattered around them into a cemetery of dead cars.  Those lonely silos took me to dark and apocalyptic places, and I loved every minute of it.

But that Halloween, as we wandered the neighborhood, collecting our loot, we happened by the new construction that would, within the coming year, spread our neighborhood with crystalline profusion into the empty fields we loved so much.  Cookie cutter houses would take the place of my beloved cotton processing silos, and another empty place on the map would get filled in with names like Spring Forest Lane and Oak Terrace and Verbena Drive.

Loot collection brings us back to "that Halloween" without having to state it.

"Within the coming year" can be boiled out. If the construction wasn't imminent, you'd not have stumbled across it at that time, so despite its seeming (gah!) immediacy that the phrase adds, we can remove it and lose nothing.

As an editorial comment, instead of eliminating (not boiling) the "empty" here as we did above, I think it's more powerful if we instead emphasize it with quotes; bereft of houses, those fields were chock full of childhoody goodness that the expanding suburb would bleed out.

"would take the place of" = "would overtake", and we know that the silos were for cotton processing, and that they were beloved--calling them "my" in this case emphasizes the ownership and emotional investment to the point that calling them "beloved" here might actually overpower the subtle poignancy of the comment.

"get filled in" = "filling" (which we can use to replace the "and"), and we don't need to call out the fact that the street names are names, as long as it doesn't matter if the names are exactly accurate for the area (a detail I don't know, and I'm not sure if Joe found important. Again, a place to talk to the author). However, I think the relentless march of suburbia can be reflected even better by pluralizing them.

But as we wandered the neighborhood collecting our loot, we happened by the new construction that would spread our neighborhood with crystalline profusion into the "empty" fields we loved so much.  Cookie cutter houses would overtake my silos, filling another empty place on the map with Spring Forest Lanes and Oak Terraces and Verbena Drives.

But for that night, that magical last night of October 1983, the palace of my imagination was still intact, sitting like a sentinel at the outskirts of my own October Country.

May that land forever live.

"But for" read to me as "Except for" on my first read, and again when I moved into condensation mode. For that reason I'm going to change "for" to "on".

I don't think that the redundancy on "that night" gains us anything, so let's boil it out. For that matter, because we eliminated the "Halloween" in the previous paragraph, we can replace "last night of October 1983" with "Halloween".

"was still intact" = "stood intact", and as sentinels generally stand, let's boil out the "sitting like".

I love the Bradbury reference, and those who don't get it can look it up and find something else wonderful to read!

But on that magical Halloween, the palace of my imagination stood intact, a sentinel at the outskirts of my own October Country.

May that land forever live.

The Result:

As I mentioned above, I'm going to combine those two lines I pulled out of the first large paragraph into the preceding paragraph. That leaves us with:

Houston, 1983 - I was thirteen, trick-or-treating with friends.  I wore one of my Mom’s old slips, scrawled with Id, Ego and Superego.  You guessed it; a Freudian Slip.

We gathered tons of loot in that affluent suburb, “[w]here their lawns were wide and their minds narrow.” The oppression in Hemingway's quote notwithstanding, I rather enjoyed those days.

My neighborhood bordered a former cotton farm, thousands of acres wide.  The fields had run to riot, old furrows overgrown by a marshy forest full of deer and rabbits and wild dogs and wild hogs and even the occasional alligator sunning itself on the banks of some scummed-over little pond.  Our dogs by our sides, pellet guns gripped by the breach like Green Berets patrolling the Cambodian border, we roamed that empty landscape as gods, carving empires from the air.

But something brooded there besides tall weeds and swamp trees.  A few hundred yards from the fence erected to keep us out, hidden behind a large copse of trees, lurked an abandoned cotton processing facility.  Little more than three large, interconnected metal silos, graffiti covered every inch.  But I found its moldering, rusting decay resplendent.

The irresistible gravity around that structure drew me to it much as water finds its own level. It held me hostage and set my mind free. A flint for my imagination, with the smallest effort I turned those silos into cities, the machine parts scattered around them into a cemetery of dead cars.  Those lonely silos took me to dark and apocalyptic places, and I loved every minute of it.

But as we wandered the neighborhood collecting our loot, we happened by the new construction that would spread our neighborhood with crystalline profusion into the "empty" fields we loved so much.  Cookie cutter houses would overtake my silos, filling another empty place on the map with Spring Forest Lanes and Oak Terraces and Verbena Drives.

But on that magical Halloween, the palace of my imagination stood intact, a sentinel at the outskirts of my own October Country.

May that land forever live.

So the final tally is 345 words down from 490, a 30% reduction. I believe I succeeded in preserving the mingled melancholy and nostalgia. What do you think?

Boiling a Policeman with Jake Elliot

This week we're going to boil the first 492 words of Jake Elliot's WIP, Joy-Ride. Jake is the author of Crossing Mother's Grave and The Wrong Way Down, as well as a variety of shorter fiction. You can find him at http://jakeelliotfiction.com/, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, and just about anywhere else books are sold.

The Original:

Officer Mike Tampinaro read the sign over the door, ‘Sheinker and Goldmann, Attorneys at Law.’

It was an old office building in a neighborhood where the rent was cheap. These two attorneys could have afforded one of those high-rise office buildings at the center of town thanks to the money cow they’d been milking for over a decade. The building’s exterior would never spill the story of how much milk the money-cow had been giving, but with the money these two lawyers spent on late-night commercials, it had to be a small fortune. From the outside it looked more like an inner-city bail-bonds office––and in many ways––this wasn’t too far from the truth.

Officer Mike Tampinaro was the Metro Officer sent to handle a routine disturbance of the peace. It was the typical call about music being played too loud, but oddly, the complaint was made against the nursery next to the lawyers’ office. According to the dispatcher, it was Gene Goldmann who’d called in the complaint.

Thomas––the dispatcher––had confided, “You know, that guy on the commercials, promising to get people out of their DUIs?”

Yeah, that guy.

Officer Mike had pulled into the nursery’s parking lot next to the law office. Stepping out of the police cruiser, he stood tall. Looking sharp in his dark blues, his badge caught the sun’s light and sparkled. Taking off his sunglasses as if they were what prevented him from hearing the rock-concert that supposedly shook the foundation of this legal office, the dark lenses removed from over his eyes didn’t change a thing. Not one note of music could be heard playing anywhere. From a half-mile away, he could hear traffic on the interstate. Creepy was the lack of noise.

His eyes were greeted by a myriad of flowering plants set outside the nursery’s fence, strategically arranged to entice onlookers to beautify their own habitats. The garden center was open, but vacant of people. Empty. Almost a ghost town, but equally absent of ghosts as it was void of loud music.

Mike may have explored that oddity next if the front window of the law-office hadn’t exploded outward in a cascade of shattering glass. Through the falling glass flew angry bullets sent from a crackling gun. Bullet number one zinged through the air close enough to Mike’s head to be heard. In an attempt to dodge bullets, Mike leapt across the hood of his patrol car as slug number two punched a hole through the windshield, spider-webbing safety glass and clouding the view of his dash-mounted camera.

Ducking behind the tire of his police cruiser, Mike heard the metallic tearing-sound as another bullet pelted into the cruiser’s hood eight-inches away from where his head was ducked. The gun’s rapport followed a fraction later, loudly announcing its caliber. Mike knew it was a .38 by the distinct high crack. His trained ear noticed the difference from its stronger cousin the 9mm.

The Condensation:

The first thing I'm going to do is move the sixth paragraph up to the first, so the story starts with action. This also allows us to boil out some of the "it was"-type mechanical verbage.

Officer Mike had pulled into the nursery’s parking lot next to the law office. Stepping out of the police cruiser, he stood tall. Looking sharp in his dark blues, his badge caught the sun’s light and sparkled. Taking off his sunglasses as if they were what prevented him from hearing the rock-concert that supposedly shook the foundation of this legal office, the dark lenses removed from over his eyes didn’t change a thing. Not one note of music could be heard playing anywhere. From a half-mile away, he could hear traffic on the interstate. Creepy was the lack of noise.

First, we need to use his full name to account for the move. We'll make up for the addition by boiling down future names.

I got confused later, because I didn't realize that the nursery and the garden center were the same place. Maybe that's a regional difference, but I processed them as two businesses--one with plants, one with babies.

The fact that he's tall can wait until a later time in the story--it's not important to the unfolding scene, so I'd boil it out for now and bring it up later when it matters.

"caught the sun's light and sparkled" = "sparkling in the sun".

The sentence about the sunglasses is a run-on, and it's a little confusing. I boiled it down and bumped it forward one sentence.

The traffic line can boil down by describing it, instead of just saying that he heard it.

The last line is phrased in a rather Yoda-like way. (Well, almost. He'd say, "Creepy, the lack of noise was.") A more straightforward wording would be, "The lack of noise was creepy", but I'd be inclined to turn it into more of a show than a tell. It's longer rather than shorter, but in this case I'd say it's worth the loss of word economy.

Officer Mike Tampinaro pulled into the garden center's parking lot next to the law office. He stepped out of the police cruiser in his dark blues, his badge sparkling in the sun. He heard no music at all, much less the reported rock concert. He removed his sunglasses. Traffic roared on the interstate a half-mile away. Hair rose on the back of his neck at the lack of noise.

Officer Mike Tampinaro read the sign over the door, ‘Sheinker and Goldmann, Attorneys at Law.’

We don't have to say that he read it in his POV. The fact that he knows what it says means that he read it.

The sign over the door said, ‘Sheinker and Goldmann, Attorneys at Law.’

It was an old office building in a neighborhood where the rent was cheap. These two attorneys could have afforded one of those high-rise office buildings at the center of town thanks to the money cow they’d been milking for over a decade. The building’s exterior would never spill the story of how much milk the money-cow had been giving, but with the money these two lawyers spent on late-night commercials, it had to be a small fortune. From the outside it looked more like an inner-city bail-bonds office––and in many ways––this wasn’t too far from the truth.

Conjugations of "to be" are good indicators that not only can some words get boiled out, but that the description can be made more engaging. Instead of "being in" the neighborhood, it can sit, or squat, or brood--depending on the atmosphere we want to project. The "the" before rent is clutter.

The next sentence has a lot of little boilings. "These two" = "the", "could have afforded" = "could afford", "one of those" = "a", "office buildings" can be cut (and it's an echo from the first sentence anyway), "at the center of town" = "downtown" or "midtown", and "been milking" = "milked". I'm not a fan of emphasizing approximations... "for over a decade" can just as well be "for a decade", and nobody will assume that you mean exactly 10.00 years.

"The building's exterior" = "the exterior", or if you prefer, "the facade".

"the story of" is clutter, so is the "been" before "giving" if we change it to "given".

"these two lawyers" = "they"

"From the outside" is clutter. The "and in many ways" can join with the "this" to become "which". Let's boil out the "too" while we're at it.

The old office building squatted in a neighborhood where rent was cheap. The attorneys could afford a midtown high-rise thanks to the money cow they’d milked for a decade. The facade would never spill how much milk that cow had produced, but with the money they spent on late-night commercials, it had to be a small fortune. It looked more like an inner-city bail-bonds office, which wasn’t far from the truth.

Officer Mike Tampinaro was the Metro Officer sent to handle a routine disturbance of the peace. It was the typical call about music being played too loud, but oddly, the complaint was made against the nursery next to the lawyers’ office. According to the dispatcher, it was Gene Goldmann who’d called in the complaint.

It's obvious from context that he was sent there, so I don't think we have to say it.

I also think we can combine the information in the final two sentences and boil them down to their absolute essentials. "Music being played too loud" = "loud music".

Nothing sounded like a routine disturbance of the peace, though dispatch reported that Gene Goldmann had called to complain about loud music from the store next door.

Thomas––the dispatcher––had confided, “You know, that guy on the commercials, promising to get people out of their DUIs?”

Yeah, that guy.

I have no words to boil here, so let's move on.

His eyes were greeted by a myriad of flowering plants set outside the nursery’s fence, strategically arranged to entice onlookers to beautify their own habitats. The garden center was open, but vacant of people. Empty. Almost a ghost town, but equally absent of ghosts as it was void of loud music.

"His eyes were greeted by" is just a, ahem, flowery way to say "he saw", and as the rest of this isn't poetry, I think we can cut it back. Better, let's boil it out altogether, because we're in his POV and thus can dispense with the sensory verb. "Flowering plants" are "flowers" (especially in an American male POV).

We can remove "strategically", because arrangement is deliberate by nature, but I think we can do away with "arranged" as well--it's a store, so of course they're not just there willy-nilly.

"of people" is clutter.

"Almost" can go, as can "equally".

"absent" and "void" can be merged.

A myriad of flowers sat outside the garden center's fence to entice onlookers to beautify their own habitats. The neon sign read 'Open', but the store stood vacant. Empty. A ghost town as devoid of ghosts as it was loud music.

Mike may have explored that oddity next if the front window of the law-office hadn’t exploded outward in a cascade of shattering glass. Through the falling glass flew angry bullets sent from a crackling gun. Bullet number one zinged through the air close enough to Mike’s head to be heard. In an attempt to dodge bullets, Mike leapt across the hood of his patrol car as slug number two punched a hole through the windshield, spider-webbing safety glass and clouding the view of his dash-mounted camera.

Ducking behind the tire of his police cruiser, Mike heard the metallic tearing-sound as another bullet pelted into the cruiser’s hood eight-inches away from where his head was ducked. The gun’s rapport followed a fraction later, loudly announcing its caliber. Mike knew it was a .38 by the distinct high crack. His trained ear noticed the difference from its stronger cousin the 9mm.

I decided to take these two paragraphs together, because by rearranging some of the information we can boil things down a bit better, and combine them.

I wouldn't take the time to explain what might have happened, especially as prelude to something as abrupt as this. It's abrupt, so the words should be abrupt as well. I've changed "exploded" to "burst" because my initial thought was an actual explosion, and I had to revise my mental image on the fly. "Shattering glass" should be "shattered glass", as we humans can't experience it fast enough to see it shatter.

We can move the information about the .38 up, to replace the awkward sentence about angry bullets.

There's no way in his POV he'd be numbering or naming the bullets, and zinging through the ear close enough to be heard is the same as zinging by.

It's obvious that he's trying to dodge, so we can boil that out. Punching through leaves a hole, so we can boil out "a hole".

...and while spider-webbed safety glass may very well cloud the view of his dash-mounted camera, that's not something he's going to stop to notice (if he could even see it) while diving across the hood.

We know he's behind the police cruiser, so "tire" will suffice.

"a metallic tearing-sound" is a "shrieking impact", and "eight inches away from where his head was ducked" is "eight inches from his head"...but he's not going to whip out a tape measure and check, so while before I nitpicked about approximations, here I'm going to nitpick about specificity--in both cases, close enough is close enough.

The last three sentences I'm going to boil out altogether, for three reasons:

One, a .38 revolver will typically fire in the subsonic range, somewhere between 700 and 1100 fps, so the report wouldn't arrive second,

Two, it's going to be traveling somewhere awfully close to the speed of sound, and at the distance from storefront to curb (where I presume a policeman would have parked), the difference in travel time will probably not be noticeable, and

Three, we take care of the trained ear information by the simple fact that Mike recognized the report for what it was--most people wouldn't be able to do that.

The front window of the law-office burst outward in a cascade of shattered glass and the distinct, high-pitched reports of a .38. A bullet zinged by his head. He leapt across the hood of his patrol car as another slug punched through the windshield. He ducked behind the tire as a shrieking impact pelted the cruiser’s hood a foot from his head.

The Result:

The boiling done, on a re-read I think we can rearrange things a bit more. Without boiling out anything else, I shimmied some sentences from the now-first paragraph to the third.

Officer Mike Tampinaro pulled into the garden center's parking lot next to the law office. He stepped out of the police cruiser in his dark blues, his badge sparkling in the sun. He heard no music at all, much less the reported rock concert. He removed his sunglasses. 

The sign over the door said, ‘Sheinker and Goldmann, Attorneys at Law.’ 

Nothing sounded like a routine disturbance of the peace, though dispatch reported that Gene Goldmann had called to complain about loud music from the store next door. Traffic roared on the interstate a half-mile away. Hair rose on the back of his neck at the lack of noise. 

Thomas––the dispatcher––had confided, “You know, that guy on the commercials, promising to get people out of their DUIs?”
Yeah, that guy. 

The old office building squatted in a neighborhood where rent was cheap. The attorneys could afford a midtown high-rise thanks to the money cow they’d milked for a decade. The facade would never spill how much milk that cow had produced, but with the money they spent on late-night commercials, it had to be a small fortune. It looked more like an inner-city bail-bonds office, which wasn’t far from the truth. 

A myriad of flowers sat outside the garden center's fence to entice onlookers to beautify their own habitats. The neon sign read 'Open', but the store stood vacant. Empty. A ghost town as devoid of ghosts as it was loud music. 

The front window of the law-office burst outward in a cascade of shattered glass and the distinct, high-pitched reports of a .38. A bullet zinged by his head. He leapt across the hood of his patrol car as another slug punched through the windshield. He ducked behind the tire as a shrieking impact pelted the cruiser’s hood a foot from his head.

So there you have it, 305 words down from 492, a 38% reduction. I admit I did cheat just a little by omitting the bit about standing tall, but in the end I think it was the right call. Do you agree?

Boiling into space

Today's entry is the first 515 words of Galaxy Class Hero by Dranea Lyn. It's a rough draft, so it's ripe for a good boiling. A sci-fi thriller, this should be great fun to boil down. Let's see what we can do.

The original:

“O2 LEVELS DANGEROUSLY LOW.  O2 LEVELS DANGEROUSLY LOW.” 

The robotic female voice droned over the speakers through the entire ship.  In every room of the small, transport ship the warning was belted out, but there were only two sets of ears that heard it. At least now there were only two sets. 

“How the hell could this happen?” A naked, shivering figure stood motionless and watched as one burning blaze after another lit the screen in front of her.  Suddenly, the brightness on the screen was overbearing and she had to turn her face away.  The reverberations from the explosions reached her bare feet.  The cargo hold was at the back of the ship.  She was surprised the whole ship had not broken apart.

Boz, trying to run to the monitor and pull his pants on at the same time was having difficulties.  He finally gave up this pursuit, dropped Zoe’s clothes at his feet and stared open mouthed at the view.  The emergency hatches had opened - flames were extinguished as all of the oxygen in the room was sucked out as were many of the supplies not securely bolted to the walls or the floor.  The real horror was watching the blackened faces of his friends silently scream on screen.  They tried to keep purchase on the wooden crates or metal hibernation chambers in the cargo hold, but one by one, their grips failed and their bodies were lost to the infinite boundaries of space.

The Mors, a scientific supply ship, was on its way to a new planet.  The crew aboard were newly qualified scientists ready for their first expedition to a budding planet.  Their predecessors had already set up shop on the surface and were eagerly awaiting this team of helpers and the supplies that would accompany them.  The six months of waiting seemed an eternity to Boz and Zoe; they had dreamed of this trip for what seemed their entire lives.

They had grown up together, played together, shared science experiments together, and finally studied for interplanetary research together.  They were closer than friends.  The excitement of the trip stirred feelings in them they both had shared but were always afraid of admitting.  This morning they decided to take a next step in their relationship.  Late in the evening, the crew was required to take detailed notes on the inventory being shipped to the planet’s surface. The entire crew should have been there, but the two shirked their duties for their short, personal vacation.

As the ship needed no captain to run or pilot the craft, the bridge of the ship was always empty.  This is where Zoe and Boz planned their first rendezvous.  As unromantic as the environment was, they were guaranteed not to be interrupted, and they would be able to see anyone coming from all of the monitors watching over everything on the ship. 

“Zoe…Zoe!”  It took Boz a second to catch her attention.  Handing her clothes to her, she dressed in complete silence, not once lifting her eyes from the floor.  She was going into shock.

The Condensation:

An initial note is that this is in an omniscient POV. While considered a "no-no" in most fiction circles today, it can work well and I have no intention of addressing whether or not we should change that here--it does have bearing on our boiling, though, because we have to keep straight who is thinking, feeling, or experiencing what...which requires more words in general than a single POV would.

“O2 LEVELS DANGEROUSLY LOW.  O2 LEVELS DANGEROUSLY LOW.” 

The robotic female voice droned over the speakers through the entire ship.  In every room of the small, transport ship the warning was belted out, but there were only two sets of ears that heard it. At least now there were only two sets.

We can assume that a voice droning through a ship is doing so via speakers, and that "the ship" is "the entire ship".

The second sentence contains only two salient pieces of information: that it's a small transport ship, and that two people heard it. The first piece we can incorporate into the first sentence, and the second is more powerful if we let it stand on its own. As an aside, "was belted out" fails the "by zombies" test.

The shock of the third sentence can be combined with the second, and "sets of ears" are people.

“O2 LEVELS DANGEROUSLY LOW.  O2 LEVELS DANGEROUSLY LOW.”
 The robotic female voice droned through the small transport ship.  Now, only two people heard it.

“How the hell could this happen?” A naked, shivering figure stood motionless and watched as one burning blaze after another lit the screen in front of her.  Suddenly, the brightness on the screen was overbearing and she had to turn her face away.  The reverberations from the explosions reached her bare feet.  The cargo hold was at the back of the ship.  She was surprised the whole ship had not broken apart.

The dialogue is fine--I rarely have any suggestions for boiling it down. A naked, female = who? Zoe? Assuming the narrator knows this, we should just come out and say it.

The next two sentences, though, can be combined. "one burning blaze after another" = "blaze after blaze". "The screen in front of her" can be "the screen", because if it wasn't in front of her she wouldn't be looking at it... That she stood motionless is implied if she's watching a screen.

I'm adverse to adverbs, but to "suddenly" in particular. In the context of a fiction novel where action is outlaid, it by and large adds nothing to the narrative. This clause can be combined with the previous sentence, and the passive "was overbearing" can be condensed with the brightness to yield a more active sentence.

The next sentence is fine, but "The cargo hold was at the back of the ship" is entirely passive, so let's combine the two. I don't think at this point the location of the cargo hold is important, given that the ship is in the process of blowing up, and by boiling that out we avoid the echo on "ship". Indeed, a paragraph down we learn it's the cargo hold, so we can cut it here but keep it there.

The last sentence is a tell, but probably okay. Even so, "had not" = "hadn't", and "She was surprised" can be made more active with the addition of one word.

“How the hell could this happen?” Zoe's naked, shivering figure turned her face away as blaze after blaze overwhelmed the screen.  The reverberations from the explosions reached her bare feet. It surprised her that the whole ship hadn't broken apart.

Boz, trying to run to the monitor and pull his pants on at the same time was having difficulties.  He finally gave up this pursuit, dropped Zoe’s clothes at his feet and stared open mouthed at the view.  The emergency hatches had opened - flames were extinguished as all of the oxygen in the room was sucked out as were many of the supplies not securely bolted to the walls or the floor.  The real horror was watching the blackened faces of his friends silently scream on screen.  They tried to keep purchase on the wooden crates or metal hibernation chambers in the cargo hold, but one by one, their grips failed and their bodies were lost to the infinite boundaries of space.

The structures "was [verb]ing" can almost always be condensed. "Trying to" is almost always clutter, but in this case he meets in failure, so it's okay.

In the second sentence, it's not clear which pursuit he gave up--the pants, running to the monitor, or both.

Finally can go--it's just clutter, and the action hasn't been happening long enough to justify it anyway. When things are dropped, they're generally at one's feet, so this can boil out. To stare open-mouthed is to gape. Also, I get the impression that he's trying to put on Zoe's pants, because he gives up, then drops her clothes.

The next sentence can be boiled with some rearrangement. The action is that everything is venting into space, so let's put that front-and-center.

We don't need to tell the reader that it's horrible to watch friends die. "Silently", while an evil adverb, is appropriate here (as screams are not, as a rule, silent!) I don't understand the use of the word "blackened" here. Decompression takes a while and doesn't cause blackening, so I can only assume that they're charred--this is another case where I'd discuss this with the author were this a "real" edit and not a blog post. We already know it's "on screen", so we can boil that out, and now the sentence is short enough to combine with the next one.

"tried to keep purchase" = "clung to"; and now we've got a run-on sentence that I created...but that's okay, because the last part of the final sentence of this paragraph has more impact on its own.

"their bodies were lost"...by zombies. "Lost to the infinite boundaries of space" is a beautiful turn of phrase that could be boiled out entirely, but it's better left in.

Boz stumbled to the monitor as he tried to slide a foot into his pants.  He gave up, dropped Zoe’s clothes and gaped at the view.  Supplies tumbled into space as emergency hatches vented oxygen to smother the flames. His friends' charred faces screamed silently as they clung to wooden crates or metal hibernation chambers in the cargo hold. One by one their grips failed and they joined the debris, lost to the infinite boundaries of space.

The Mors, a scientific supply ship, was on its way to a new planet.  The crew aboard were newly qualified scientists ready for their first expedition to a budding planet.  Their predecessors had already set up shop on the surface and were eagerly awaiting this team of helpers and the supplies that would accompany them.  The six months of waiting seemed an eternity to Boz and Zoe; they had dreamed of this trip for what seemed their entire lives.

I think we need a sentence or two here to indicate that the immediate danger to Boz and Zoe is over. Otherwise, we've stopped in the middle of the action for an info-dump.

The information in the first sentence can be condensed and made more active; instead of saying that it's a supply ship and that it's going to a new planet, we can say that it's bringing supplies to a new planet! (I'd give the planet a name at this juncture. I'm sure it has one.)

The second sentence doesn't move, it's just information. Let's change it so that the crew is doing something. We have a variety of adjectives that are synonymous with "newly qualified"--greenhorn, tenderfoot, freshman, neophyte--that allow us to boil out the adverb.

"Already" is clutter. So is "shop". We also already know that they're helpers and that they're bringing supplies.

Waiting is too close to awaiting in the previous sentence, so let's make it "transit".

You've got an echo on "seemed", which is often clutter anyway, so "for what seemed their entire lives" = "all their lives".

The fire detection system blinked green. The emergency hatches closed. The claxon alarm cut off.

The Mors was bringing scientific supplies to [name], with a crew of greenhorn scientists ready for their first expedition to a budding planet, where the surface team awaited their arrival.  The six months of transit seemed an eternity to Boz and Zoe; they had dreamed of this trip all their lives.

They had grown up together, played together, shared science experiments together, and finally studied for interplanetary research together.  They were closer than friends.  The excitement of the trip stirred feelings in them they both had shared but were always afraid of admitting.  This morning they decided to take a next step in their relationship.  Late in the evening, the crew was required to take detailed notes on the inventory being shipped to the planet’s surface. The entire crew should have been there, but the two shirked their duties for their short, personal vacation.

Judicious use of adverbs can help keep prose from becoming stilted, so let's change this "They had" to "They'd" (even though we left the previous one alone). "shared science experiments together" = "shared experiments", because shared means together, and experiments are science! There are lots of echoes on "together" here, and this change also reduces it to the magical number of three--just enough! Again we can kill the "finally".

"They were closer than friends" is redundant with the rest of the paragraph, so we can boil it out.

Feelings are "in them", so boil that. "they both had shared" = "they shared", because it takes two (or more) to share. Always is clutter and can be boiled out.

The sentence beginning "this morning" is clutter, unless the timing of their decision to sleep together is important to the plot.

The final two sentences can be consolidated into one.

They'd grown up together, played together, shared experiments, and studied for interplanetary research together.  The excitement of the trip stirred feelings they shared but were afraid of admitting.  That evening they'd shirked inventory duties with the rest of the crew for a short, personal vacation.

As the ship needed no captain to run or pilot the craft, the bridge of the ship was always empty.  This is where Zoe and Boz planned their first rendezvous.  As unromantic as the environment was, they were guaranteed not to be interrupted, and they would be able to see anyone coming from all of the monitors watching over everything on the ship. 

The first piece of information can be condensed to "On autopilot". "of the ship" is obvious, so can be boiled away.

The second sentence is redundant with the information we already have, and can be boiled out in its entirety.

"As unromantic as the environment was" = "unromantic, at least"

"not to be interrupted" = "no interruptions"

"would be able to" = "could"

The last phrase is redundant with what we already know, because they're watching the entire ship on the monitors.

On autopilot, the bridge was always empty.  Unromantic, at least it guaranteed no interruptions, and they could see anyone coming on the monitors. 

 “Zoe…Zoe!”  It took Boz a second to catch her attention.  Handing her clothes to her, she dressed in complete silence, not once lifting her eyes from the floor.  She was going into shock.

The first non-dialogue sentence here is a tell, partly redundant with the repeated "Zoe!"

The second sentence reads like she handed the clothes to herself. We've got the added issue that he'd dropped them on the floor.

"Complete" is clutter when accompanying "silence".

Her shock is evident from her actions, so we don't have to tell what we've already shown. If the shock gets worse, we can make that apparent in the next paragraph.

“Zoe…Zoe!”  She turned a little.  He picked up her clothes and held them out. She dressed in silence, not once lifting her eyes from the floor.

The Result:

“O2 LEVELS DANGEROUSLY LOW.  O2 LEVELS DANGEROUSLY LOW.” 

The robotic female voice droned through the small transport ship.  Now, only two people heard it.

“How the hell could this happen?” Zoe's naked, shivering figure turned her face away as blaze after blaze overwhelmed the screen.  The reverberations from the explosions reached her bare feet. It surprised her that the whole ship hadn't broken apart.

Boz stumbled to the monitor as he tried to slide a foot into his pants.  He gave up, dropped Zoe’s clothes and gaped at the view.  Supplies tumbled into space as emergency hatches vented oxygen to smother the flames. His friends' charred faces screamed silently as they clung to wooden crates or metal hibernation chambers in the cargo hold. One by one their grips failed and they joined the debris, lost to the infinite boundaries of space.

The fire detection system blinked green. The emergency hatches closed. The claxon alarm cut off.

The Mors was bringing scientific supplies to [name], with a crew of greenhorn scientists ready for their first expedition to a budding planet, where the surface team awaited their arrival.  The six months of transit seemed an eternity to Boz and Zoe; they had dreamed of this trip all their lives.

They'd grown up together, played together, shared experiments, and studied for interplanetary research together.  The excitement of the trip stirred feelings they shared but were afraid of admitting.  That evening they'd shirked inventory duties with the rest of the crew for a short, personal vacation.

On autopilot, the bridge was always empty.  Unromantic, at least it guaranteed no interruptions, and they could see anyone coming on the monitors. 

“Zoe…Zoe!”  She turned a little.  He picked up her clothes and held them out. She dressed in silence, not once lifting her eyes from the floor.

515 words boil down to 301, a reduction of 41.5%. What do you think?

Boiling a Shameless Self-Promoter

This week's sample is something different: nonfiction. Jim Bernheimer is the author of Confessions of a D-List Supervillain and Prime Suspects: A Clone Detective Mystery, and has a lot to say about effective self-promotion. In this case he's sent us 520 words to boil down. Here's the first part of his piece, entitled Confessions of a Shameless Self-Promoter:

The Original:

Lots of people have great ideas and they turn them into books.  There are hundreds of thousands of novels released every year.  As a writer, you have to figure out how to rise to the top.  To some extent, this requires that you become a shameless self-promoter. 

A shameless self-promoter is always willing to talk about their books.  I remember setting up for a signing at a Barnes and Noble one time and a young lady was asking me about one of my books.  I fumbled through my description; she smiled, and walked on – missed opportunity. 

Those who have posted a book know that getting the book out there is one thing, but marketing it is an entirely different operation and many of us are out of are element when it comes to that.  I’m not saying you have to become a carnival huckster or the next Sham-Wow guy, but you need to know the good points of your books and be able to recite them on a moment’s notice.  Up until a couple weeks ago, Confessions of a D-List Supervillain was the top rated superhero novel on Amazon.  (Curse you Stacey Rourke!)  Being able to guess the person’s likes and dislikes helps to.  My rule of thumb is that if I make eye contact for more than three seconds, it’s time to start talking, be personable, make a few jokes, and hopefully sell some books.

If you want practice at one on one sales, I suggest you go visit a flea market and see how the successful tables do it, but there is more to being a shameless self-promoter than the one on one sales.  You have to look for opportunities.  My wife works at an architecture firm and they do a lot of work with the area hospitals.  One of them has an annual fundraising gala that we weren’t certain we’d be able to go to this year.  Ultimately, we did and only then did I remember their theme was Superheroes.  Admittedly, it would have cost me some money to donate three hundred and fifty signed copies of D-List to the organizers as part of their goody bags (maybe I could’ve just done pens or fridge magnets), but without risk comes no reward.  That was another missed opportunity for me. 

On the other hand, I was doing quite well selling at ConCarolinas this year.  Across from the table I was sharing with James Maxey was the Carolina Ghostbusters doing their Sci-Fried Eggs podcast.   One of the staff came up and let them know that Kandyse McClure (Dee on Battlestar Galactica and the convention’s guest of honor), was going to be delayed for thirty minutes.  Game on!  I scooped up a copy of Prime Suspects: A Clone Detective Mystery and D-List and headed on over.  Sure enough, I got on the podcast and had a great time hanging out with them.

Also, it’s about listening and social networking.  See what other authors are doing to market their work and see if it’s right for you.  Imitation is the best form of flattery and it can also help your sales.

The Condensation:

Lots of people have great ideas and they turn them into books.  There are hundreds of thousands of novels released every year.  As a writer, you have to figure out how to rise to the top.  To some extent, this requires that you become a shameless self-promoter. 

The first sentence takes the form of "this exists, and does something." We can boil it down by combining the clauses. And then we can merge it with the next sentence!

"As a writer, you have to" = "A writer has to".

The fourth sentence can boil a little by removing the "become", thus rendering it more active.

Hundreds of thousands of people turn great ideas into books every year.  A writer has to figure out how to rise to the top.  To some extent, this requires shameless self-promotion. 

A shameless self-promoter is always willing to talk about their books.  I remember setting up for a signing at a Barnes and Noble one time and a young lady was asking me about one of my books.  I fumbled through my description; she smiled, and walked on – missed opportunity. 

"is always willing to" = "will always"

We don't need to tell people that we remember something--if we didn't, we wouldn't be able to tell them about it! While "Once while" isn't shorter than "I remember", it's less obtrusive and allows us to remove the "and".

I don't know that the location of the signing is integral to the point.

"One time" is clutter, "was asking me" = "asked me", and "one of my books" = "my book".

I'd ditch the comma in the last sentence, and boil out "missed opportunity" as well, as this is clear from what happened--especially if we add an "unprepared" at the beginning of the sentence.

A shameless self-promoter will always talk about their books.  Once while setting up for a signing a young lady asked me about my book.  Unprepared, I fumbled through my description; she smiled and walked on. 

Those who have posted a book know that getting the book out there is one thing, but marketing it is an entirely different operation and many of us are out of are element when it comes to that.  I’m not saying you have to become a carnival huckster or the next Sham-Wow guy, but you need to know the good points of your books and be able to recite them on a moment’s notice.  Up until a couple weeks ago, Confessions of a D-List Supervillain was the top rated superhero novel on Amazon.  (Curse you Stacey Rourke!)  Being able to guess the person’s likes and dislikes helps to.  My rule of thumb is that if I make eye contact for more than three seconds, it’s time to start talking, be personable, make a few jokes, and hopefully sell some books.

Before splitting up the first run-on sentence, let's see if we can't boil it down. As our audience is authors (or aspiring authors), we can boil out most of the description. We don't need to say that publishing and marketing are different, just that many people are out of their element when doing so (and fix the "are/our" typo in the process.)

"I'm not saying" is clutter: we never have to say what we're not saying. Or at least, we never have to say that we're not saying it. What we want to do is say what we're saying!

Also, I'd pick either "carnival huckster" or "the next Sham-Wow guy"--I like "Sham-Wow guy" more than "carnival huckster", but an international audience might not recognize it, and furthermore it's becoming more dated every day.

The latter two clauses can be condensed, because one can hardly recite what one doesn't know.

The information about Confessions of a D-List Supervillain may be something we want to convey to the reader, but it's out of place in this paragraph. Bona fides should come at the beginning or the end of the piece.

"Being able to" is clutter. (Let's fix the to/too typo, too.) But I'm not sure this sentence fits with the rest of the piece; it's not advice, it's just a statement of something that's self-evident. Some people will be good at it, others won't, but everyone understands that it will help you in just about every dealing with another person. Thus, let's boil it out.

We don't need to state that there's a rule of thumb, just give it.

I think the "rule of threes" dictates that we boil out one of the four actions at the end of the paragraph. Given that one cannot make jokes while not talking, I think "start talking" is the best choice to boil out. And ditch the adverb.

Many of us are out of our element when it comes to marketing.  You don't have to become a carnival huckster, but you must be able to recite the good points of your books on a moment’s notice.  If you make eye contact for more than three seconds, it’s time to be personable, make a few jokes, and sell some books.

If you want practice at one on one sales, I suggest you go visit a flea market and see how the successful tables do it, but there is more to being a shameless self-promoter than the one on one sales.  You have to look for opportunities.  My wife works at an architecture firm and they do a lot of work with the area hospitals.  One of them has an annual fundraising gala that we weren’t certain we’d be able to go to this year.  Ultimately, we did and only then did I remember their theme was Superheroes.  Admittedly, it would have cost me some money to donate three hundred and fifty signed copies of D-List to the organizers as part of their goody bags (maybe I could’ve just done pens or fridge magnets), but without risk comes no reward.  That was another missed opportunity for me. 

We can assume that people who don't want to practice one-on-one sales won't follow this (excellent) piece of advice anyway. And like rules of thumb, you don't have to say that you suggest something, just suggest it.

"go visit" = "visit", and I'd change the "and" to "to"...and I'd break this sentence up after "do it". "There is" = "there's", "being a shameless self-promoter" = "shameless self-promotion", and we can ditch the "the" before "one on one". "You have to look for opportunities" can be condensed with the "there are" from the previous sentence.

"and they do a lot of work with the area hospitals" = "that works with area hospitals"...except that I don't like the echo on "works". Let's change the second "works" to "contracts".

The detail that you possibly weren't able to go to the gala is moot to the story.

"It would have cost a lot to" = "I couldn't afford to", "to the organizers as part of their" = "for their", and the "without risk comes no reward" is sufficient a cliche that it can boil out with no loss of content.

The parenthetical deserves its own sentence, and by changing "could've" to "should've", we render the final statement redundant.

To practice one on one sales, visit a flea market to see how the successful tables do it. But there are opportunities for shameless self-promotion other than one on one sales.  My wife works at an architecture firm that contracts with area hospitals.  One of them has an annual fundraising gala, that year with the theme "Superheroes".  I couldn't afford to donate three hundred and fifty signed copies of D-List for their goody bags. In retrospect, I should’ve done pens or fridge magnets.

On the other hand, I was doing quite well selling at ConCarolinas this year.  Across from the table I was sharing with James Maxey was the Carolina Ghostbusters doing their Sci-Fried Eggs podcast.   One of the staff came up and let them know that Kandyse McClure (Dee on Battlestar Galactica and the convention’s guest of honor), was going to be delayed for thirty minutes.  Game on!  I scooped up a copy of Prime Suspects: A Clone Detective Mystery and D-List and headed on over.  Sure enough, I got on the podcast and had a great time hanging out with them.

"On the other hand" is clutter, and "I was doing quite well selling" = "My books sold well". I had to read the second sentence twice; it could use a reorganization. Along the way, "I was sharing with" = "I shared", and "doing their" can be replaced with "'s". Sci-Fried Eggs is a weird enough term to suggest quotation marks.

"One of the staff came up and let them know that" = "They learned that", and "was going to be delayed for thirty minutes" = "was thirty minutes late".

The scooping up and heading on over can be condensed.

"Game on!" and "Sure enough" might be clutter, but they fit the colloquial, familiar tone of the piece, so I'm going to spare them from a good boiling.

My books sold well at ConCarolinas this year.  I shared a table with James Maxey, across from the Carolina Ghostbusters's "Sci-Fried Eggs" podcast.   They learned that Kandyse McClure (Dee on Battlestar Galactica and the convention’s guest of honor), was thirty minutes late.  Game on!  I headed over with copies of Prime Suspects: A Clone Detective Mystery and D-List.  Sure enough, I got on the podcast and had a great time hanging out with them.

Also, it’s about listening and social networking.  See what other authors are doing to market their work and see if it’s right for you.  Imitation is the best form of flattery and it can also help your sales.

This isn't a boil, but an editorial comment: "Also, it's" is rather vague. I think it reads better with "Sale are".

"what other authors are doing to market" = "how other authors market", and I'm changing the second "see" to "determine" to avoid the echo.

The final sentence adds no content, so out it boils.

Sales are about listening and social networking.  See how other authors market their work and determine if it’s right for you.

The Result:

...well, not so fast. Upon a re-read, I found that the first sentence of the third paragraph belongs in the introduction, and the first sentence of the fourth paragraph works better as the end of the second paragraph. This kind of thing happens quite a bit with a boiling--you find that, distilled down, things need to move around a little.

With that bit of rearrangement, this is what we end up with:

Hundreds of thousands of people turn great ideas into books every year.  A writer has to figure out how to rise to the top. Many of us are out of our element when it comes to marketing, which to some extent requires shameless self-promotion.

A shameless self-promoter will always talk about their books.  Once while setting up for a signing a young lady asked me about my book.  Unprepared, I fumbled through my description; she smiled and walked on.  To practice one on one sales, visit a flea market to see how the successful tables do it. 

You don't have to become a carnival huckster, but you must be able to recite the good points of your books on a moment’s notice.  If you make eye contact for more than three seconds, it’s time to be personable, make a few jokes, and sell some books. 

But there are opportunities for shameless self-promotion other than one on one sales.  My wife works at an architecture firm that contracts with area hospitals.  One of them has an annual fundraising gala, that year with the theme "Superheroes".  I couldn't afford to donate three hundred and fifty signed copies of D-List for their goody bags. In retrospect, I should’ve done pens or fridge magnets. 

My books sold well at ConCarolinas this year.  I shared a table with James Maxey, across from the Carolina Ghostbusters's "Sci-Fried Eggs" podcast.   They learned that Kandyse McClure (Dee on Battlestar Galactica and the convention’s guest of honor) was thirty minutes late.  Game on!  I headed over with copies of Prime Suspects: A Clone Detective Mystery and D-List.  Sure enough, I got on the podcast and had a great time hanging out with them. 

Sales are about listening and social networking.  See how other authors market their work and determine if it’s right for you.

305 words from 520 is a 41% reduction. What do you think?