The quickest shortcut is recycling unsold manuscripts. However, not all manuscripts are suited for novella length. It works best if the hero and heroine are rarely apart in the original version of the story. When making the story novella-sized:
- Decide the key scenes in the manuscript. Make sure that every previous scene is working towards the key scenes. If they aren’t find a way to remove or shorten the scene.
- Look at what happens at every chapter. Track the characters’ journeys and the story arc. Are there any scenes that can be taken out, or referred to off-stage? If it takes the heroine three events to come to a conclusion, can she do it believably in two?
- Pull back on the secondary character’s motivations.
- Tighten the dialogue. Cut out dialogue tags (he said, she said) when possible.
- Make every word count. If you are still over the page count, go through every sentence and cut unnecessary words. Revise sentences to make them shorter.
