Adaptation

I’m about  to embark on a difficult task –  cutting my novel Harbouring down from eighty-five thousand words to twenty-four thousand, while still keeping the story driving forward sensibly and the words lively and interesting. More or less reducing the whole by three quarters. ‘Throw away your darlings’ as we are encouraged to do in creative writing courses. In this case it’s more like – try not to throw away your darling baby with the bath water.

This is for a radio NZ adaptation. There will be twelve fifteen minute episodes. I’ve achieved this monumental cull for several other novels yet still I quail at the prospect. I was about to suggest Radio NZ pay someone else to do it this time but in the end decided I would probably do it better  so here I am poised. I’ll let you know how I get on.