I'm about to send my manuscript to agents. I know they don't like long manuscripts from unknown authors. The story is a sci-fi epic and naturally, to cut it down as much as I would need to feels impossible. I could also lengthen it by a lot and turn it into a trilogy. But that first book would have to be stand-alone, with no mention of books to come (according to articles I've read on the subject). I could also leave it alone and give it a go as is, just to see what happens. What's your vote, if you have one? A. Cut the hell out of it B. Turn it into a trilogy C. Try it as is, first
Cut it in thirds, and you'll have a trilogy of three 60K novels. You may have to rewrite the end of the first book, but I don't think you'll have any luck marketing 180K words from a new author.
I think it’s an uphill battle. That said, there have been debut novels in SF/F that are a lot longer than that. Any cutting you could do will likely help—once you’ve reached a point where it’s as lean as you feel is reasonable, I’d go ahead with submissions and see what the reception is like.
It might be possible to trim it down to a tight 120K, which is about the maximum an agent or publisher would accept from a new author writing in the science fiction genre. But that's tough. Heck of a lot of words. Without knowing anything about the story, I'd wonder if perhaps two novels might be possible? Being able to say that you've got a sequel all ready to go could be a decent selling point if they like the pitch, though of course the first one must be a self-contained story.
Seems like cutting it in half would work. There should be some sort of midpoint crisis and you just build that up so that it's more of a conclusion. At least book two would flow naturally from the first. 90k per book would be reasonable. Of course you'll need to lead more into that midpoint finale, so what I would do is trim 20-30k. (That's not that tough with 180k starting point. I would naturally cut that much with my revision style.) Then you use the saved words to bridge the gaps so that your midpoint feels like an ending.
Or D, try submitting it after you've had success with a more standard-length work. Then it will be a long manuscript from a known author!
I did the same as you. I wrote two 300k~ stories as my "starting" projects over the course of four-ish years. But I don't really expect them to ever sell, I just wrote them because I thought it would be fun to write them. And while fun was definitely part of it, struggle also occupied the majority of the process. I don't believe they are a waste, they were me just "playing author" and practising. Without them, I wouldn't be able to write like I do today, and that's their real value. But if I were to publish them, I'd definitely restructure them. I already did in future revisions, I divided them into trilogies of 100k~ each. Now to speak hypothetically, if I were to have some kind of name as a writer later in my life and I conjured up the interest to publish them, I'd probably rewrite them completely before I did. I'd say don't be discouraged if you don't find success with it. Write a lighter project that will be more attractive to publishers and work your way from there. I think its good to have strategic thinking instead of "I wrote my first book and I have to publish it right now or else I've failed". Like @Not the Territory said, you could try publishing it once you've become known. And you might find some merit in that if you let the manuscript age as you grow as a writer. You will probably want to rewrite them completely like me
What I would do, if I were you, is I'd have someone read through it. Because chances are, there are a lot of moments in the story that are important in your head, but just aren't going to be so important to the reader. Also, there could be scenes in the story that could be altered down to be told a different way. There might be parts that could be summerized. Yeah, yeah, I know they cry about "show not tell" but it's actually ok to summerize certain things.
Sounds interesting! Love to read it if you're okay with sending it. I'm finishing a Screenplay for a 21 minute episode, along with the journal entries of the story details. Nothing is freaking stopping Me. Nothing.
This will sound corny and obvious and maybe basic, but I have rarely seen writing that cannot be tightened considerably simply by searching out and fixing passive constructions ("was" "is" and so on), unnecessarily elaborate and wordy adjectives, by seeking out and destroying phrases that begin with "that" and so on. It would almost certainly make it more readable. Maybe you have already done so, in which case smarter people than I (see above) know more than I.
If it's the best book you can write at that length, begin the submission process. The time spent trying to "fix" it is time you can spend on writing your next novel, learning from the first effort so that your next novel will not be as long. Trying to 'cut' up a novel into parts can require a lot of revising and rewriting to get the content and incivdiual story arcs correct. The length of the first novel maybe the complexity of the plot, number of characters telling the tale, or whatever. In the time you spent rewriting or revising, you could have two finished novels, and with what you have learned writing the first, can devise and write a second, shorter one.
