That is wild that you had to do so much finagling. Was it not an option to go to the next 16 up, say, 192? Doesn't seem like that would be that much longer…and might have saved a footnote or two!
That is wild that you had to do so much finagling. Was it not an option to go to the next 16 up, say, 192? Doesn't seem like that would be that much longer…and might have saved a footnote or two!
Haha...in the end I think it actually helped me, because I turned in both my books (both the same exact number of pages) too long, and it made sense to cut a bunch of things I found super interesting, but that were probably too far down some rabbit hole for readers coming to the topic fresh. It was hard (they don't call it "drowning your kittens" for no reason), but I think good for me. I think we also shrunk the font just a bit on the endnotes, but I was able to get them all in there ultimately. (I figured, with the internet, nobody would ever need the subtitle of a journal to find the source as long as they had the article title and volume info.) I never asked about going up another 16, but I'm going to ask my editor if that would've been an option and get back to you;)
I can sympathize! I remember when I was writing my Masters thesis and struggled to get the whole thing under 10,000 words. I had to challenge myself on every line to ask, "does the reader REALLY need to know this?" Looking up synonyms and even playing with margins was not out of the question! It was painful but healthy experience, because it taught me to better discern what is essential to an argument vs. optional embellishment.
That is wild that you had to do so much finagling. Was it not an option to go to the next 16 up, say, 192? Doesn't seem like that would be that much longer…and might have saved a footnote or two!
Haha...in the end I think it actually helped me, because I turned in both my books (both the same exact number of pages) too long, and it made sense to cut a bunch of things I found super interesting, but that were probably too far down some rabbit hole for readers coming to the topic fresh. It was hard (they don't call it "drowning your kittens" for no reason), but I think good for me. I think we also shrunk the font just a bit on the endnotes, but I was able to get them all in there ultimately. (I figured, with the internet, nobody would ever need the subtitle of a journal to find the source as long as they had the article title and volume info.) I never asked about going up another 16, but I'm going to ask my editor if that would've been an option and get back to you;)
I can sympathize! I remember when I was writing my Masters thesis and struggled to get the whole thing under 10,000 words. I had to challenge myself on every line to ask, "does the reader REALLY need to know this?" Looking up synonyms and even playing with margins was not out of the question! It was painful but healthy experience, because it taught me to better discern what is essential to an argument vs. optional embellishment.