i wrote my writing sample portion and it seems i'm gone 400 over!! any tips for the sort of things we should cut out or that you've cut in your experience writing under word-counts?
Hey there! I've definitely been there before, so I feel your pain. My best advice for cutting things down to size:
It sounds silly, but the first thing I usually do is read my app out loud! Doing this lets you catch strange-sounding phrases or sentences that can be cut, and also helps you notice if you've got a few extra words you might not need.
When writing under word counts, I typically try to pin down what I think the admins need to know about a character. Are their feelings during this internal monologue needed, or are the actions they're taking speaking for themselves? Am I using repetition too much? (That one is a very personal sin of mine, I think, I love the use of repetition.) Are things in the app clear cut, or does this paragraph complicate things? Does it get to the point? Is this something the application needs, or can I bring it up later in my introduction?
If you're okay with it, let other people read it for you and ask if there's stuff that they think could be taken out to reduce the word count. When I've been staring at an app for days on end, I tend to miss things, but if I show it to Jen, she'll pick out fifteen things that don't really need to be there. That really helps out with shaping things up!
If you've done all these things and you're still struggling to cut down the count, don't worry too much! Reach out, let us know, or make a note of it in your application --- a few extra hundred words isn't too big of a deal versus an extra two-thousand. I hope this helped a little bit!
- Admin Julia