Seems the length is set

Going through my edits, today, and inputting them up to page 140, and it looks like Carli's Kills has decided it's going to be around 84,000 words. I'll cut some and add other parts in, and it stays on just either side of that number as I go along. That's actually a good sign. Once the book knows its length, nothing I do will change that and it means I'm closing in on the final version.

I know part of the problem I was having with the book was that I'd stuck too closely to the structure of the original script, and what works in a screen play don't work in a narrative piece. Rob Reiner once discussed that in reverse when William Goldman adapted Misery into a script. In the book, Annie chops off Paul's foot after he tries to escape. Reiner changed that to her smashing his ankle, instead, so he's crippled.

Here's IMDb's notes about it: 

In the novel, Annie cuts off Paul's foot to prevent him from escaping. Screenwriter William Goldman had stated that the reason he decided to adapt the book to film was because of this gruesome scene, and the effect it would have on the audience. However, Rob Reiner and Andrew Scheinman's script revision changed the method of torture to Paul getting his ankles broken with a sledgehammer. Goldman was opposed to the change until viewing the film.

I need to keep reminding myself of this...take the basic story and characters and rebuild everything, completely, because books ain't movies and vice-versa...