I needed an impartial person to help me go through my MS and find scenes I could cut. This week, my brilliant wife helped me do just that. There were some tough decisions. Some scenes I love that aren't strictly necessary. Scenes that serve a purpose, but where the purpose can be served by another scene. A whole freaking character. Luís, who went from being a very important character to being a minor character to being left out altogether. Sorry bro. I like to try to work at least one Latino character into everything I write, but now this story's just about all white.
But still, it wasn't too hard to make the cuts--on my outline.
Now I'm trying to implement those decisions. And it's not as easy as highlighting scenes and pressing the delete key. Scene one established my protagonist's age and physical appearance, and some sense of what the chip on his shoulder is. But it's too similar to scene eleven, really, and scene two has some nice, tense action that will make a good opening hook. But now I've got to find a way to convey the information that used to be in scene one. I've got to look closely at the good stuff I'm taking out and think about making the story work without any obvious gaps. Sorry for going gruesome on you, but it's the difference between having your dog put down and doing it yourself.
And now I'm back to getting up at six every morning, and staying up late grading and lesson-planning. It's finally Friday . . . and I'm exhausted.
(Say, why do places like Writertopia only make counters for counting up to a certain goal? What about those of us trying to make works shorter?)
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