Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The chop

I had some feedback from a comp that after the first chapter SIG read a little slow. It came up twice so I decided they might have a point and set about seeing what I could cut...

1250 words gone over two chapters. Oh, it hurt, but I hope it reads faster. And better. And i hope it still makes sense.

What about you? Taken the scissors to anything recently?

=)

5 comments:

  1. 12" of my hair :-)

    Writing wise, no lately. Too busy writing through mid-book pain. The chopping will come later *sigh*

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  2. Oh yes. Two whole paragraphs gone. Yes, it can be hard, especially if you're cutting bits you like. But nothing is wasted. I keep it for another book! And if it tightens things up then that's all to the good.

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  3. Yes!!! ST went from 98k and is now sitting at 90k. Not halfway through yet. hmmmm
    Tam

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  4. Yeah. I cut up an entire manuscript. Literally.

    I printed it out and cut it into separate scenes, then spread them out over the dining room table fiddling with the sequence. Once I was happy, I taped and stapled it all back together. It then took me 3 weeks solid work to sort out the transitions, add in extra scenes and delete bits that no longer worked.

    Never again!

    Well, maybe not never again but I'm hoping not to have to do that again for a very long time. It was horrible!

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