Cutting the flab
I'm now halfway through my new revision of DH. This rewrite is taking longer than I had hoped, but I knew starting out it would be a huge undertaking. I really like the changes I've made so far, the manuscript reads much tighter now, which is funny because the word count keeps climbing despite the fact I cut several scenes, but last night I made the first cut that actually hurt.
I had a small scene, only about 800 words involving a walk-on character, but she packed a lot of punch. I liked her, she had a lot of attitude in three lines of dialogue, but I wrote a scene a chapter before her appearance that accomplished the same thing plot-wise, only it did it better. So, like her or not, I had to cut her scene from the book. She now lives in my scrap folder, waiting (probably not very patiently) to appear in some other book.
What do you do with cut material? Do you save it, waiting for the right place to use it? Or perhaps write a story knowing you want to use a particular scrapped character/phrase/scene? Or do you chuck it forever--if it didn't work now, it wouldn't work later?
I had a small scene, only about 800 words involving a walk-on character, but she packed a lot of punch. I liked her, she had a lot of attitude in three lines of dialogue, but I wrote a scene a chapter before her appearance that accomplished the same thing plot-wise, only it did it better. So, like her or not, I had to cut her scene from the book. She now lives in my scrap folder, waiting (probably not very patiently) to appear in some other book.
What do you do with cut material? Do you save it, waiting for the right place to use it? Or perhaps write a story knowing you want to use a particular scrapped character/phrase/scene? Or do you chuck it forever--if it didn't work now, it wouldn't work later?
Comments
Just my $1.01 --
Hugs,
S )O(