Challenge! Kill Your Darlings Week at SavvyAuthors!

[RJ Garside]

Kill Your Darlings Week is here. Are you brave enough? This week’s challenge: Cut 1,000 words from your WIP Then share what you cut and why. Was it a beloved scene that slowed the pace? A beautiful sentence that didn’t serve the story? A whole subplot that had to go? Post your cut lines (or summaries) in the thread. Bonus points for dramatic before/after comparisons or confessions of how much it hurt. We’ll feature the boldest edits!

 

[Magnificent Wintergreen Zmey]

Hi RJ,

I cut FIVE chapters down to one because I got the same feedback from three queries: my beginning was too slow, needs the hook right there in your face, fast, no faster! And I dropped the body (cozy mystery) at the end of chapter one. I kept all the dead darlings of course, in the "use later, weave-in, no info dumping" file.

Janice
Cozy mystery writer of whodunits set in Tokyo, where the taiyaki’s warm, Shibuya’s always scrambled, and the streets have no name.

 

[RJ Garside]

Hi Janice!

WOW! I am so impressed with you! I know how hard that must have been. I've been known to have slow beginnings too. You had me hooked at "I dropped the body at the end of chapter one."

Yay! This sounds like such an amazing book! Thanks for sharing!

RJ

 

[Magnificent Wintergreen Zmey]

Hi RJ!

Yep, it was so hard and I'm still reworking the first chapter since I have a lot to cram in. Just like the self-editing books and youtubers say, every word counts, no fluff. Then editing the entire manuscript since it's all connected.

Cheers,
Janice