WeWriWa: Trimming the Fat, My Personal Struggle with Editing . . .

My name is Nancy . . . and I’m a wordaholic. Yes. I admit it. I love words, the more the merrier. Until it’s time to start editing that WIP. It’s like trying to decide which of your children you’ll cut out of the will! “Yes, yes, I need that scene,” this author cried in despair, clutching it desperately to her dramatically heaving bosom. “It means everything to the plot!” Weeeeell, maybe not so much. <delete> Okay, only 10,000 more to go . . .

Such is my grim task with PRINCE OF DREAMS. I thought I’d find lots of fluff during my first read through. Sigh. Only 1,000 ditchable words. Only 35 more pages to trim. If all my scenes were as lean and mean as today’s snippet, I’d be up you know what creek! (dialog tags added to comply with number of sentences allowed. Extra fat added for flavor!)

“Do you still see them?” 

“My mom?” 

“And your brothers.” 

His voice dropped a gruff degree to admit, “Her, never enough but them, I’m always tripping over, especially now that some are here in New Orleans,” then catching himself before revealing more. 

Elbows on the table, she leaned forward, chin in her hands. “Are they like you?” 

“Tall or good looking?” 

“Nice,” she amended. 

He grinned. “They’re tall and good looking.”

Kip’s s family . . . that’s the root of the problem. I adore them. The interplay between him and his brothers . . . don’t get me waxing wordy poetic. Those scenes aren’t just informative, character builders, I can . . . and do argue with myself, they’re FUN to write and read! But can the book still rock without them? (she wonders, finding herself adding MORE into those interplays instead of Xing them).

Thank goodness for BETA readers who don’t suffer from that same separation anxiety. I can hear them now: “Put that flabby bastard on a treadmill and sweat that excess fat off!” Yikes. I’d better get busy . . . I can always put those precious scenes into, gulp, Extra Content. (sob!)

Half way through the first pass of edits and my 5-day weekend. Wish me luck!



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