The Pain of Cutting Your Favorite Sentence

I know, I know, you spent a good portion of your time writing that one sentence or maybe even two sentences that are just so magnificent that you absolutely cannot eliminate them no matter what. And even though they don't contribute to the story whatsoever and may even detract from what you are trying to say, you just can't dare to hit that big scary delete button because that magnificence might be lost forever and heaven forbid you should lose those beautiful 20 words.

Trust me, I understand. I have several of those. 45,000+ words and I have at least 10-15 of those "perfect" snippets that I just can't bear to cut.

They are just so incredible and you can't even believe you wrote them because they are just amazing so you can't cut them. I get it. I feel the same way.

But I've been reading a lot of revision tips from writers and agents (this is how I procrastinate actually finishing the manuscript when I have writer's block) and I came across some great advice from novelist Monica Trasandes. She wrote a lovely post for Writer's Digest about how to revise fiction (I'll post the link at the bottom). She says 

"Revisions can be brutal: you’re killing good material in order to make the excellent material shine. I tend to trick myself into thinking that no edits are final (or nothing good is lost) by creating a document called something like 'BestLeftover,' where I put everything I like that didn’t make the final cut. When do I access these documents of beautiful leftovers? About as often as I access the bag of clothes tucked away in the back of the closet 'in case I need them again.'"

Incredible advice. It's the perfect way to cut those beautiful phrases without actually deleting them. Once they are out of your story but not deleted forever in cyperspace, then you will be able to really see if they are necessary or not. I never would have thought of this, but it is an excellent tip that I will definitely use.

I was always that kid in elementary school who would save every. single. "artwork." I ever. created. All of those homemade ornaments, doorhangers, mother's day cards, drawings, paintings, EVERYTHING. I kept it all. I still have 99.9% of that stuff to this day and I'm 20 years old. I've always been a little bit of a packrat and I can't bear to get rid of anything, and that translates to my writing as well.

So like Monica Trasandes said, I need to trick my hoarding brain into eliminating things I don't really need. Who knows? Maybe I really do need that magnificent sentence or maybe it is totally useless. But I'll never know if I cling on to it. Simply moving it to another Word document will help me step back and see things for what they are. 

So if you too are a writing packrat, try this, and even if you're not, all of you should check out that post about revising fiction (link: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/6-keys-to-revising-your-fiction-2)

Because let's be honest: revising feels pretty much like this:

KMG