imaginarycircus

I've been sitting on the same short story for years--many of you have read it for me at some point. I don't write short stories all that well. I like long form much better. But even in short form I have to learn to cut the fat out. Yesterday I took my almost 6k word short story and cut 1,500 words, mostly from the beginning. Then I added a teeny bit at the end. The comments I got back from the last editor who read it said they wanted me to rewrite but could I shorten the start and add more at the end because they thought it was just starting to get interesting when it ended. I have a feeling I haven't added enough at the end for them so I have to think about that so more.

I think this was good practice for gutting the second draft of my novel. I'm going to run through it and cut everything I can (obviously leaving a copy of the current draft in tact on my computer and backup drive! and a third copy in my gmail.) And then I will take the gutted version of the novel and use it to rewrite a fresh 3rd draft, but without adding lots more padding back on. This process is so weird.

While writing the second draft I let myself flesh everything out. I expanded and expanded so I could find all the interesting moments. Now I have to take out all the stuff that, although fleshed out, is just not all that interesting. This is not a part of the process I have a lot of experience with, and I'm a bit nervous. I'm also excited. It will be nice to fly light.