Not just trimming words, but chopping

Writing a book isn't easy. I think we can all agree on that. So the realization that you might need to cut chunks—not just little pieces, like I talked about here, but big things—can hurt. I mean, after writing all those words, it can feel like a big waste to cut them!

Here are some reasons to go for it, though:

1. It'll make the book stronger.

If you've already decided that a certain subplot isn't necessary, or a scene isn't doing enough work to deserve to stick around, or a conversation has too much blah blah and not enough interesting stuff, then you already know the story will be stronger and better paced without it. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

2. You're not wasting words.

I know it can feel like that, but you're not. Sometimes you need to write something just so you know what you don't need in the story. Or, in my case recently, I needed to see several parts of my characters' history, but aside from a few important moments, it wasn't big or interesting or important enough to deserve to stay on the page. I needed to get that part of the story out of my system so could know, but that was iceberg stuff—and not the tip that shows.

As for how to make the cuts?

1. Identify what you need to keep.

Be extremely honest. If there isn't anything that needs to stay, just highlight and cut the whole thing. (I assume you have a different draft saved somewhere else that has all this stuff. Or, if you're using Scrivener, you've taken a Snapshot and have plenty of backups.)

You probably already know what needs to stay, but some general advice:

a) Can the reader understand the story without this part? If not, keep it! b) Does it move the story forward and reveal something (motivations/worldbuilding/theme) in a new way? If so, keep it!

In my case, I was cutting a bunch of flashback scenes down to the most important moments. Down from over a thousand (or two thousand!) words to under five hundred. I looked for the meatiest bits. The big, pivotal moments. The one, most important thing I needed to share with the reader.

2. Make the cut.

Yeah. It's a big step. It gets its own number.

3. Smooth out the edges.

Chances are you chopped up some transitions and messed with your pacing when you snipped out a huge chunk of text, so go through and fix them. Take a careful look at the beginning and end of the cuts for transitions. Read the whole thing through and see how it sounds. Is it too fast now? Maybe add a beat or two to make it feel more natural. (But not too many! You cut for a reason, after all!)

Don't be shy about going through it a few times! You'll probably find more and more places to smooth out. It's a delicate process, so take your time.

4. Eat a cookie.

What? You worked hard. You deserve a reward.

What do you guys think? Any tips I missed? What other advice would you give to someone who's looking at cutting a huge chunk of their beloved book?