Removing a few chapters.

[Philliph]

Is it really necessary? while every situatoin is different, my original chapters dont seem to fit the plot of my book. Whether or not i should do this is like deciding between which vowel to drop off the english alphabet. i know that i could write a few chapters, mix the ones that do and dont fit until it matches up just right, but that takes so much time just to think of a few new scenes that were never even thought of as a necessity for existing. ARRRRG.

Also, its just that my writing style now differs so much than it did a year ago that i can't quite convert it.

Anybody else have these problems? Its just such a hard decision.

[Kris_W]

Yep, it happens all the time. You just have to dump the darlings.

 

[belial.1980]

Yeah, sometimes you have to "kill your darlings." That means cutting out cool scenes, characters, dialgoue etc. because they don't work for the overall layout of your story. Often times as we write our ideas develop and the story changes shape from what we'd initially had in mind. This means things you wrote in chapter one might no longer work by the time you get to chapter nine. It happens. It's just part of the natural progression.

See how the story works without them. You can always save that material in a different document and use it as a basis for another story. If you're really undecided make two copies of your manuscript, one with the chapters in question and one without. Then get somebody to read an compare and see which version they prefer. Good luck! 

[Kris_W]

On the other hand, if it makes you feel better about the writing you have to toss -

The time and effort you spent writing a scene which eventually gets tossed out is not wasted. A writer’s best problem solving tool is writing, and writing scenes is a process of discovery. A lot of really great scenes don’t just leap out of the outline. They are the result of things discovered while writing lesser scenes.

The darlings you toss are the scaffolding and carpentry tools that were needed to create the finished book. You take them away after the building is done, but you couldn't have built the book without them. They are never a waste.

Oh, ok. SOME of them are a waste – No one, for any reason, really had to write the scene with Dresden asking Charity for bail money because of the waste helium from Molly’s failed spell and the sex doll factory. No one.

Really, nobody.

[comprex]

That's what

"The best gardener is a cruel gardener"

meenz. 

[Philliph]

Thanks guys. i couldnt decide what to do, but now that i have an idea i'm not so stressed thanks to you all. Thanks for the advice, and i'll try to be a good gardener.

[meg_evonne]

One caution.  yes, I've frequently heard that the best edit is to rip out the first 50 pages.  As I read people's first drafts, I can understand that.  I had to yank out 2.5 chapters of my recent YA.  At least I figured it out before I got through Chapter 7.  I think that might be improvement. 

The caution though? Don't destroy those pages.  Save them.  In my case, I did have a reason for those chapters, but I decided that I needed to cover those reasons at other points in the manuscript.  I was able to salvage almost 60% of it, dispersing small chunks here and there and I'm not done. 

So also consider why you had those chapters in the first place.  Does it contain your main character description that was wonderful?  Does it set up the beginning of the conflict?  Does it describe your setting?  Those are typical first chapter setups.  You might find that your manuscript will be richer with the addition of a few paragraphs here or there.  You might also realize that your set up for the conflict is lacking it's launching platform.

That doesn't mean you want the whole 50 pages or whatever.  Go through them and highlight what you think is essential to the rest of the manuscript.  It's rather fun really, you get to find the important bits, examine them as to just how good they are, and then find just the right place to land that paragraph or that flashback, whatever.

Good luck with killing the babies, but be careful--some might well belong.