Category: cuts

Well, I offered you all a chance to make requests and not one of you took me up on it. Which means I get to rant about whatever I want this week. If you want rants more focused to your particular needs right now, just let me know down below.

But for now…

Back in November I talked about my drafting process—taking something from that messy, ugly first draft through to something I’m not ashamed to show my beloved or friends or, well, my agent. One part of that was my third draft, where I tighten and cut. And guess what? I just finished my third draft of TOS two weeks ago. And I took a bunch of notes as I was going through, because I was planning ahead for this.

Also, keep in mind this isn’t one-size-fits-all advice. Your story is your story, and your writing process is your process. Like so much stuff I toss out here I’m showing you how I do things with the hope it’ll help you figure out how you should be doing things.

So let’s talk about some cuts I made.

First off, I did a basic spellcheck. I’ve talked about spellcheckers a lot, and about using them correctly. I go through the manuscript one click at a time, examining each and every word the spellchecker flags. I don’t just blindly agree to change everything it says is a mistake because… well, it’s usually wrong. For example, it doesn’t recognize a lot of given names, and definitely a lot of nicknames, so I had to check each of those (or add them to the dictionary in some cases). Then there were words it just didn’t have (cyborg? Still? Really?) and a few where it refused to recognize a more common, alternate spelling (which, if I really wanted to put the work in, could probably tell me exactly which dictionary was fed into this particular spellchecker).

Again, each and every word. Check all of it. I’d guess the breakdown ended up being around 35% actual mistakes, 65% things that were correct but it flagged as mistakes.

Also, a lot of the time while going through, I’d check the whole sentence. Was there a better word to use? A better way to phrase this? Maybe switch a name to a pronoun?

This spellcheck pass took close to a full work day for a 300 page book. Sound like a lot? I mean, it averages out to about a minute and a half per flagged word. Some were easy to zip past. Some took a minute or two as I double-checked spellings myself or considered other factors (like I was just talking about). Plus, to be completely honest, I think I slowed down a bit while I was eating lunch. And I stopped to use the bathroom twice. On company time! I know!!!

Anyway… after this, I started doing passes for passes for different words. Lots of different words.

Adverbs and adjectives are some obvious culprits. I’m not one of those “kill all adverbs” zealots, but I do think a lot of the time they can use a good pruning. I once got to talk with editor Pat LoBrutto and his advice was “one adverb per page, four adjectives.” Like any rule, I think there’s some flex room in there, and different situations will call for different things. But I also think a lot of times we do overuse adverbs and adjectives because we just don’t know the really, really good word we could be using.

Some of the words and phrases I look for are what a friend of mine called “somewhat syndrome.” For me, it usually kicks in when a character says, for example, Yakko stood six foot four. It sounds too precise for a casual observation, right? Weirdly exact. So we write things like “Yakko stood a little over six feet” or “he was around six feet” or “stood a bit taller than six feet.” I used to do this a lot, with pretty much every description of anything, and it still show up sometimes when I’ve got a sort of casual, limited third person POV. So I search for a lot of things like about, kind of, sort of, around

There’s also a bunch of phrases that we tend do toss in, but we’re not using them correctly. Looked like, appeared to be, seemed to be, and constructions like that. These feel like the somewhat words and phrases I just mentioned, but almost all of these are part of an implied contradiction. Yakko looked like he was over six feet tall (but it was all just high boot heels). The door appeared to be made of wood (but was actually a veneer over steel plate). The car seemed to be in working order (but would fall apart if you drove it more than ten miles). See what I mean? What I probably want to say here is just Yakko was over six feet tall, the door was made of wood, and the car was in working order. So I should cut some extra words (that I wasn’t using correctly anyway) and just say that.

Also, there’s a bunch of verbs that have… well, they’re verbs we inherently associate with certain things. I shrug my shoulders. Nod my head. Point with my finger. I mean, it’s so understood if I told you “I pointed across the room”… well, what would you think I was pointing with? Which means those are all extra words. Just shrug. Just nod. Just point. You can probably think of a few, too.

Finally, there’s a bunch of words that fall into different categories and… look, they’re pretty much always good words to take a second look at. Very. Just. Rather. Really. Actually. Of course. Quite. So. Began to. Suddenly. I think some of these Benjamin Dreyer has pointed at (with his finger) as words you can almost always cut.

And yes, for the most part, these are going to be small cuts. But small cuts add up. When I was done making pass after pass for all these words and phrases… I’d effectively cut twelve pages out of my manuscript. Over three thousand words.

Want a few quick examples?

I cut 196 uses of very.

Also cut 141 uses of really.

And 139 maybes.

118 uses of kind of.

86 uses of about.

80 arounds.

Going off a standard 250 words per page for a double-spaced manuscript, that’s three pages gone right there.

Now in all fairness, every one of these wasn’t just that specific word. Sometimes while doing a pass and looking at everything (because, like with spellcheck, I don’t want to just delete everything that comes up), I’d realize I could reword a sentence, or maybe reword one and delete another. For example, out of those 196 words that vanished in the very pass, I’d guess maybe only 100-120 of them were the word “very” and the rest were other things.

Also, a small tip. Have you ever done find-and-replace on something and then discover you’ve accidentally created a bunch of mistakes throughout your manuscript? Like, you decide maybe Beth should be named Liz, but then discover her girlfriend now studies Elizalizan playwrights? Same principle holds here. I don’t want to just delete every very, for example, because then I’m also going to mess up every, everyone, delivery, slavery, recovery, and more.

And again… yeah, this is slow work. Slow, boring work. That’s what editing is a lot of the time. But it’s also a chance to sharpen things. Concentrate them. To make this hit a little harder and that get a bigger thrill. Editing might not be as thrilling as that initial raw creation, but I still get some creative joy out of it.

And I bet you will, too.

Also, I just realized I used this title for an editing post about twelve and a half years ago. What a hack.

Next time, unless somebody has a topic or question they’d rather I blather on about, I’m probably going to talk about the first time I saw Yakko Warner.

Until then, go write.

I’ve mentioned once or thrice here that one of the toughest lessons for a writer to learn is that something I wrote just might not be that good. I spent time writing, some more time editing it (hopefully), and now on my third or fourth pass I’m forced to admit it’s just… not good. Maybe it doesn’t really work with the character or this particular moment in the story. Maybe it’s really good but it just doesn’t fit in this book.

But also, let’s be honest. Sometimes… it’s just bad. We wrote something that’s crap. It happens.

When this happens, it’s tough, but we usually need to start cutting. Lines of dialogue. Whole paragraphs. Whole chapters. Subplots. Hell, I’ve cut whole characters out of a book and then stitched everything together again around their sudden absence.

And this is a rough thing, to let go of something that we invested time and effort into. I think that’s why people will fight so hard to keep some things. To rationalize why we don’t need to get rid of it. To rewrite and twist and push and try to find a way that makes it work.

Now, there’s two aspects of this I want to address.

First, like I said, the gut reaction is to fight against pulling stuff out of my work. I know I did for years. But as I kept trying to do this, I realized something. This was a natural part of editing. Things are going to go away. If we can accept that we might need to snip a word or three, then it makes sense we might need to snip ten or twenty. Or a hundred.

This is going to sound weird to a few folks, I know, but sometimes you’ve got to write something out to find out you don’t need it. It’s that thing I’ve mentioned once or thrice, that you can’t fix something that doesn’t exist. And part of fixing something is realizing I don’t need that funny character bit or the flashback chapter or maybe the whole romance subplot. They’re ruining the pacing or changing the tone or breaking the flow.

And again, yeah, sometimes they’re just bad.

So we cut it. Tear it out. Delete it. Good riddance!

Well, hang on.

This is the second aspect of tearing things out. Yeah, some of this can go and we can never think of it again. Like blocking someone on social media. Hit the keys, gone, everything’s better. Again, there’s a chance it’s just bad and not worth the effort of trying to make it good.

I spent an afternoon two weeks back trying to structure a chapter for this funny character bit (oh ho, that sounds familiar) and ultimately realized it just wasn’t going to work. It didn’t make sense for at least one of the characters involved. And it ultimately wasn’t even that funny. Definitely not so much that it was worth all this effort. So… gone. No worries.

But some of this stuff… look, maybe we can seal this in virtual tupperware and stick it in the fridge for a bit. There’s nothing wrong with that. Like I mentioned above, that romance subplot might be good, just not good for this book. So why not hang onto it in case the right book comes around?

And this is where, I think, some folks have issues. Because if we’re talking about art, weren’t these words put together for this purpose? Didn’t I artisanally craft this dialogue to come from the mouths of these characters? I mean, if it’s that easy for me to just pull something from one story and toss it into another… well, maybe I’m just some kind of hack. Maybe I don’t care about art at all?

But this just isn’t true. I mean, it’s true that I can’t take that romantic subplot and stick it into another story unaltered. Hell, if nothing else, I’d probably need to change the names. And probably some speech patterns. And possibly references to where/when this is happening. But really that’s just, y’know, writing. If I was creating the scene from scratch, I’d still have to take all these things into consideration.

Also, if I’ve got something I pulled from a manuscript five or six years ago—like any leftovers that’ve been sitting around for a while—I may want to be extra-sure it’s still good. Dialogue shifts, styles change, pop-culture and tech references can get outdated fast. I’m not saying I should toss anything that’s X years old, just that it might need a little more attention before I offer it to anyone.

Y’see, Timmy, sometimes we write bad stuff. No question, everyone does it. But sometimes, we’re just writing good stuff in the wrong book. And when that happens, there’s no shame in packing it up and saving it for later.

But seriously… you’re never going to eat those noodles on the bottom shelf of the fridge. They’re three weeks old now. And they’re furry! Just throw those out.

Next time, I think I’d like to lighten things up a bit and talk about AI and the assassination of JFK.

Until then, go write.

I’d like to start by telling you about my one of my favorite film edits of all time. Top five, easy. It’s a single, straight cut between one scene and the next and it’s beyond brilliant. There’s a simply unbelievable amount of character and plot development in it. No joke, it’s a level of storytelling that most filmmakers and authors (self included) don’t have a prayer of ever achieving. I say this with complete and utter sincerity.

And Sam Raimi did it in a Spider-Man movie.

You probably know the moment. Struggling student/ photographer/ superhero (shhhhh) Peter Parker has just been introduced to physicist/ genius/ role model Otto Octavius. Otto takes a moment to criticize Peter for his laziness, but they warm up to each other as Peter makes some insightful observations about Otto’s new fusion reactor. Then Peter asks a question and Otto answers it as they finish off dinner at Otto and Rosie’s apartment later that night.

D’you know that moment? Seriously, go watch it if you don’t. Alfred Molina’s freakin’ amazing as Doctor Octopus.

Anyway, point is, we instantly know what happened during that cut. All of it. We understand how the discussion went. How they ended up back here. How their views of each other have changed over the past few hours. Yeah, it’s clearly been hours and we all know exactly what happened during them.

And just to be clear for those of you who might like to look down on superhero movies, none of this is because of pre-existing knowledge. Raimi and screenwriter Alvin Sargent were going in an all-new direction with Otto’s backstory and how it overlapped with Peter’s. They’d never been seen in this way before.

How many pages of storytelling did they fit into that cut?

Maybe a better way to look at it is, how many script pages did the movie not need because of that cut?

Truth is, most of us are pretty smart. We can figure out what goes between A and C. And between X and Z. As writers, we don’t always need to fill in every detail. Especially all the boring details. There’s lots of stuff we can skip over without hurting our story in the slightest. In a lot of cases, it’ll even make our story better.

I think this works on both a micro and a macro level. On the micro level, I’m talking about clauses and sentences and maybe paragraphs. I’ve talked in the past once or thrice about trimming away excess details. Steps in the process. Parts of the routine. Things the majority of readers will figure out happened. To put it another way, the thing that happens between A and B.

On the macro level, I’m talking about scenes or story beats or maybe even whole chapters. It’s the same idea as the micro, except we (the writers) have taken it even further, adding more details and nuance to what was already… well, unnecessary details. I’ve cut multiple pages and even whole chapters out of manuscripts once I realized the whole thing was a beautifully rendered and detailed scene that ultimately just wasn’t necessary.

And I’m sure someone just read that and said “whoa whoa WHOA! What about the art?! If that chapter’s beautifully written, isn’t that reason enough for it to be in the book?”

Well… no, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong. I love a beautiful turn of phrase or exquisite prose as much as the next guy. Probably more. I’ve read some things where other writers choose the absolutely perfect word or come up with a beautiful description and all I can say is “goddamn.” And sometimes “I’m jealous as all hell.”

The catch, of course, is those words are all describing something that needs to be in the story. It’s an aspect of writing I’ve mentioned once or thrice before. Just because something’s good doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for my book. Something can be fantastic and still just not belong in there. For any number of reasons.

F’r example, one or two of you may have read a book called Paradox Bound. And you may have heard that, in the first draft my editor saw, I had a full chapter describing Eli’s bus trip across America after he flees the Faceless Men. It was about seven or eight single-spaced pages. And it was about Eli seeing the bigger world for the first time. The assorted people on the bus. The places they briefly stopped. The food he ate for a three day bus-ride, Sleeping sitting up. Wearing the same clothes for three days. And some clever observations about life and humanity and mass transit scattered in there too.

But ultimately, when viewed as part of the whole story, absolutely none of this mattered. It was about Eli getting on a bus in Boston and getting off a bus in Pasadena. All that quiet stuff in between… well, you would’ve just assumed most of that happened. Seriously. What else would he do on a bus for three days? How much of it would’ve been painfully obvious once he stepped off the bus?

Here are three general rules of thumb I’ve developed for myself when it comes to such things. I generally cut something if…

1) The average person would know, or logically assume, B had to happen between A and C. If my character leaves work and the next time we see her she’s arriving home with a Jack in the Box takeout bag, do you immediately assume I made a big continuity error? “She didn’t have that bag when she left work!!!” Or do you just assume she stopped at Jack in the Box on the way home? We make these kind of cuts all the time. We don’t show people traveling between two points. They go to the gym and suddenly they’re in workout clothes. We see two folks sneak upstairs at the house party and then suddenly they’re in bed– flopped on their backs, breathless, and (hopefully) looking kind of happy. None of us have any confusion about what we “missed” in any of these examples.

2) If B is completely irrelevant to A and C. We can safely assume it happened during the timeline of the story (see above rule), but it has no effect whatsoever on the tale I’m telling. Perfect example of this– how many books have you read that take place over three or four or more days? Probably a lot of them, yes? If anything, a story taking place entirely in one day is a bit of a rarity.

How many times have you read about someone using the bathroom? It’s something we all inherently know happens, but we also know it’s just not that important to most stories. So we don’t question when it’s not there. Same with eating. Did these people really go for a week without eating? Or did the author just not bother showing it and save a page or two?

3) If it just works better without it. Because sometimes it does. The paragraph reads better, the action flows better, the horror has a little more punch. Sometimes I don’t want to get bogged down in the details, and neither does my reader. And as I’ve been saying above, if people are probably going to figure it out anyway, why bog things down? To paraphrase a famous lawyer, we could skip all that and just, well… get to the good stuff.

And to repeat, all three of these are just rules of thumb. It’s not hard to find examples of some beautiful writing that contributes absolutely nothing to the plot or story. But I feel safe saying it’s also not all that common.

Y’see, Timmy, if I trust my audience to figure this stuff out on their own, they’ll appreciate that trust. They’ll know I trusted them to fill in the blanks. And when they figure something out on their own, even a little thing, they’ll love what they’re reading even more.

So look back over your manuscript, go over some of those beats… and maybe give your readers the benefit of the doubt.

Next time, unless anyone’s got a better idea, I’d like to talk about this personal teleporter I invented.

Until then, go write.