I finally did it. I butchered the first two chapters of my WIP. Was it crap, you ask?
Actually, it wasn't. It was laugh out loud funny for twenty or more pages, the length of the two chapters. So why did I chop it to shreds?
Because it didn't advance the plot.
I loved those two chapters because it revealed the heroine in all her dysfunctional, comic glory. But, forward motion of the plot screeched to a standstill because I got so involved in writing the yuks that I lost sight of where the story should be going.
Sometimes I have such fun writing dialogue and crazy internalizations that I think I need to put brakes on the old keyboard. I'm smokin' hot, but going nowhere.
A writer always needs to remember what the through-story is and not get carried away by the introductory scene which, though highly entertaining and interesting, may not have anything to do with the plot which will be kicked off by an initiating incident a few pages beyond.
If you don't heed this, then you end up with 20-30 pages of wonderful prose that then must be cut. And sometimes that's hard to do because, darn it, you just think it's wonderfully witty and maybe the editor will be swept away by your writing and ignore the fact that....
Nope. Ain't gonna happen. Cut and be done with it. Move on down the road with the story you're telling.
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