Week 7 - To Cut Or Not To Cut

Ah, the pain of cutting loose those precious words.

One of the most agonising parts of writing a novel is when you get a phrase or paragraph which stands out as a shining example of why you should be at the top of the best seller's list, instead of sitting in a malodorous box room tapping away at a keyboard and drinking endless cups of cold coffee (you always forget it's there until it's cold - it's a law of nature).

Anyway, you finally produce a beautifully created section of text and you sit back in your woodworm-infested chair to admire your handy work. You start to visualise it on the back of your book's dust jacket as the perfect way to pull in millions of readers. You're filled with a warm glow that can only be replicated by gorging on Reddy Brek and you start to mentally draft your acceptance speech for the Booker...and then...

...and then you realise that however wonderful that section of perfect prose is, it doesn't bloody fit! Like a see-saw occupied by an elephant and a super-model, it has tragically over balanced the whole chapter. However you try to cut other sections, you realise that you need them to propel the plot or place that cunningly disguised clue. Your heavenly half a page simply does not work.

Finally, you're left with a simple but painful choice: you can leave it in and see the rest of the book collapse under its weight, or you can cut it out. Clearly, there's really no choice at all and this is the only thing that lessens the pain.

Kate Mosse suggests a scrapbook for these sacrifices at the alter of the scissors icon. You never know when they might come in handy, but more than likely they will form the debris on the road to success.

It's painful, yes; but it's also what separates successful writers from those who drown in the slush pile of the writing life.

After all, if writing is something that you intend to make a living from, it's better to be ruthless than roofless.