Book club member told me my pacing was off and I cut 3 full scenes

Last month at my local book club in Austin, someone finally said what I'd been dreading: "Your middle chapters drag so bad I almost skipped them." I went back and looked at the word count on those 3 scenes she meant. Each one was over 1,200 words of just description and inner thoughts. I cut them down to 400 words total and moved the key plot points into other chapters. The whole manuscript dropped from 78k to 74k words and reads way faster now. Has anyone else had to kill scenes you loved just to fix the flow?

2 comments

2 Comments

tyler49214d ago

Had this exact thing with a short story last year. My critique group said the opening was dead weight. I had this whole backstory scene about the character's grandpa teaching him to fish. Loved it. Cut it completely. Story went from 5k words to 3.8k and suddenly had punch.

john_singh14d ago

Brutal but true. Cutting that grandpa scene must've hurt though. Sometimes our favorite parts are the ones holding the story back.