Welcome to this week's #TuesdayTip!
This week, I want to examine the right of a character to exist.
It sounds rather brutal, and I suppose in some ways it is. But the nub of what I want to discuss is whether or not a character belongs in a story. Have they earned their place?
I have just completed structural edits on a forthcoming novel and one of the questions asked by my editor was whether we could trim the cast somewhat. It was a very valid question and one that made me go through the manuscript with a critical eye, asking if individuals were absolutely necessary to this story (or were present because of their role in the series as a whole).

Characters in crime fiction can be roughly divided into three groups. A character is not limited to one group - indeed an individual might fall into more than one category, or may move between groups as a story, or even a series, progresses.
Broadly speaking there are:
Protagonists: Crudely put they are the "hero" of the story. That doesn't mean they are necessarily the good guy, but they are the ones that we are following, and often cheering on.
Antagonists: These are the characters that act as a foil to our protagonist.
In a classic who dunnit, the protagonist might be the detective, and the antagonist the person they are seeking to bring to justice. But the wonderful thing about this genre is that characters can move between the two camps as the story twists and turns, and they might be complex enough that the protagonist is a bad person, whilst the antagonist that they are chasing has admirable motives. And of course, your story might deliberately keep their role ambiguous, only choosing to clarify their role in the big reveal.
The third group are the secondary characters: These are those people that don't fall easily into either of the first two camps, but without whom the story doesn't progress. In a book with twists, a secondary character might suddenly become a protagonist or an antagonist, perhaps surprising the reader.

Regardless of their role, each character needs to justify not only their existence, but also how much space they take up on the page. When it comes to "killing your darlings" during the editing process, it may be necessary to excise the character completely, reduce their role or perhaps reassign or distribute their functions and actions to other characters.

So why would we do this to a character?
First, space and pacing. You might just need to trim some words or speed things up, in which case cutting down or excising the richly-described person that serves our hero their coffee - no matter how much you like them - is low-hanging fruit.
Second, your readers need to remember all of the characters. In a genre such as crime, where many of your readers will be paying close attention to every person that crops up, in case they are the culprit, too many characters can make things confusing. You don't want to excise all of these characters - obviously, you want to keep a few red herrings so readers are kept guessing - but ask yourself if there are too many? One trick is to remove their name. Instead of talking in detail about Kelly the barista, perhaps just acknowledge that your character is served coffee by someone. If your officers find a dozen folks out and about without an alibi the night of the murder, only one of whom was the killer and three of whom are persons of interest and will become red herrings, why not cut a couple, or at least describe them in the sparsest of terms and then rule them out ASAP?

So how can you decide who to cut or trim?
Presumably your protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) are the backbone of the story. So their existence is pretty secure. But they can take on additional duties. In one of my books, a previously unknown officer made a useful suggestion that the team followed up on. The officer doesn't feature again and losing them would have no impact on the story. So at the suggestion of my editor, I cut them and "gave" their idea to one of the established characters. It saved a couple of hundred words, and my readers won't spend the rest of the book trying to remember their name.

So for each character, ask yourself these questions. They are not intended to tell you who to cut - that's an artistic choice to be made by you - but what they can do is help you make that choice. You don't have to answer every question for every character, but I would suggest that asking them of a few, especially secondary characters, can help you justify their existence.
What would happen to the story if they didn't exist?
Do they play a pivotal role? Can that role be assigned to someone else?
Are they necessary for later stories?
If you write a series with an ongoing story arc, do you need to introduce a character in a previous book, even if their role is tiny? There is a running joke that in Star Trek, any red-shirted security guard that is played by an extra that you've never seen before, will be dead by the first ad break. If you decide that in book 5 one of the police officers will turn out to be corrupt, try not to introduce them in that book! If possible, introduce them - perhaps in a minor role - in earlier books, that way readers are used to them being around and are less likely to suspect them.
Does their importance to the story justify their wordcount?
How you define 'important to the story' is a matter of perspective. In my books, Warren's in-laws feature regularly. They rarely have any role in the crime being solved. However, they impart an insight into Warren as a person, and are a source of internal conflict for him. So in that way, they are justified. For narrative purposes, they can also act as a page break to slow the pace of the story, or add humour if it is too bleak.

Cutting a character can be hard, especially if they have been in the book since the first drafts. But sometimes we have to make hard choices for the good of the story. As a sweetener though, there are some crumbs of comfort. First of all, if you really like the character that you've crafted, save them for another book. The film industry is full of examples of actors who failed an audition, but were called back and offered a different part or cast in another production. I wonder how many interesting, quirky characters started life as a well-crafted secondary character who couldn't justify their place in the original book but were so good the author recast them in a different role in their next book? And of course, if you have already come up with a great name for them, you can use that name in a different book!

How do you decide if a character has earned their place? Have you ever reused an excised character in a different project?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul.

A few weeks ago, I typed 'The End' on next summer's DCI Warren Jones. As any published author will tell you, that's only the first step in a long journey between your Word document and the bookshelf.
I knew as I wrote it, that this would be a big first draft. The nature of the story was such that it had many individual components. Because I write out of sequence, I find it easier to write each component individually, and then stitch them all together at the end.
For that reason, I wasn't overly concerned when the word count surpassed 160,000. For comparison, my full-length novels are probably in the upper half of the genre's typical length, and their word count is between 120 and 130,000.
Getting rid of 25,000 words wasn't that hard. Writing each component separately meant there was a lot of easy to identify overlap, for example, scenes common to each part. I only need to describe them in detail once. Subsequent retellings can be pared down to a paragraph, or even just a mention that it took place. As previously described [TuesdayTips 27, 28, 29 & 30], some darlings needed to be killed. Other scenes that weren't strictly necessary for the plot, but gave good character development, were cut and saved for a later book.
But I still needed to trim at least 5,000 words. My beta-readers were really helpful here. They identified some repetitive phrases, found some more scenes that could be lost without impacting the story, and highlighted some overly verbose sentences.
I was now down to 133k.
Time to roll up my sleeves, save a new copy of the document, and start editing every sentence. But before I did that, I could easily remove some excess baggage.
Excising invisible words.
All writers have their own unique style. But within that, there are inevitably some bad habits. I will state with great confidence that even the world's greatest authors, famed for their beautiful prose, have at least some bad and sloppy writing habits that had to be fished out in the edits.
One of those habits is the over-use of certain words and phrases. We're all different, but we all do it. In these days of Find and Replace, it's not hard to find the eight uses of "misconception" scattered through the document and swap a few of them for other synonyms. But how do you know which words you over-use? Often these words are invisible to you; verbal ticks if you like. A good editor will probably notice some of them and tell you before your readers see the finished product, but why not get rid of them now? You may even trim the word count a little more!
There are a number of online tools that can help with this. All you do is copy your manuscript into a text box and the program will churn through and count every instance of a word. Some of the more sophisticated ones are capable of identifying phrases. I like https://countwordsfree.com/. For ease of use, I copied the output table into a spreadsheet, so I could play with it a little more.
The first couple of dozen words listed contain few surprises. In my books, "Warren" appears rather a lot (1154 times). But so do others, such as "have" (897), "with" (888), "they" (808), "from" (506) etc. There's not a lot you can do here.
But after that, there are other words that are less common and more likely to be a quirk of your own writing style.
For me, they would include "nonetheless" or "interjected".
I can find these easily and replace or delete them.
Then there are the really invisible words, and you'd be amazed how many are unnecessary. The word that shocked me most was "that".
It appeared a whopping 2,430 times in my document!
Of course, it's a very useful word. But it can also be a superfluous word.

"What happened when you told her that she was under arrest?"
"What happened when you told her she was under arrest?"

Would you notice the difference when reading, especially since it is in dialogue? You can't do a blanket edit and delete them all, but you'd be amazed how many you can excise.
I removed over 800 - that's one in three!
Even better, I found that revisiting those sentences to remove that, without screwing it up, identified other opportunities to tighten the prose. It took a couple of hours, but by the time I finished, the wordcount was reduced by about a 1,000.
A similar trick with "just" removed another 60.

There are other invisible words that can also disappear. For example the word "a". Now I'm not going to suggest that you identify every instance of "a" in your manuscript - there's a reason these tools have a filter for smaller words! But as you tighten a sentence, ask if it's necessary.
Here's one I tweaked recently.

"There were a lot of gaps that needed filling"
"There were lots of gaps that needed filling."

Swap the "a" as a standalone word, for an "s" on the end of lot, and you've lost another word!

What about "and"?
Can you replace it with commas? Can you join two sentences with a semicolon?
Although a chore, reducing word count is sometimes necessary to keep your publisher happy. It also has the added bonus that it can make the narrative more punchy, which is especially useful for fast-paced, thrilling scenes.
Caveat.
It's easy to get carried away (not too carried away, that's a tautology, so you don't need the word "too" 🤣). I go by the rule that my narrator can be as concise and efficient as needed, but that for dialogue, you need to consider how people would speak in real life.

Do you have any tricks or tips that you use to reduce your word count?
Feel free to comment below, or on social media.
All the best, Paul.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an important interview scene for my current work in progress.
It came in at about 2,500 words. I was very pleased with it. There were key revelations that moved the story forwards. The dialogue between the interviewee and their interrogators flowed nicely. The suspect was emotional and, under pressure, finally revealed the truth that the police needed.
In the final book, the entire scene takes up little more than a paragraph, and is reported second-hand.
Now I know what you are thinking: we've all been there. The wordcount for the book has exploded out of control; tough decisions need to be made and this scene had to be cut. All that is true. But here's the thing.
I started writing that scene, knowing that it was never going to be more than a paragraph.
On the face of it, that seems mad! The original scene took me over a day to write. I can knock out a paragraph in less than an hour. So why would I waste a whole day writing something that I knew would never make the final cut?
Because that resulting paragraph is better than anything I could have written if I'd set out to write a scene of two hundred words or fewer from scratch.

I am not a big planner. When I set out to write an interview scene, I start with just a few lines to guide me. Essentially, what information needs to be imparted during the interrogation and a rough idea of whether the suspect is going to be honest from the outset or if the truth will need to be prised out of them. Will they have a solicitor present? Will they heed their solicitor's advice to no comment or will they be unable to keep their mouth shut?  
From then on, I write the scene as it comes to me and just allow the story to lead me where it wants to. In the process of writing it, unexpected revelations are made and new ideas come to mind that I jot down for later in the book.
Perhaps the characters say something that I hadn't considered? On more than one occasion, I've gone back and made changes to earlier scenes, because if the suspect claims that X happened, then I need to change the crime scene to match that admission. Perhaps they swear that they were at home that night? In which case, I need my investigators to verify their alibi - do I need to  have someone speak to their neighbours or get DS Mags Richardson to check CCTV or Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras to determine if their car was parked outside their house all night? Can Rachel Pymm look at the movements of their mobile phone to see if it was somewhere it shouldn't be?
It is the actual process of writing the scene that is more important than what eventually finds its way onto the page.
I refer to this as writing backwards: taking a lengthy scene and watching as the number of words actually shrinks, rather than expands (our usual goal!). It is a process of distillation.
Many authors do similar things. I know writers who will spend a day making a LEGO model of a key location. Doubtless this is a fun procrastination activity, but more importantly it allows them to visualise exactly where the event took place, so that when they describe what happens there in the story, they can see it clearly in their mind's eye. They place LEGO figurines around the model and then move them as the scene progresses. At any given point in time, they know who was doing what and where. Then it becomes akin to reportage, rather than having to make it up from scratch. The writer is omniscient and they simply choose what to share with the reader. It also allows them to avoid simple errors such as having a character in two places at the same time, and perhaps reminds them that character Y is still present and the reader will want to know what they were doing whilst the drama unfolded.   


Do you "Write Backwards"? Or do you spend large amounts of time doing things that, on the surface seem to be a waste of time, but are actually crucial to your writing process?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time, best wishes.
Paul

Aaaah, research! I have written previously about the issue of accuracy (#Tip 60) - when pedantry becomes procrastination, and the compromises that we sometimes need to make to balance the need for absolute accuracy with our duty to tell a compelling story.
So let's talk about research.
Writers starting out on their career are often told "write what you know". This is perfectly sound advice. But the chances are, that as you progress in your career, you will eventually exhaust the topics on which you can write authoritatively based purely on your own knowledge and will need to do research. And this is where it is all too easy to fall into a trap.
It has been said that a good writer can sound like an expert on a subject that they know very little about. This is a little uncharitable. Many writers can become something of a genuine expert on a particular topic. They spend hours reading books and articles, watching documentaries, speaking to people and even going on research trips (sometimes joking referred to as tax-deductible holidays - there are definitely times I regret setting my DCI warren Jones series in an area within fifty miles or so of where live! Sending a DCI from Hertfordshire to Venice to solve a baffling murder, and thus requiring me to go and scout out locations in person, would be a hard sell if I am ever inspected by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs!). I have friends who write historical fiction and they love perusing the archives of the British Library, or tramping around graveyards.
The problem is that having worked so hard to become an expert, you really want to share all that knowledge with your readers!
But do you run the risk of turning a crime caper that your readers picked-up for entertainment into a text book with a story bolted on? Where is the line between an entertaining story that a reader will finish and say "that was a cracking read and I also learnt something" and "It was all very interesting, but not a lot happened."
When I wrote Forgive Me Father, I set the story in a fictional ruined abbey. I had been planning the book for ages, so my partner and I used it as an excuse to go and visit old cathedrals and abbeys, (which we thoroughly enjoyed and I DID NOT claim on expenses, in case HMRC are reading). I bought guidebooks and spent many hours online reading about the dissolution of the monasteries and other history that I never learned at school. I made detailed plans of the abbey as it would have been in its heyday and then modified them to account for centuries of neglect.
Almost none of this research made it into the book.
And that is as it should be. A good rule of thumb with research is that the author should know far more than appears on the page! Or to paraphrase another common piece of advice "wear your research lightly." Aim to leave your readers feeling that you know your stuff, and if they felt so-inclined, they could ask you to expand at length - good writers are good bluffers!
The same is true of characters.
I've spoken previously (#Tip 39) about the need to plan characters - to keep a biography of key events to stop you contradicting yourself in later books; sometimes this can even act as a stimulus. Have a middle-aged character who's getting a bit stale, and you're not sure what to do about them?  Ooh look, they turn fifty in a few months - give them a mid-life crisis! Buy them a motorbike! Embroil then in a messy affair!
But again, just because you know that about them, doesn't mean you have to tell the reader about it.

​What's the best way to accomplish this balance?
The key is in the editing.
Stick everything in the first draft.
Do it! You've worked for that knowledge, and you never know what might be important. Get it out of your system. The first draft of Forgive Me Father was full of rambling diversions about medieval monastery life. And I dare say that taken in isolation, some of that stuff was pretty well-written. But it didn't add to the story. So it gradually disappeared over subsequent drafts.
Then kill your darlings.
Some of my earliest blog posts (#Tips 27, 28, 29, 30) were about editing out stuff that you might love, but which the book doesn't need. Remember, to justify its place, something has to either advance the story, set up future stories or add essential details. Look at your book with a critical - even brutal - eye. Keeping something in a book just because it took a lot of effort to write, because you like it or because you spent ages finding it out, is not justification enough to keep it in. Console yourself with the fact that a decent editor will tell you to chop it anyway, you've just saved everyone time and effort by wielding the scissors yourself!
Know your audience.
Tom Clancy was (in)famous for his meticulous attention to detail. His thrillers are sprawling, geopolitical behemoths with sometimes eye-watering amounts of detail about weapons and submarines etc. Since he died, a series of writers have continued his series, and have maintained this exacting style. Why? Because his loyal readership expect it. I have read almost all of the recent books, and will happily set aside a couple of weeks to work my way through one. They even come with maps and appendices... but these are the only books I would tolerate that from these days. Give the same story to most modern thriller writers and they'd tell it in half the space. But that's fine, for Tom Clancy. He is the exception to the rule.
Beware the information dump.
Sometimes, the need to impart a lot of information to the reader is unavoidable. One of my favourite recent reads was Rachel Lynch's Blood Rites.  The story centres around poorly understood ancient religions and cults. She could not assume any prior knowledge on behalf of her readers. The skill she demonstrated was the way that the information was trickled out in easy to digest chunks, as and when it was needed. I came away from the book having learned a lot of new information, in an enjoyable fashion, but never felt bludgeoned by it. It will come as no surprise that Rachel is a former teacher.
Avoid too much exposition.
This is related to the previous point, and I am going to write a separate article about it. Suffice to say that the old maxim "show don't tell" is worth repeating and just because you impart the knowledge through dialogue, doesn't mean you can ignore all of the above!
A final thought.
As with anything to do with writing, you can't please everyone. I've had reviews where readers have criticised my books for too much detail, and others that feel my procedural accuracy is a strength of the series.
All I can recommend is to read other books similar in style to the one you want to write to get a feel for the balance. Ask readers experienced in the genre to look your manuscript over and have an honest dialogue with them. Ask them to tell you if they think some of the research is overdone, or even if they feel a bit more is needed.
And as always, remember it is YOUR story.
Where do you stand on research? Do you like to come away feeling that you could write a short essay on a new topic, or would you rather the author just got on with the story?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time, all the best,
Paul

Spend enough time hanging around on social media forums populated by writers, and pretty soon you'll come across some poor scribe moaning about receiving their edits. Your's truly has spent the past fortnight doing just that for this coming summer's release, DCI Warren Jones 7.

I've explored some of the ways in which you can trim your novel in previous posts (TuesdayTips 27, 28, 29 & 30) but I've never really explained what editing is, or what some of the different terms mean.

The process of editing varies between self-published writers and traditionally-published writers. Different publishing houses have different ways of doing things, and each writer will find their own way that works for them. There are also slightly different terms used to descibe the processes.

For the purposes of this article, I am going to assume that we are talking about what happens after you've typed 'The End' on your initial draft, read through it multiple times to polish it as best you can and are now satisfied that it is 'finished'. Traditionally, the manuscript would be submitted to the publisher (or sometimes your agent). If you are considering self-publishing, the following still applies, but I have addressed some of the specific issues towards the end.

Tip: ALWAYS start editing on a new version of your file. Storage is so cheap these days, that there is no excuse for not making multiple versions of a file (number them sequentially!). That way, if you realise that your changes don't work, you can just go back to an earlier version and start again.

The editing process can be largely divided into two different stages.

Structural Edits
Terms may vary, but essentially, this is where an entirely new pair of eyes looks at your book and asks 'Does this work'? 'How can we make it better?'
I am fortunate that none of my books have been rejected out of hand, but I still typically have plenty to do.
For my publishing house, this feedback comes in the form of an editorial letter. Anyone who has ever seen marked schoolwork will be familiar with the format - it follows the sandwich model:
Praise for what works.
Ways to improve.
A positive comment at the end.

The improvements in my editorial letters come in two parts:
General structural comments.
For example pacing - perhaps the middle part is a bit slow? Maybe the overall length could be shorter? Do I need so many interview scenes - could I instead have some take place 'off page' with the main points summarised later? Perhaps one character gets too much attention, whilst another is underserved? Do events take place in the best order? Should I space out the murders and the interviews, or perhaps bring them closer together to increase the tension?

I typically turn these suggestions into a list of actionable points, then read through the whole manuscript, and scribble notes on how to implement them as I go along. (I prefer paper and pen for this, but the comment function on Word can be used to great effect here). My notes are usually relatively vague - for example highlighting a whole section and writing 'shorten' or 'cut', or highlighting a paragraph or section and then finding where it needs to be moved to to improve pacing.

Tip: If you need to move a paragraph highlight it and then write a number in a circle next to it. Then find where you think it needs to go and draw that numbered circle in the margin. That way you won't get confused between different paragraphs and can find them easily when flicking through the manuscript.

Specific suggestions.
These can range from small requests for clarification (page 265, is this the daughter speaking here or the mother?) to larger alterations (Page 341, I think you could cut this entire section - it doesn't add anything and slows the story down).
Tip: Do these FIRST. Not only are they often low-hanging fruit, they frequently have page numbers attached - so do them before you move everything around and can't find what page they are now on!

Big tip: When making corrections to a printed manuscript in pen, try and use a colour that will stand out. But also place an asterisk in the margin next to the correction. It's easy to miss something as small as an added comma when flicking through the manuscript and transfering those corrections to the Word document.

Your manuscript may go through several rounds of structural edits. This is NOT a bad thing! An author and an editor are a team, and so as frustrating as it can be, stick in there!

Copy-editing/line-editing/proof-reading.
Each of these terms has a specific meaning, and strictly speaking, they shouldn't be used interchangeably. In practise, this is where someone with a freakish attention to detail and obsessive knowledge of grammar, punctuation, spelling, correct word-usage and the pedantic requirements of publisher style-guides* goes through the final version of your manuscript with a finetooth comb.
They are awesome! I have learned so much of the above from them over the years.

They are also the last line of defence between you and the reader. They are the person that (usually!) spots that the spelling of your main character's name has changed, that the suspect isn't wearing a tie at the beginning of the interview, but is wiping their spectacles on the end of it when the questioning gets difficult, informs you that the long, hot summer in your book was actually wet that year and that the radio station your hero listens to hadn't started broadcasting in 2002.
Have I said how awesome they are?

If you are self-publishing, then you still need to do all this! If there is one thing you take from my rambling blog posts, it's that nobody can fully edit their own work. I submit all of my posts as evidence to support this claim.

Professional editors can be found online - I suggest joining writers groups on social media to see who is recommended; find one that specialises in your genre.
Some editors will do a straightforward read-through and feedback, others may specialise in proof-reading, others may work as part of a small team that will work in partnership with you from that first completed draft to you uploading onto the Kindle Direct Publishing platform. There are also Manuscript Assessment Services or Critique services that can read through your story before you employ an editor to help you iron out any big issues.

Unfortunately, these services cost money; as the saying goes, you have to speculate to accumulate. Traditionally-published authors will see all these costs borne by their publisher. The downside of that is that the publisher takes a cut of the royalties. What works best for you will depend on your circumstances. I suggest getting a copy of the Writers and Artist Yearbook, it's full of really useful tips and tricks.
But, please don't insult editors by trying to haggle with them or getting a freebie - they are skilled professionals, who do it to earn a living. You wouldn't argue with a plumber or an electrician or a gas-fitter, so don't push your luck with an editor. You may well think that editing your magnus opus will bring career-changing exposure for the person lucky enough to hitch themselves to your train - but most mortgage providers don't accept 'exposure credits' in lieu of cash.

Of course, no one is perfect. My books are 120,000 words long - I defy anyone to spot every error in a manuscript of that length. There are those that will airily proclaim on Facebook that the standard of proof-reading/proof-readers today is disgraceful; that authors 'who can't be bothered to proof-read deserve to burn in hell', and regard being a grammar Nazi as a public service.
Dig a little deeper and you'll see that none of these keyboard warriors are themselves writers; as with all professions, we have to accept that there will always be those willing to stand on the sidelines and criticise us as we perform a job that they can't do.

Final thought: Ultimately, this is your story and it will be your name on the cover. Differences of opinion can and do occur with your editor. Don't be afraid; you are both professionals. I have taken to writing a short commentary alongside my editorial letter. In it I detail how I have implemented each suggestion, and justified why I may not have - sometimes I have a compromise. For example my editor may suggest that a section can be cut to improve pace. I have valid reasons that I feel it should stay, but have trimmed it down to make it more punchy.

Good luck!
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Best wishes,
Paul.

*Style Guides! These are an invaluable resource, but will also drive you mad! Many publishers have an in-house style guide that outlines their own preferences regarding spelling (s or z for example), capitalisation, punctuation, hyphenation, apostrophes etc. Be warned - it might not be exactly the same as what you were taught at school!
It is the role of a proofreader/line editor to tweak your manuscript so it follows these guidelines, but I requested a copy of the HarperCollins guide, saving everyone time (and it has improved my spelling, punctuation and grammar no end!).

Editing. Ugh...
So you’ve finished that first draft – congratulations! Now’s the time to have a long, hard think about whether everything in that book deserves its place. It’s time to “kill your darlings”.

There are plenty of reasons why a story element might not make the final cut (I’ve looked at these in the previous three blogs), but removing what might be a beautiful piece of prose is always painful.

So here is my advice. Cut what needs to be cut - but don't delete it. Copy and paste it into an ideas document. Not only is that less distressing than deleting it entirely, but it also means it's there to use in a different book.

I have a file with a mixture of completed prose - paragraphs of polished story that wouldn't look out of place in a finished novel, loosely plotted sub-plots and even fully fleshed-out characters. 
​
Some of these idea fragments will never see the light of day; others may end up in a new book (perhaps heavily disguised). Still others might be the inspiration for a new idea. If the darling was a sub-plot, maybe it could form the basis of a short story?

Whatever happens to those fragments, one day you might be glad you buried your darlings in a shallow grave, rather than cremated them.

Now where did I leave that shovel?

Kill your Darlings! The chances are, that if you are interested in writing, then you have probably heard this refrain. But what does it mean, and how can you tell which darlings need to be killed?

All books are jam-packed with interesting characters, fun scenes, interesting research and hilarious occurrences. I’m sure that your first draft is full of all these and more. But have they earned their place? Every book is different, every writer is different and every reader is different. But one thing is the same: there are things that belong in your book, and things that need to be chopped.

In the previous two blog posts I have made suggestions about how to identify some of these darlings and how to decide if they stay or go, today I want to suggest a few more.

Speed it up or slow it down?
One of the most common reasons to cut material is to control the pace- cut things to make the narrative flow faster. But don’t just assume that faster is always better. Think about what you want your readers to be doing. Some novels hit the ground at a sprint and don’t let up until the last page.
For others, you may want to give the reader time to catch their breath and think about what you’ve written. Perhaps a less kinetic section with more details or character interactions is needed every so often.

No, they’d never do that!
It’s very easy to get carried away when writing fun scenes, but sometimes it doesn’t fit the character’s personality or established skill-set. If you’ve spent all book (or series!) having your character grumbling about how unprofessional their work colleagues are, you’d better have a really good justification for retaining that amusing scene where they get drunk and sing Dancing Queen at the office Christmas karaoke.

Should that character be made redundant?
We've all done it; that amazing character that comes fully-formed into our heads and just has to be written about. But do they need to be there? In books, the reader has to remember all the characters in a scene after you've told them they are present. It's not like TV or film, where you can see everyone in the room, even if they aren't speaking or doing anything. 
Does a character need to be in that scene, or could they be omitted, with their lines and actions plausibly handed over to someone else? Does that character even need to exist in that book?

Thanks for reading. Next week I will be suggesting what to do with those newly massacred darlings, so please pop back or browse the archives for more tips.
Please feel free to comment either here or on social media.
Paul

Aside from a few oddballs, most writers will tell you that editing that first draft is one of the hardest - and least enjoyable - parts of writing a novel.

“Kill your darlings” is a widely shared piece of advice handed down from experienced writers to novices. Don’t be too wedded to story elements; each part of your book has to earn its place, or it needs to go.

In the last blog post, I suggested a few things that you might consider when identifying these darlings. Carry on reading for more ideas.

Nobody cares!
OK, this is going to sound harsh, but you really have to decide how much of those pages of research into a really fascinating subject are necessary to tell the story. There are no rules for this but consider the impact on the story's pace and what sort of book you are trying to write. Information dumps are rarely a good idea (although one incredibly popular thriller writer has managed this). 
But remember, it's impossible to please everyone - I get reviews telling me how fascinating the science that I include in my books is, and others saying they skipped over it.

Does the story work without it?
I crafted a lovely idea for a sub-plot with a nice red herring. But there were already some diversions written into the story, and this one took up space. There was nothing wrong with it, but with 15,000 words needing to be cut it had to go.

Does it add necessary extra detail?
I write a series with ongoing characters. These characters grow over time and I am conscious of the fact that many of my regular readers are, in part, popping back to see how Warren and the team are getting on in life.
Because of that, I often find myself imagining their interactions; we learn about them as people and I enjoy writing those scenes. But how necessary are these passages? Do they negatively impact the pace (in which case maybe they could be moved, rather than deleted), do they add anything meaningful or are they just a bit self-indulgent?

Is it worthy of its space?
Similar to the points above, there may be good reasons to include passages in your book that would be out of place in someone else’s story.
I enjoy writing humour and like to slip in some banter or even the occasional daft situation, but my books are not comedies. A two-page setup for a brilliant gag would not be an appropriate use of space in one of my novels. On the other hand, readers of the Discworld series read them for that very reason. 
Similarly, early Tom Clancy novels are filled with pages of detailed trivia about weaponry and military hardware that his fans love, but which others may not. 
So consider your audience, and be prepared to kill those darlings!

Thanks for reading and come back next week for more suggestions on how to kill those darlings, or browse the archives for more tips.
Please feel free to comment either here or on social media.
Paul

Aside from a few oddballs, most writers will tell you that editing that first draft is one of the hardest - and least enjoyable - parts of writing a novel.

Aside from the obvious chore of correcting grammar gremlins and wrestling ugly sentences into shape, it's also the time to have a long, hard think about whether everything in that book deserves its place.
 
“Kill your darlings”, a quote often (mis?)attributed to William Faulkner, is one of the most valuable pieces of advice that more experienced writers can share.
Sometimes it helps to consider another great 19th Century writer, Charles Darwin. Imagine that everything between the covers of a book is fighting for survival. Only the fittest will make the final cut. Everything has to earn its place.
There are plenty of reasons that a story element might not make the final edit. Over the next few blog posts I’m going to consider a few of them. 
 
Size matters
A few weeks ago, I finished the first complete draft of what will become DCI Warren Jones 7. According to the number in the bottom left-hand corner of MS Word it weighed in at a whopping 145,000 words. That is at least 15,000 more than I want.
There are plenty of well-known authors whose readers will lap up 900 pages without question (and even some genres where anything less than 750 pages is considered a pamphlet), but frankly, I'm not one of them and I dare say neither are you. I could hand it in to my editor as it is, but I know exactly what she’s going to say, so why not save us all some time and get those scissors out now?
 
Does it advance the story?
In plot-driven genres, particularly those with an expectation of pace, it's important that the story keeps on driving forward. If a narrative element doesn't do that, then ask if it needs to stay. You don't have to cut it, but perhaps there has to be another reason for its inclusion.

​Do convolutions give the reader convulsions?
The contortions necessary to parse this sub-heading illustrate the point for me here.
Bond movies need a couple of set piece spectaculars each film – it’s what the audience are there for, and so viewers are more forgiving of convoluted storylines that are clearly just paving the way to the big stunt. But how often have you watched another film and found yourself rolling your eyes as barely credible plot twists deliver the excuse for a multi-million-dollar car chase?
Do you have to twist your story to make a key scene plausible? Obviously, that’s part of being a writer. But ask yourself if that scene is really necessary for your book. If it is, then twist away – that’s one of the best bits of writing. If the story works without it, then consider killing that darling.
 
Thanks for reading and come back next week for more suggestions on how to kill those darlings, or browse the archives for more tips.
Please feel free to comment either here or on social media.
Paul