I’m gutting this first draft. Five pages of dialog? No thank you, two sentences, that’s better.
Sometimes, though, I select a sentence or phrase and think, oh, that sounds good. I can’t kill that. I’ll play with it, to try to tuck it in, and then think about painting. Sometimes you just have to paint over the a spot, even if it’s good, for the greater good of the whole.
I haven’t done it yet, but I want to make a document where I copy the good bits. So far I’ve been successful integrating them into the shortened version.
I’m also noticing it’s tremendously uneven, but that’s to be fixed in a later draft. This draft is just going to spread out the exposition and tighten it up.
The best part is that trimming doesn’t require a one hour commitment. So much easier. I can pop in and out during the day and pare a sentence down.
So, last week I finished revising chapter 1: 30% shorter, train has collided not derailed, and Chekhov’s gun petroleum fire has been mitigated to something that is a threat, not an inevitability.