Working on a book and it is not going well.
I have learned, painfully, there is only one thing to do: Follow my instincts as a reader and not my intellect, and acknowledge that such and such a section just does not work, that it is holding the book hostage. If you find yourself skimming over your own work—that is to say—being bored, that will happen to your reader as well.
What to do.
My suggestion: Print out the offending section, pick up the pen and cut, and cut again. That works. Why?
If you were struggling with your text, and did not have a clear sense of where you were going, you inevitably filled that text with stuffing, verbiage, and unnecessary words—pure excess. Your job is to locate it and cut it out.
Easy? No. BUT—better to be a good reader of your work than a poor writer.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Writers don’t write writing. They write reading.
It’s something I need to remind myself over and over again.
3 thoughts on “The Kindest Cut”
Like this idea! How do you approach changing the POV in your non-fiction pb story? That’s what I’m considering doing, and not sure if there are any guidelines to doing this?
Best way I know is to set my ms aside and get the new pov in my head and write a fresh document. But if it is nf, no making anything up, or it becomes historical fiction.
I’m afraid I don’t write non-fiction and I don’t know what a “pb story” is.