Kill your darlings
The first draft of my novel, True Status, consisted of 62,000 words. When I rewrote the story, I slashed 23,000 words and added 47,000 new words. An improved story of 86,000 words resulted. My editor urged me to make the manuscript better, so more rewriting and pruning followed until I trimmed another 10,000 words. Figuring out what to add and what to remove made all the difference. Anything that did not advance the story or…
