Today, as I revised, I came back to those first pages I wrote--the ones in which I first connected with the character and the story. I still love them but I'm not sure they fit anymore in terms of the emotional level at which my mc should be at this particular moment in the story plot-wise. I'm pretty good at killing my darlings, but I've gotta say that deleting those first magical pages when you feel a story start so that you can get to the finish is still tough.
What do you do with those first 1,000 words?
3 comments:
The first words ARE the hardest to change, because they were the words that let you tell the story to begin with. (Usually, I don't cut them or change them...but sometimes, I'll rearrange where they come in the story.)
Shelley
i keep a file of "cutting room floor" snippets. They might end up inspiring an entirely different story...
Hi, Stasia! I rewrite the beginning so many times--which causes shock waves of revision through the entire manuscript, of course. But those first lines are special because it's where you first connected, as you said. For each ms, I keep a file called snippets for the lines I cut but am not ready to lose forever.
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