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Q&A Shortening an already short story

Some stories simply need more room to breathe. You might be having so much trouble because your story can't lose 1/3 of the words and still tell its tale. 1500 words is not huge to be begin with....

posted 6y ago by Cyn‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-20T00:40:33Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40231
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:12:55Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40231
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T10:12:55Z (almost 5 years ago)
Some stories simply need more room to breathe. You might be having so much trouble because your story can't lose 1/3 of the words and still tell its tale. 1500 words is not huge to be begin with.

My advice if you're going to go ahead and make the cuts is to take the original and do a save-as so you have it on your computer (or on paper or however you work).

I sometimes agonize over cuts if it means I will never see those words again. What if I want them back? So save them. Sometimes I'll save an older version of an entire chapter (my chapters are mostly around 1500 words) and sometimes I'll put a line or paragraph into a file I have for cuts.

Once you have your copy to mess with, it will be a lot easier to cut what you need to.

Is it ego? I don't know. If you can never make significant cuts to your work, then yeah, maybe it is. But if this story is particularly hard, it might be your inner voice saying, this isn't the right move for this piece.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-11-19T03:55:03Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 5