There are LOTS of times as a writer when you need to cut a paragraph or scene from your WIP. Before you do, there’s a question to ask yourself:

DOES THIS PIECE OF WRITING CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING SPECIFIC THAT I NEED TO INCORPORATE ELSEWHERE?

My editor recently suggested I cut a paragraph from book two of my trilogy because it felt out of place and distracted from the tense, powerful tone of the passage.

The problem was, that paragraph explained what each of Herezoth’s three kidnapped princes liked to do around the palace when they were still there. (Not a spoiler, I promise. They are kidnapped when the novel starts, it is the set up of the story).

Why was that a problem? In a word, characterization. The paragraph characterized the princes. It gave you a glimpse into their different personalities via their interests and talents.

So I thought for a bit, because if what mattered regarding that passage was characterization, there are other ways to accomplish that than a paragraph that distracts from the scene it’s in.

I could have moved the paragraph, reworking it a bit to fit in elsewhere. But I decided, instead, to add a few lines of dialogue to the prologue, in which the princes feature.

The content is different from what was in that original paragraph, but it accomplishes the same thing. You learn who the princes are.

The solution worked BRILLIANTLY. Even better, the situation in the prologue is such that the boys might well make the remarks that they do. It doesn’t feel out of place in context, and being located in the prologue, the characterization comes as early as it possibly could. Nothing better than that!

If you’re a writer, what question(s) do you ask before you cut or move a section of a WIP?