Deleted material, hmm, let me think. Do I delete material from my drafts? Absolutely. I’ve deleted whole chapters, sections, paragraphs, sentences, words. If the material isn’t leading the story anywhere, there’s no point in it being in the story. Out it goes.

It’s kind of like pruning your fruit trees or rose bushes. I have a hard time with that. I hate to cut away perfectly fine growth. The problem is, if I don’t prune, the rose bush or fruit tree gets tangled branches, and that leads to poor flower or fruit production. Can’t have that.

So too with my books. The chapter or section may have great writing but if the piece doesn’t move the story forward, there’s no point in it being there. I may be able to use the deleted material for a flash fiction that supports the story. The deleted piece could be edited to become a wholly different story. I may never use that bit of writing again.

But you just wasted a lot of time and energy! Maybe. But every bit of writing I do, whether I use it or not, makes me a better writer. So really, it isn’t wasted. Don’t we do this every day in our lives? We cut away time wasting activities, we declutter closets and shelves. We delete those things that no longer make us happy or productive.

What do you delete?

The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, travelling the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. There are all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s always something new and different to enjoy. If you want to get to know the nearly twenty other writers check out the rest of the tour at http://merrygoroundtour.blogspot.com!  Up next: Jean Schara!