: Re: Shortening an already short story I am new to this group but not new to writing in many forms... I have a great story that flows from my fingers -- got it to about 1500 words - but it

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.

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More posts by @Candy753

: Portraying the Brutality of War I'm writing what might be described as a gas-lamp fantasy novel set in a realm similar to the Durrani Empire. Part of the main character's backstory is his experience

: How best to prevent a protective response from overshadowing a heroic act? My main character is injured, having been shot earlier. This injury renders him much slower to respond and reduces his

: Music & Focus During Writing I hate listening to silence while I write, so I usually end up listening to music, but then I lose my focus. I don't really like classical or lo-fi that much

: How to balance male protagonist sensitivity to women My MC is an assassin by trade and has a military background - sniper, Special Ops, etc. He was raised partly by his sister after their

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