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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Editing Out Characters

So far during the editing process of my current story I have found it necessary to cut out a few characters.  Michelle, Rachel, and Willy were the first to go.  Although they each had a few short lines of dialogue, they really weren't important to the story.  Next came Becca.  She was created to be one of my MC's roommates in college.  She was rude, crude, crazy annoying, and everything my MC isn't.  Her main purpose was to introduce Emily (my MC) to Jason.  Deciding Becca wasn't necessary either, I removed her and had Emily meet Jason on her own.  Removing these characters hasn't bothered me, but now I'm considering removing Jason.  Emily dates him for seven months in an effort to get over her feelings for her best friend Nicky so Jason has a significant part in the story.  I think I can get to the same ending without him, though.  The problem is I like him and the part he plays so if I take him out, it's going to hurt.  But part of editing is deciding what's best for the story, or perhaps I should say who is best for the story.  Characters shouldn't be kept in just for the sake of having multiple characters. 

Poor Jason.  His future is undecided.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know. If you keep up the character purge, you might as well rewrite the movie "Castaway," and have Emily spend the entire book talking to a soccer ball.

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  2. Don't worry, Wilson won't be entering the story any time soon. There will be more than enough characters left to prevent Emily from befriending an inanimate object.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!