Good words that get cut out

[TheWritingGroup]

In one WIP, I had what I thought was a pretty good turn of phrase. Then I rewrote that scene so the event involved doesn't happen.

A woman just ate a barbecue meal with someone she's crushing on, and ...

Many napkins cleaned sauce from face and finger.

Nothing Shakespearian, but I liked it.

It won't be used, because the conversation at the table went somewhere that advances the plot, but doesn't require Rowena to sit at the table noticing hand-cleaning. I like the new version of the scene better ... but I will miss that sentence.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

As my works get longer... And longer... It's these specific scenes that drive it. Just because a turn of phrase is clever (or I just happen to like it) doesn't mean the scene containing that phrase is worth keeping. I really need to get better at trimming the fat.

 

[dirk2024]

In one WIP, I had what I thought was a pretty good turn of phrase. Then I rewrote that scene so the event involved doesn't happen.

A woman just ate a barbecue meal with someone she's crushing on, and ...



Nothing Shakespearian, but I liked it.

It won't be used, because the conversation at the table went somewhere that advances the plot, but doesn't require Rowena to sit at the table noticing hand-cleaning. I like the new version of the scene better ... but I will miss that sentence.

Perhaps you can keep that for another story?

You could have something like a "notes" page with random thoughts waiting for an appropriate story.

 

[IWroteThis]

Perhaps you can keep that for another story?

You could have something like a "notes" page with random thoughts waiting for an appropriate story.

I have a section in my Ideas file called snippets that is full of little bits like that which aren't tied to a specific story.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Put it in the ideas/snippets file, and in some future story you'll be thinking, What would be good here? Oh, a barbecue would work. And I've got just the thing...

Personally I like parallelism and echoes of one story in another, such as two barbecues.

 

[anthrodisiac]

This is exactly the use case that PBP the owners who are not PBP had in mind when they created Darlington Memorial Cemetery.

Or save it for something else. I like to keep things like that and just have a snips file (like @BeechLeaf said) where these things hang around and I never use them, but maybe someday I will (even though I know I won't).