It’s a nice scene. It takes place at dawn, when the grasses are thick with dew. Under a cedar tree two sisters are discussing things that have happened, and why their world is as it is. We learn a bit about one of the sisters from the way she reacts. It It’s an easy passage to read: no more than a page or two. But is the story better without it?
No writer likes cutting stuff that seems good. It’s a struggle. What – lose that nice image about the way she smiles? Lose the flash of humour at the end? I’ve spent hours on it! Surely it’s not too much to ask of the reader to take in just a couple of pages?
Well, yes it might be. Length isn’t the problem. The problem is whether there should be this extra scene at all. What does it add? We get to know that sister anyway, later on. But I’m already pursuing two different sub-plots in the story, hopping from one to the other and back again. Each time I shift scene the reader has to readjust. If this particular moment under the cedar tree added to the momentum, if it went anywhere or left the reader wanting to know more, it might be worth keeping in. It probably doesn’t.
I say ‘probably,’ because I don’t know. I’ve had this story in my head for years. What I’m trying to do now is to judge how the reader will feel when they come to it for the first time. To make it harder, different readers will like different things: some would be more than happy to while away a page or two under a cedar tree, listening to the women talking; others wouldn’t. Not that they would dislike the scene. They would not stop and say, ‘well that was a waste of time!’ But they might be left feeling that in general the pace of the story was a little slow and the narrative a bit disjointed, or even confusing.
So – to cut or to keep? It depends what kind of reader I think I’m writing for.
Cut, then. Probably.
For this draft, anyway.