Just cut 20,000 words from Luke’s #1 Rule. The entire first act. Of course now I need to replace those with a new first act. And I started doing that today. 9 lonely pages. It’s not like starting over from scratch because I know where this is going and most of the rest of the manuscript will be fine. I just have to build a new first act, one that does not rely too heavily upon external forces. I have the idea how to do it. I have all the time in the world to try it. So now I’ve made a fresh beginning and I just have to continue.
The other question “will this make it a better book?” is still up in the air. I think so, but this is such a major change that I saved the old draft and I even have a file of “cuts” that I can pull from if necessary. Since the love scene is in the “cut” section, you know I’ll be pulling that out and reusing it;-)
