Taking a scene you love and just... killing it.
There's nothing quite like that feeling where your editor tells you a whole chapter is too long, slows stuff down, and, frankly, what it achieves, in terms of plot or character development, could be achieved in one paragraph, and you realise the bastard is right.... So you delete the whole thing. And maybe hold a funeral...
What's a darling?
It's a term I first heard in scriptwriting for film.
It's the thing- normally, a scene or a chapter that you wrote that you just loved writing. So it will be overwritten. But you love it so much! So you just overlook all that.
So, can you kill it? Edit it out or down?
f you kill it totally what difference does it make to the story? None? Great, kill it!
If something happens in it that influences the plot, character, world, or story development, then edit it down and keep just that bit in the most efficient way you can.
So this is the chapter from Pandora's Secret where my lead, Anderson, meets Imogen, a character that she needs to meet for story development. But the editor said it was too long. So I've rewritten it entirely. But I've kept the original - because I still love it. So here it is, risen from the dead - hopefully not too much of a zombie.
Part 1 - it was a loooong chapter! Sob
A year ago.
The rain could have been heavier.
Anderson sheltered from it beneath the courtyard entrance archway of Knole House, a fifteenth-century stately home in Sevenoaks, southeast England. The building resembled the set of one of the many imported period dramas that Anderson had successfully avoided watching over the past 20 years. It had probably been used as a movie location for several, but not in such miserable weather. Around the corner and down a grassy slope to her right, there was a courtyard which was just missing an old market and a Dickensian character grumbling about Christmas.
She was looking out through the mist-like rain at the flat land in front of the large, wide house. The grass nearest to her was mowed to within an inch of its life. Her eyes constantly roved the near and far rural landscape, searching for things that didn’t feel right. The rain was light, but when the President had arrived twenty minutes earlier, Anderson had got soaked in the time it had taken her to get from her spot under the arch to the presidential motorcade, collect him, and walk back to the archway. She wasn’t allowed to hold an umbrella – she had to have her hands free. Now, everything she was wearing clung to her as if its life depended on it.
The President was taking a personal tour of the property, which was apparently once home to Elizabeth I and an Archbishop of Canterbury, whatever that was. Admittedly, the place was impressive, what she could see of it outside in the rain anyway. She wasn’t on the President’s close protection for this visit, so she was stuck beneath the arch, keeping an eye out for threats. Having spent a few nights in Sevenoaks, which boasted several pubs but now only one oak due to a storm, the streets had been so quiet at 8 pm that the place felt like a set from a zombie movie. And this was a weekend in high summer. So, she suspected there was very little chance the house would be stormed by a gun-toting bad actor any time soon. But assumptions kill, and that wasn’t changing today.
‘Do you want a brolly?’ A female voice called from behind her.
Anderson wanted to turn around. But her body camera would record the movement, and she’d be in trouble later. ‘No, ma’am.’ And what’s a brolly?
‘Ma’am?’ The speaker laughed easily. ‘I’ve never been called THAT before!’
‘Sorry, ma—’
‘Imogen.’ The voice moved to stand beside Anderson on her right. ‘Imogen is fine. Or hey, you. I’ve been called worse.’
Anderson took a step forward.
‘Do I smell?’
‘I need to see one eighty, ma’am.’
‘Imogen.’
‘If you stand beside me.’ Anderson couldn’t use her name now. ‘I can’t see past you.’
‘Right. Makes sense.’ A metal-clicking followed. ‘I’ll stay here then.’
Anderson’s hand dropped to her holstered SIG. ‘Ma’am, you’re not armed, are you?’
‘Imogen.’ She laughed. ‘Armed! Me? God no. It’s a brolly. Look up.’
Anderson glanced up. A dark shadow wobbled above her head. ‘So, that’s a “brolly”.’
She kept her hand on the SIG though.
‘Are you ok?’ The voice asked quietly. ‘Or do you always talk to yourself? It’s ok if you do. I mean, I do.’ She laughed. ‘I have a cat - a kitten, actually - I talk to him all the time too. Bob, he’s called. Anyway. Sorry. I’m going on a bit. I’ll shut up.’
Anderson didn’t know what to say to all that. So, she remained silent.
‘Shall I go?’ The umbrella began to move away. ‘I. I’d better leave. Sorry for…’
Anderson tried to throw her voice backwards. ‘Imogen?’
Silence. Anderson looked upwards briefly; the edge of the “brolly” was still there.
‘If you move to my left.’ Anderson tipped her head that way. ‘And step forward a little, you’ll only be blocking my view of the inside of the arch. Just a thought.’
After a moment, the sound of shuffling feet indicated movement. The noise travelled from directly behind her, to her left side, and then a head appeared to her left. She was blocking Anderson’s peripheral vision.
‘A tiny bit further back, ma’am.’
‘Sorry!’ Imogen whispered and shuffled back a step.
‘Why are you whispering?’ Anderson stared at a tree top poking out of the mist.
‘I don’t know,’ Imogen whispered even more quietly. ‘Shall I stop?’
‘You do you, ma’am.’ Anderson’s eyes roved back to the left, and she let her head turn a fraction that way. She caught a brief glimpse of the side of Imogen’s face. The one eye she could see was fixed on Anderson. Anderson’s first impression was that Imogen was tall. Much taller than her.
‘Hi,’ the half of Imogen’s face said.
‘Hello.’ Anderson returned to scanning through the raindrops.
Imogen adjusted her grip on the umbrella. ‘Do you come here often?’
‘What?’
‘Sorry.’ She put a hand on Anderson’s shoulder. ‘I’ve always wanted to say that.’
Anderson froze. ‘Remove your hand, ma’am.’
‘Oh God!’ Imogen’s hand fell away. ‘I’m so sorry!’ '
Anderson didn’t respond.
Something unidentified had moved into her peripheral vision on the right.
‘You hate me now.’ Imogen shuffled her feet. ‘Don’t y—’
‘Ma’am, I need to—’ There was a loud snap. ‘Get down!’ Anderson turned and threw herself at Imogen, knocking her off her feet onto the stone ground. A fraction of a second later, Anderson had her SIG in her hands, crouching over Imogen. She pivoted to the right and brought the gun up to a firing position pointing towards where the movement and the noise had come from.
‘What the actual hell!’ Imogen screamed from under Anderson’s knees.
‘Stay down!’ Anderson scanned the rain and mist, her heart thumping. ‘Sniper.’
A lumbering figure surged out of the dense fog over the soaking grass towards the house. She tracked them into her sights. Then another appeared. Her index finger slid down to rest on the trigger. She dropped the bubble into the bucket, leaned into the shot, and started to squeeze the trigger at the first outline.
‘It’s stags, fighting.’ Imogen scrambled off the floor. ‘You utter bloody muppet!’
Crack!
The bullet went supersonic into the mist and sliced between the antlers of the two, now visible stags. It buried itself somewhere far behind the creatures in the short grass. The bulls, freaked by the gunshot, bolted in different directions, disappearing into the mist and out of view.
‘Shit!’ Anderson ejected the magazine and stood up.
‘Americans!’ Imogen stormed off toward where the stags had been. ‘What is it with you and fucking guns!’
Anderson took out her cell and rescanned the day’s brief. And stopped. Underline, third paragraph down. “Do not feed the deer”. Fuck! How had she missed that?
Voices shouted urgently over her comms.
She turned towards the house.
Five Secret Service agents spilt out of a door and ran towards her.
Weapons drawn.
#
==