Deciding to Delete a Scene

Deleting a scene can be a very hard decision when it comes to writing, and as someone who has deleted scenes before, here's my take on it.

Don't delete a scene just because it's "filler." There's nothing wrong with a little bit of filler if you are focusing on the characters just being. Filler to pad out time is not ideal, because then the story becomes longer than needed. But using slower moments in the plot to build the world or the characters is also extremely important.

A scene goes on the cutting room floor if it is absolutely useless. If the story would be exactly the same without the scene, you need to cut it. I used to have a few chapters in The Secret Portal that were flashbacks to when some of the characters met each other. Now, sometimes it is important to know how characters met each other if it provides context, or if said meeting happened in a plot-relevant flashback. I still have those, but three chapters were just some friends meeting, and didn't establish anything we didn't already know. There were a few details that I including that I thought justified their existence, but I soon realized that those details could be established elsewhere. So now those chapters no longer exist.

There are also some scenes that can be combined. I've had several scenes that are dedicated to establishing one thing, but they could have all fit in the same scene, so I rework one of the scenes to include aspects of the other scene. If a scene repeats information we already know, and doesn't provide any meaningful depth or context, one of the scenes has to go, and the one you think will have the most impact should stay. For example, I had a scene where a character had a vision of another character's backstory, but later I eventually decided to write a flashback chapter showing that backstory, when the need came up. I rewrote the first scene to have another vision that foreshadowed the backstory instead of blatantly showing it.

There are also some plotlines or scenes that need to be reworked completely. Whenever I decided to improve upon or tweak a plotline, I usually rewrote the entire scene, maybe taking some aspects of the original that I liked, but overall, improved upon it. I've also deleted scenes that I found rather cringe, as I wrote a lot of The Secret Portal in high school. Looking back, I have a lot of unnecessarily long pop culture references, which I have narrowed down to only get a passing mention at best, with many scenes scrapped and put in a new context.

Speaking of which, if a scene isn't working, but you know it needs to happen, sometimes there's a very simple answer. Changing the setting or changing the perspective are the two strategies I use the most. Whenever I had a cringey pop culture scene, I would change it to a scene where my characters were practicing using their powers, which is something I knew needed to be added. I've had two plotlines that I couldn't figure out how they worked, but then realized I just needed to be in another character's perspective. If your book isn't set up to allow this (i.e., it's told in a limited perspective tied to one person), I say at least consider switching perspectives.

Sometimes cutting a scene is unavoidable. If you rework the plot, and then realize now a scene doesn't work, it unfortunately may have to go. However, my recommendation is seeing what aspects of the scene can remain, even if they require tweaking. Never give up on an idea immediately if you love it.

And that's another point I want to address: SAVE THE SCENES YOU CUT. Never delete them forever. Open up a new document for those scenes, and paste them in there. If you use pen and paper, set them aside in a new folder, or however you organize. And remember, there may be a way to change the scene.

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