I’m currently working on edits to an upcoming story. My editor asked for some changes and as I’m working on this, I can see how I can address some issues by moving scenes around. It’s like an elaborate puzzle in my head. Everything has to fit. How can you move chunks of a story around and have it still make sense? It’s like taking the puzzle shapes and modifying them a bit to make them fit somewhere else. I might have to add something here and remove something there, but that’s fun to me. I consider it a challenge and if it will improve the story, I’m more than willing to go in there to cut and shape and pad. Usually, the problems are there because the story was out of order in the first place. Sometimes, scenes don’t fit at all and need to be cut entirely. That’s when you, the reader, get those extra “deleted scenes” that you love so much. Perhaps I’ll have some of those when this whole process is through. It’s a puzzle piece that just doesn’t fit, no matter how much you want it to.
It’s all about perspective. Sometimes as a writer, you’re looking so closely at each puzzle piece or scene, you forget that the reader is focusing on the story as a whole. The pieces not only have to fit, they must make that picture as pretty as can be.