#267: What to Cut From Your Novel and What to Keep: 3 Questions to Help You Decide

Every writer faces this moment: staring at a bloated manuscript, knowing something has to go, but terrified of making the wrong call. The usual advice—"kill your darlings," "cut ruthlessly"—doesn't help. You need a way to see what's actually weighing your story down. This episode gives you a diagnostic framework that takes the guesswork out of what to leave in, what to leave out. 

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Transcript

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If it's just the same beat at the same intensity, pick your strongest example and cut the others, or orchestrate those beats strategically so each one complicates your protagonist's situation. Writer Unleashed is for you, a writer who has the story you want to bring onto the page and into the hearts and minds of readers. I'm Nancy Pinuccio, writer, editor, and book coach. Each week, we'll explore techniques, mindsets, and inspiration for writing stories readers can't put down. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's begin.

The Trouble With the Unfocused Story

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Today we're talking about something that terrifies most writers, or at least confuses them. Cutting your manuscript or cutting your work in progress. Maybe your first draft is too long. Maybe you've gotten feedback that your pacing drags, or the story feels unfocused. Your readers are confused, or maybe you're staring at your 120,000-word manuscript thinking something needs to go, but you have no idea what.

Question 1: Does This Scene Change Anything?

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Here's what I mean by change. Does this scene shift the plot? Does it shift the character's internal state or relationship dynamics in a way that affects what happens next? If you removed this scene entirely, would anything be different? Let's say your protagonist meets their best friend for coffee. They talk about the conflict the protagonist is facing. The friend gives advice or emotional support. Maybe the friend shares some new information. Sounds fine, right? But here's the diagnostic question. What changed? Here's what I mean. Learning something new isn't automatically change. Getting emotional support or advice isn't automatically change. Change means your character does something different than they would have done without this scene. So ask yourself, did this conversation lead to a decision your protagonist wouldn't have made otherwise? Did your character gain information that alters their next move in the scenes that are coming up? Did something happen that affects what comes after? Or did they just talk about stuff the reader already knows or learn something new, but then continue on the exact same path, moving to the next event without making any tough decisions? If nothing changed, if you could remove that scene and your protagonist would still do the same thing next, it's not pulling its weight. Now, change can be external or internal. Your character could make a decision, cross a line, realize something about another character, but something has to shift. If a scene just shows your character experiencing something or processing emotions without that shift, it's likely dead weight. You always want to ask, how does this scene connect to your protagonist's main story problem? Okay,

Question 2: Am I Repeating Myself?

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on to question number two. Am I repeating myself? This question addresses the most common bloat problem, saying the same thing multiple times in different ways. You show your characters lonely in chapter three, then again in chapter five, and again in chapter eight. You're worried that the reader won't get it. But the reader got it the first time. By the third time, they're watching you repeat yourself and they're saying, okay, where is this going? Repetition is a good thing. Let me just say that. You want to create patterns in your story, but repetition without variation is just repetition. If the couple's fighting is the central conflict, then repeat it, but three times is more than enough. And you want to orchestrate it throughout the story so that each time you repeat it, it's in a different variation, a different situation, and things are escalating. Here's how to diagnose this in your pages. If you're showing something multiple times, each instance needs to either escalate, complicate, or show change. Is the loneliness getting worse? Is new information reframing it? Is the character's response shifting? If it's just the same beat at the same intensity, pick your strongest example and cut the others, or orchestrate those beats strategically so each one complicates your protagonist's situation. So let me give you a specific pattern, the circular argument. The couple fights about trust in chapter four, then they fight about trust in chapter nine, then again in chapter 14. Nothing has changed between these arguments, no new information, no escalation. They're just having the same fight repeatedly. This will exhaust your reader. One complex, well-crafted fight scene is worth more than three identical ones. So start noticing where am I showing the same thing over and over without development, without escalating the stakes?

Question 3: Whose Story Is It?

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Okay, last one, question three. Whose story is this really? This question is about narrative focus. Whose story are you telling? And does every scene serve that story? What is your main character moving toward? For every scene or subplot in your story, ask, does this serve the protagonist's journey or does it belong in a different book? Let's say you have a fascinating secondary character, the protagonist's coworker, dealing with a custody battle. You're writing beautiful, nuanced scenes around this character, but this coworker has zero impact on your protagonist's journey. The protagonist is solving a corporate corruption mystery. The coworker's arc exists in parallel, but never intersecting. So readers get invested in the coworker, then go chapters without seeing them. When the subplot reappears, it feels like switching to a different story. The subplot wasn't bad. It was orphaned. It belonged in a different book, maybe. What if you cut the custody subplot and give the coworker a smaller role that actually connects to the corruption plot? Your revised manuscript might be 15,000 words shorter and infinitely more focused. Good subplots don't just exist along the main plot, they complicate it. They create obstacles, they raise the stakes, they force difficult choices. If you have scenes or character arcs that are interesting, but don't connect back to your protagonist's central conflict, you're writing a different story within your story. So here's a reframe: you're not deleting good material, you're identifying material that may belong somewhere else. That subplot might be in your next book. So save it in a separate document, but get it out of this manuscript so your story can breathe.

What Happens When You Apply These 3 Questions To Your Manuscript

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When you start applying these three questions to your work in progress, you're going to see patterns. You'll notice clusters of scenes that all do the same work. You'll spot secondary characters who appear and disappear without affecting your protagonist's journey. You'll find moments where your story is treading water. This is all good information. This tells you where the excess is. The actual cutting process, how you inventory your scenes, decide what stays and what goes, restructure after cutting, that's the detailed work. That's part of your writing and revision process. Identifying patterns, looking objectively at what's on the page, and making strategic decisions. You can start right now by reading your work in progress with these three questions in mind. When you hit a scene that makes you think, wait, what's this doing here? Or haven't I shown this already? That's your instinct telling you something needs to be cut or used more strategically in service of the story. Your job isn't to keep everything you wrote or every idea you've poured into this particular story. Your job is to give readers the best possible experience of your story and to make writing it less overwhelming and more enjoyable for you. Every word you keep should serve that experience. Every word you cut is removed not because it's bad, but because the story is better without it. This isn't about killing your darlings. It's about clarity, it's about focus. The writers who can cut effectively are the writers whose books feel riveting and purposeful. They're not better because they write perfect first drafts, they're better because they're willing to remove what doesn't serve the story.

Episode Recap

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So here are those three questions one more time. Question one, does this scene change anything? If you can remove it without affecting what comes after, consider cutting it. Question two, am I repeating myself? If you're showing the same beat multiple times without escalating the stakes, pick your strongest instance and cut the rest. Or repeat it in different variations with rising consequences. Three is the magic number. I wouldn't do more than that, but you want to orchestrate it strategically throughout your story. Question number three, whose story is this really? If a subplot doesn't serve your protagonist's journey, it might belong in a different book. You want to use subplots to amplify your main plot, either by contrast or by showing a parallel variation of your protagonist's situation. These three questions will help you see your manuscript structurally instead of emotionally. So here's what I want you to take away from this episode. Cutting isn't about making your story smaller, it's about making it clearer. When you remove what doesn't serve the story, what remains becomes more powerful. The scenes that stay have room to breathe. Your protagonist's journey comes into focus. Readers can finally see what your story is about. And here's the truth: you already know where the excess is. You've probably known for a while. Those scenes that make you hesitate when you reread them, those subplots you're not quite sure how to integrate. That nagging feeling that something isn't working. Trust that instinct. Ask yourself those three questions. Be willing to look at your manuscript structurally instead of emotionally. The hardest part isn't the actual cutting. It's giving yourself permission to do it. Permission to say, this is great writing, and I worked hard on it, but it doesn't belong here. Permission to trust that your story will be stronger, not weaker, when you remove what's weighing it down. You're not deleting your best work, you're revealing it. So there you have it. Thanks for hanging out with me today. If you know any writers who need some support in their writing, please share this episode or the Writer Unleash podcast in general. And if you love what you're listening to, subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And if you're listening on Apple, please leave me a review. Reading how this podcast impacts your writing truly lights me up and helps me create topics for the show. Till next time, keep writing and I'll talk to you soon.