Your favorite line you decided to cut?

Solivagant · Jun 24, 2010

As I read through the threads asking what my favorite line would be, or the first line of a WIP, I realized that many of my favorite lines are the ones I end up cutting.

I know during revision there is always that point where you find a line that you love, but it doesn't work for one reason or another. Why not give those poor forsaken lines one last chance to stand in the spotlight?

Mine comes form my current WIP. The protaganist is a man cursed with immortality. Each time he dies he awakens the next day to find that he has lost another memory from his past.

I loved this line, but it always came off to me as being over written. Plus it made me feel like I was trying too hard to be witty when I came acrossed it during revisions:

"My memories have become as faint as mist, and I fear the few I have left will fade away when I next see the morning sun."

aadams73 · Jun 24, 2010

He laughed.

Waaay too much tell and not enough show. I needed a much more descriptive way to indicate that he's amused, you know? I loved it for its simplicity, but it had to go.

Nivarion · Jun 24, 2010

It seems to be the precision F bombs at character death I seem to cut. I think they'd be hilarious on the first write and then decide they'd make the reader throw my book during a serious death scene.

Fireballs, Big energy guns, heavy objects, spears to the face. All end with the F strike. That single moment between ready to fight to the death and realizing they're about to dye.

Rhys Cordelle · Jun 24, 2010

A cruel fate, Fenlan. Worse than death.” Her self control truly stretched to breaking, Phare could no longer keep the anger from her voice. Her earlier determination to accept her sentence had vanished with Fenlans words. Something inside her screamed to escape.

Wayne K · Jun 25, 2010

I had a description "Her hair was straight, shiny-black, and when she moved it swayed like oil in water."

I wrote this a year ago, but now, with the BP disaster it sounds disgusting.

donroc · Jun 25, 2010

A scene in the Casa de Campo garden at the Alcazar in 17th century Spain when I described birds and flowers:

... and cardinals of the winged variety."

No flying cardinals in Spain at that time, I learned.

Your favorite line you decided to cut?

Solivagant

procrastinatus

aadams73

A Work in Progress

Nivarion

Brony level >9000

Rhys Cordelle

Wayne K

donroc

Historicals and Horror rule