Tearing Down the Wall by Morgan Mandel

On the way to the commuter train a few days ago, I noticed workers tearing down a brick wall which runs around a swimming pool at one of the condo buildings. I was wondering what was going on. Apparently, repairs needed to be made to the swimming pool and they couldn't get the equipment in any other way to perform them.

Since I'm always thinking in writing terms, the process reminded me of edits. Sometimes it's necessary to tear down walls to fix things in our manuscripts. It could be a small wall or a huge one, depending on the problem.

In my current romantic suspense, Killer Career, I'm almost through with the edits. One of them required me to remove a prologue and weave it into another part of the story. I had to figure out where to put it and if I should throw some of it away. I did find a new home and a better one. I did remove a few sentences also. The best thing is I'm happy with the result.

Moral of my story is don't be afraid to remove or rearrange manuscript parts if that's what it takes to fix it.

What about you? Have you had to make a major change in a manuscript? Were you happy with the result? Please share.

Morgan Mandel