Lines you hate to cut.

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

So, I'm almost to the point of ready for an editor of my Summer Lovin' entry. But during this last read-through, I came across a line that I find amusing, but it doesn't fit the tone.

Two couples in hearing distance of each other are having sex, and they start to try and outperform the other. I was struggling to find a way to sex competing sex sounds, and my first place holder for it was:

The sound of dueling bajangos drove her over the edge.

Funny, but breaks the flow.

What's a line that pained you to remove from a story/piece of writing?

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

"You're the most violent pacifist I've ever known."

 

[TarnishedPenny]

He looked down at the face of the girl under him in the bed. The last eyes he'd seen looking at him like that had been aiming an AK-47.

 

[KeithD]

I don't remember. No, that's not the line. I can't remember what the line would have been.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

I have a file of lines I loved but haven't found a story for yet. I've actually found homes for most of them and have less than a dozen left.

If I really like something, I won't delete it from the story, I find a way to work it in, even if I have to write around that line to make it work.

 

[Brutal_One]

I have a file of lines I loved but haven't found a story for yet. I've actually found homes for most of them and have less than a dozen left.

If I really like something, I won't delete it from the story, I find a way to work it in, even if I have to write around that line to make it work.

It depends on the line. Typically if you hear a great line it can be good to look for an opportunity to use in a story. An example I get from my daughter who has had her share of bad or toxic boyfriends. A difficult thing for a father to have to deal with but you have to let them live their lives and at times that means making their own mistakes. Pleased to report though my daughter has found a super guy and they are set to have a great life together. Her line which I think is original and I think beautiful about him is “I have found my Unicorn in a field of horses.”

I have definitely put that line in one of my stories.

Brutal One

 

[CuttingEdge]

As a writer I just plain struggle with laziness and in falling in love with my own wordsmithing.

Often times when I review the story in my head, I know where it should be reworked, but when I reread it in editing, I fall back in love with it, and want to keep it again. Some of it may be laziness too as it might be an entire chapter!

Now, I put those cut lines, paragraphs and chapters at the end of the story, so it is there if I want them, but can also be deleted if the story works without it.

It is like my recycle bin for my story. I do not have to quite let go of it, but its cast away.

 

[NotWise]

As much as it hurts, I almost always cut those lines rather than trying to write the story around them. I don't remember any of them now, and I don't need to. There will always be more.

 

[gunhilltrain]

As a writer I just plain struggle with laziness and in falling in love with my own wordsmithing.

Often times when I review the story in my head, I know where it should be reworked, but when I reread it in editing, I fall back in love with it, and want to keep it again. Some of it may be laziness too as it might be an entire chapter!

Now, I put those cut lines, paragraphs and chapters at the end of the story, so it is there if I want them, but can also be deleted if the story works without it.

It is like my recycle bin for my story. I do not have to quite let go of it, but its cast away.

Sometimes I have to cut because I'm basically repeating something from earlier in a story, or I have a conversation that doesn't need to be reproduced in its entirety.

One line I have used twice (the first one was in a screenplay years ago) was from my ex-wife. She described working in Burger King around 1974, "I'd come home and I couldn't wash the stink of Whopper off my hands."

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

Sometimes I have to cut because I'm basically repeating something from earlier in a story, or I have a conversation that doesn't need to be reproduced in its entirety.

One line I have used twice (the first one was in a screenplay years ago) was from my ex-wife. She described working in Burger King around 1974, "I'd come home and I couldn't wash the stink of Whopper off my hands."

I felt that. My first ix jobs in and after HS were at McDaonalds. After 8 hours of cooking burgers that stank does not go away no matter how hard you scrub.

 

[Handley_Page]

WTF is a bajango ?

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

WTF is a bajango ?

It as a bizarre slang term for vagina.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

It as a bizarre slang term for vagina.

And here I thought he mistyped Banjo. Oh well...

 

[NotWise]

I actually did remember the line(s) I so wanted to put into my WIP, but found it to always be a square peg in a round hole.

"I want to plug my probe into your pleasure port and download my genetic data to your replication system."

"Oh God, Brady! That's the geekiest thing I've ever heard." She wasn't too offended, and her breath felt hot on my ear. "You're in luck. My replication system is in 'practice' mode, so you can practice all you want."

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

I actually did remember the line(s) I so wanted to put into my WIP, but found it to always be a square peg in a round hole.

"I want to plug my probe into your pleasure port and download my genetic data to your replication system."

"Oh God, Brady! That's the geekiest thing I've ever heard." She wasn't too offended, and her breath felt hot on my ear. "You're in luck. My replication system is in 'practice' mode, so you can practice all you want."

The geek in me couldn't let this go.

Shouldn't that be upload. You upload to another computer. You download to your computer.

Oh and it would be a reproduction system. Replicate means make an exact copy of... Reproduce means create something similar.

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

And here I thought he mistyped Banjo. Oh well...

Always a possibility with me, but not this time.

 

[Voboy]

I have a file of lines I loved but haven't found a story for yet. I've actually found homes for most of them and have less than a dozen left.

If I really like something, I won't delete it from the story, I find a way to work it in, even if I have to write around that line to make it work.

I did this too, for years. Had some nicely inspired stuff in there too, but by now I've forgotten the filename.

No matter. NotWise is right: there will always be more.

 

[NotWise]

The geek in me couldn't let this go.

Shouldn't that be upload. You upload to another computer. You download to your computer.

Oh and it would be a reproduction system. Replicate means make an exact copy of... Reproduce means create something similar.

Sure. I'll let the character know that he got it wrong. But hey, he got laid, so he probably won't care.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

Sure. I'll let the character know that he got it wrong. But hey, he got laid, so he probably won't care.

True dat. I actually chuckled when I read your response.

 

[lovecraft68]

"The witch has jokes! I better be careful before you turn me into a toad."
"Looks like someone beat me to it"

That's one exchange in a scene that it was painful to cut out of a novel due to it already being too long. A late night shock jock host interviews my MC a 'reputed' witch who owns an infamous fetish club in Chicago.

"Shocking Brock Steel" is my favorite asshat character who most likely will never see the light of day

 

[Ava_T_Argent]

The sound of dueling bajangos drove her over the edge.

I snort-laughed. I've been tempted to write a Star Wars story just so I can use the name Bajango Fett. I feel your pain.