Through the Nethergate which has recently been released on TSL Publications and Lulu.com and which will be available on Amazon in a few weeks’ time, is my first full length novel. It ended up approximately 72 000 words and would have been longer if I hadn’t taken the advice of my two developmental editors, and removed the death stories of a number of the ghostly characters in the book.
When I first started writing Through the Nethergate, it was going to be an interconnected collection of short ghost stories based on real people and real events, but fictionalised to fill in the detail and gaps. I wrote about the deaths of all the main characters, both good and bad, including:
- Lizzie, a young girl who dies of starvation chained to the wall of a cellar after stealing a half a mug of beer;
- Rex Bacon who murders his wife and her lover after discovering their infidelity and commits suicide;
- A monk who worked at the Glastonbury Abbey and was a victim of murder while performing an important task for the Abbot;
- Katharine, who is forced to become a nun by her family and who runs away with her lover, becoming pregnant and being immured in the wall of the abbey when she is finally caught and returned to the monastery;
- Henry Scarle who is murdered by thieves and whose body is thrown into the river;
- Jack, a young boy who, together with his fellow chimney boys, murders his abusive employer and is hung when he is caught;
- Amelia Dyer who is considered to be the most prolific female serial killer in English history and who was eventually hung for her crimes;
- The children who drowned in the Huskar Colliery on 4 July 1838 after a flash flood above ground; and
- John Collins, one of the leaders of the Chartist movement in Birmingham.
I had feedback from both of my developmental editors and they both said the same thing. We love your ghost stories, but there are too many included. You need to cut some of them. I knew I had to cut some of my darlings and so I removed four of the stories.
I still like these pieces so much that I decided to expand them into stand-alone short stories and that is how the three short stories I wrote for Death Among Us, an anthology of short murder mystery stories by ten authors, came to be written. The fourth piece, about the life of Katharine, I published as a short story on Christopher Graham’s blog, The Story Reading Ape.
I believe that I was given the correct advice about cutting some of these stories out of my novel, after all, it didn’t end up being a collection of short ghost stories, but rather a full length novel with its own main story. I am glad I was able to put the cut out pieces to good use and build them into something worthwhile in their own right.
This post was written for this weeks Open book blog hop.
September 16, 2019
What did you edit out of your most recent book? (or another book…let’s see those outtakes!)
Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
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You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
roberta-writes.com 
I think we all end up cutting scenes from our stories to make it tighter. I think it is great that you still got to use those scenes for other stores. No words were wasted!!
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No, and I think they worked really well as short stories, Darlene. It is right to kill your darlings, Stephen King says so [smile].
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I know, but not always easy!
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I was just thinking about this subject today. I am awful at killing my children. I tend to add and add instead of prune. Though I do prune a bit as well. As I edit, I have been thinking closely about a few characters and a few scenes. Are they needed? Maybe I will join this blog hop…
There is a big difference between a collection of interconnected stories and a book with a larger plot that contains those stories. I do look forward to reading it.
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Thank you for your interest, Trent. There is a big difference as you mention, and when the direction of my book changed and it evolved into a much more complex story, it was right to take out some of the ghost stories, sad as it was for me.
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I have a hard enough time filling in those blank pages- no killing going on here! Nope, none 🙂
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Good for you, Jacquie. I was sad to cut out these bits and my mom was furious with me, but I do think it was the right thing to do.
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Sounds like good advice.
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Thank you, Chelsea
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It’s great to hear that nothing was wasted. I’ve read your short stories in the anthology, really enjoyed them too!
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Thank you, Richard. I am so pleased that you enjoyed them.
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I’m glad you found a way to use them!
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Thank you, I was lucky.
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I’ve heard other authors doing the same thing, to make use of the cut out part and put it somewhere else. Thank you for sharing,Robbie.
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I was lucky to have been able to do this, Miriam. I have a huge folder with writing I have done and never used anywhere.
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Oh, wow. I’m sure you can do a book of short stories, Robbie!
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Those sound like some fascinating stories!
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Thank you, I think the bits worked well as stand alone stories but that was just good fortune.
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Reblogged this on aurorawatcherak.
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It’s great that you found a way to use them. Often when you’re cutting there’s no place to resurrect what is lovely, but when you can — BONUS.
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Thank you, it was because the stories had originally been written on a stand alone basis that I was able to do this. I have about 40000 words in a file that I have cut up of books and posts and never used.
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Always save your cuts. There’s a free program out there called Ditto that keeps them fo you, no effort. Later you can drag them to a blank and save them. If you wrote it, and it’s not total crap, SAVE IT!
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I agree, Phil.
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I didn’t so much cut out great slabs, as rewrote great slabs 😁
My wonderful beta pointed out some plot holes and character incongruities that got rewritten, but thankfully there wasn’t anything major to be cut.
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You have found and written very interesting characters, Robbie!
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Thank you, Michael. I am glad you are interested in my characters.
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They are great, i will read the book asap. Michael
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Cutting your darlings is always so hard! Still, it’s great when you can look at it afterward and know that you did it right.
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It is so hard. My sister is in advertising and she told me I must listen to my editors so I did. It was the right thing to do and my book is better for it.
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I out-write myself all the time. Oh look, here’s a chapter that was me hanging out with the characters. Great! Word count now at 300,000? And we were going for pulp? Ooops… How many short story collections can we make out of those…Good article.
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Thank you, Phil. That is great. It is easier to edit down than up.
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as a great believer in recycling I’m glad those stories found another outlet!
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