Facing the chop
Rather than bin them, find ways of recycling characters who don’t make the final edit of your children’s story with help from Amy Sparkes
The editing process can be harsh. You’re writing a children’s book, then you find the word count is too long, or you decide there are too many characters, or subplots – or both. Sometimes agents and publishers may suggest changes, or maybe they just aren’t biting on a story, and you’ve decided to move on… But – wait.
Before you hit the delete button and lose parts of your story forever, maybe there is a way to create something beautiful from those elements facing the chop.
1 Give chopped characters their own stories
If a character is interesting enough for you to mourn their removal, they are probably interesting enough to have a story of their own. After all, everyone has a story to tell…
The character facing the chop might be the protagonist or antagonist, who ended up not being quite the one you needed. This does happen sometimes.
Sometimes you have a ‘caterpillar and butterfly’ situation: your original character was cocooned as your work developed and stepped out as someone very different. As a result, your original one can seem abandoned and forgotten.