How To Trim Unnecessary Action

Answers to Exercises in Cutting Too Much Description of Action

Jan 19, 2009

This article gives the answer sheet to the Writing Exercise in Cutting Unnecessary Action and explains why the cuts were made.

In the first article in this series, an exercise was given to practice the skills learned in How to Cut Unnecessary Words. This article gives the answers to that exercise, and explains why the cuts were made.

Think About the Essence of the Plot

First think about the core of what you are trying to express: The essence is that the children are trying to get up the courage to tell their mother that they were frightened by the criminal. She will be angry when she knows they trespassed into a dangerous place.

Think About the Mood

Think about the mood you are trying to convey: The children are frightened, relieved to be home and stressed. You want the reader to know how anxious the children are.

Make Sure the Action Expresses the Character's Emotional State

Is the action conducive to expressing these emotions? In other words, would they be likely to come home and start cooking? Why would they cook, and delay telling their mother? If there is no underlying reason, the addition of the pizzas merely serves to distract the reader from the plot and the mood.

Use the Action to Build Mood

However, you can use the peripheral action – the making of pizza – to build the tension. If they are afraid to tell her what happened, they might delay. In this case, they would use time spent making the pizza to build up the courage to tell their mother what they have done.

Make Sure that the Characters' Feelings and Motivations are Clear

If you decide to use the pizza making as a delay and a way to build their tension, make sure that this is expressed in the way the children interact with each other.

Use the Action as a Way of Building the Characters

If you make one character desperate to tell their mother, and the other reluctant, you will be able to build up their characters through the way they behave. You might need to change the scene and dialogue to reflect their relationship.

Now Read the Cut Version of the Passage

“ Mom, what’s for dinner?” Their mother paused, iron in hand, as Lizzie burst through the door.

“Great,” said Lizzie. “I love pizza.” She opened the fridge and dug out the ingredients.

James followed her into the kitchen. He sat down at the counter and fiddled with his shirt collar. “Mom?”

“What is it, darling?” asked his mother. One eye on the TV, she sprayed the cuffs of their father’s shirt with water.

"Here, Squirt, you can have the salami." Lizzie shoved the packet towards him with a warning look.

Lizzie was standing right over him, so James carefully placed the last three slices of salami onto his pizza base, arranging them in a perfect triangle. Lizzie wiped down the counter while he spread the Mozzarella slowly, reaching right to the edges of the base.

"What’s going on?" their mother said. "Lizzie, why did you let him have all the salami? Why are you wiping down the counters?"

Lizzie sighed. How was it possible that their mother could watch Oprah, iron a shirt and still see everything that was happening?

But James cracked. He pushed away the pizza. “Mom, something happened to us on the way home.”

Their mother stopped ironing. “What do you mean, something happened? Are you ok?”

Get More Practice at Editing Unnecessary Action

The copyright of the article How To Trim Unnecessary Action in Writing for Children is owned by Helen Brain. Permission to republish How To Trim Unnecessary Action in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.