If I’m ever elected to Congress, I will thoroughly annoy my colleagues by sitting in the chamber and objecting to their requests for unanimous consent to revise and extend their remarks. (“Revise and shorten” I wouldn’t object to.)
I’m in the process of revising and shortening my novel Heir of the Line. It’s a time-consuming and difficult process, but I am making some progress. (Not as much as Brandon Sanderson, who is bound to win Super Revision Contest 2007.)
The biggest problem I’m having with the revision is in the prologue, where I’ve had several people say that the combat scenes were too detailed and needed to be shorter. I’m stumped as to what to do, because there was a reason I put those details in to begin with. The basic situation is one man fighting against what seem to be impossible odds. Without the “blow by blow” account of the crucial moments in the fight, it seems to me that readers will be left wondering how he overcame those odds. But the fact that several readers have given the same feedback indicates that the details are a problem.
Is a puzzlement.