Making the Cut

I did something recently that made me cringe. I cut a scene I truly loved. It was a scene that I thought was great, but two of my critique partners made comments asking what it's purpose was. I mulled it over, for months.

I mean, I loved that scene. It was fun, my characters let loose, and the setting was beautiful.

How could it not be working?

I decided I was going to keep it. Yet, there was a lingering sliver of doubt zinging around in my head. It wouldn't go away. They were right. There was something amiss with that scene. It didn't work. No conflict. No tension. Nothing building or moving the story forward. It might have been fun and I might have loved it, but it didn't work.

Then came the millions of questions trying to figure out how to revise the scene, to make it fit. Nothing I tried worked. I just couldn't seem to get the scene right.

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So I did something that made me crazy. I deleted the scene.

And something amazing happened. The story didn't fall apart. Surprisingly I think it's stronger without that scene.

I still have that scene on file, saved just in case. But it isn't in the final version.

Have you ever had to cut a scene you loved?