I am officially past the half-way point of 13 Treasures of Britain.

I’ve also gone through and eliminated about six chapters that I planned on writing on the back end of the book. Basically, I tightened up the story. I really feel like once the book hits its second turning point (roughly Chapter 17 at this point), it should be going at a faster pace (like a roller coaster heading downhill). So I’ve shortened things down from 32 chapters to 26 chapters. This means, from Chapter 17 to Chapter 26 (i.e.: the end), the story is flying.

I eliminated a lot of chapters in my outline where the description was something lame like, “Merlin fights monsters.” Those nothing-burgers were nixed. I really had no idea what was supposed to happen in those chapters, so there was no point keeping them around.  I’ve found that by shortening my outline and cutting to the chase, I’ve made the second half of the book a lot stronger.

General writing rule #48: Cut through your story with a giant scythe and watch as the story instantly flows better. Cutting to only the scenes you *want* to write almost always makes the story tighter (even if that means cutting out what seemed like necessary information).