Deleting Sam Fox from the story was interesting. A lot of his material can be transferred to other characters. Even things taken from his hands and put into other hands. Tells me Sam wasn’t that essential to the narrative in the first place. My instinct to get rid of him probably was right. Don’t stick to a mistake, even if it took you a long time to make it.
I’m deleting anything that sounds like I’m explaining something. Just say what happens, stick to character POV, and trust the reader to figure it out without redundant explanations. I’m also making a few choices to make my characters smarter. They figure things out quickly, where before I might have kept them confused longer to create suspense. But it’s another kind of false suspense created by making the characters dumber than they have to be.
Eclectic Magpie 