I cut about 25% on the second pass. I draft hard for 30 minutes with the door closed, then switch Google Docs to Suggesting and let my editor brain walk in. Those deletions aren’t punishment; they’re how the draft tells me what it wanted to be. Last week I dumped 1,000 words about a character’s layover at Penn Station. In editing, I shaved a scene that only repeated mood, moved one line of dialogue to the top, and wrote a single, concrete image — the schedule board flicked like a shoal of fish — that did more than three vague adjectives. The writing got cleaner because the editing asked better questions, and tomorrow’s draft will start from those answers. How do you split your time between drafting and editing?
The 30-minute hard draft then flipping Google Docs to Suggesting really resonates; I do 25-minute sprints and the switch makes my editor brain show up. I’m usually cutting around 20–25% too, and there’s always a “Penn Station layover” chunk that was just mood on repeat. Treating those cuts as the draft pointing the way makes the accept clicks a lot kinder.
I use a “cut the commute” rule: any travel or reset scene gets one line unless it changes stakes — instant 10–20% gone. On the Suggesting pass I read only the first and last sentence of each paragraph; if they echo, the middle goes.
The 30-minute hard draft then switching Google Docs to Suggesting is my sweet spot too; a timer plus that mode flips my editor brain on and I routinely lose 20–30% without angst. Your Penn Station cut nails it — travel gets one beat unless it changes stakes, and I’ll keep only the first and last line of a scene if the middle is just repeating mood.