26 | The Writer • November 2019
I
wasn’t thrilled to delete a favorite chap-
ter from my latest book – a story about
how several kids’ books my neighbor
placed in my family’s Little Free Library
helped my young daughter to overcome
anxiety and depression. But I cut it any-
way because I agreed with my editor
that the tone and content didn’t mesh
with the rest of the chapters. Still, trash-
ing the piece I’d labored on and loved hurt. And
so, on a whim, I revised it as a stand-alone essay
and sent it to Real Simple.
The magazine accepted it. Editors published it
along with a photo and my bio. I earned a hefty
paycheck and a top-notch venue in which to
showcase an essay directly related to my nonfic-
tion work Better with Books: 500 Diverse Books to
Ignite Empathy and Encourage Self-Acceptance in
Tweens and Teens (Sasquatch, 2019).
Savvy authors know that even if they find them-
selves “killing their darlings” during the revision
process, those beloved chapters and essays and
paragraphs can find new life in magazines and
newspapers, in blog posts and online giveaways
that build an enthusiastic audience for longer work.
Burn it – but save the ashes
Oregon author and publisher Kim Cooper Find-
ling never published her memoir about the birth
and death of her first baby. She wrote and rewrote
it for five years, trying to find a central theme in
the story...then gave up and literally lit the manu-
script on fire in a sort of farewell ceremony. Still,
pieces of the book have made their way into her
published essays for years.
Hip Mama published the first excerpt, “Just a
Few Hours,” in the early 2000s. Editors at the
magazine published another excerpt, “Baking
Cupcakes for the Dead,” in 2019. “That felt very
bookendish,” Findling says. “The first piece was
immediate and in the moment, while the second
piece was much more reflective.” Another piece,
“Roots and Flowers: Loss, Grief, and Growth,”
appeared in True North Parenting.
“Sometimes you have to walk away from a
manuscript. Sometimes you literally have to start
a fire,” Findling says. “But publishing as many
pieces as possible in as many places as possible
helps to build your audience. The goal is to get
your voice out there. Even if it’s not in a book,
readers develop a taste for your style and subject
matter, and they begin to seek you out.”
Having learned from her first manuscript,
when Findling found herself cutting a chapter
from her memoir, Chance of Sun (Nestucca Spit
Press, 2011), she submitted it to High Desert Jour-
nal, where it was accepted for publication. “It was
one of my faves. I was determined to place it
somewhere,” she says.Keep a ‘cut file’
Connecticut author and actress Amy Oestreicher
published her memoir, My Beautiful Detour: An
Unthinkable Journey from Gutless to Grateful (Amy
Oestreicher, 2019). In it, she describes her experi-
ences of sexual abuse, organ failure in her senior
year of high school, a coma and 28 surgeries, and
six years of being unable to eat or drink. Oest-
reicher cut several chapters in the revision process.
“It’s hard work,” she says. “No one wants to kill
their baby, but once I did cut chapters, I could see
a clear narrative flow in the story. As painful as it
was, deleting chapters was liberating, as well.”
One of the sections she cut became the essay
“Why I Didn’t Testify Against the Man Who
Abused Me Before My Coma,” published on vari-
ous sites, including Huffington Post, The Mighty,
Elite Daily, and Sammiches & Psych Meds. “Ulti-
mately, I did not include this essay because the
532-page memoir covered an expansive amount
of trauma, and it came to a point where I had to
be selective,” she explains.
Oestreicher keeps a “cut file” for pieces she
deleted from her memoir. “You’ve got to study
what publications are looking for and how you
might fashion a cut piece into an article,” she says.
Like Findling, she stays current on the needs of
print and online magazines that might be a good
fit for work that didn’t make it into her book.Build a bigger audience
Illinois author Rebecca Johns Trissler subscribes
to literary magazines and submits pieces from her
cut file when she finds a good fit. When she real-
ized a chapter of her novel Icebergs (Bloomsbury,
2007) was taking her story in the wrong direc-
tion, she reworked it to stand alone and searched
for a suitable editor. The piece appeared in Chi-
cago Tribune’s literary magazine, Printers Row.
Trissler notes that while novel chapters can have
more open endings to continue a story along, a
shorter piece needs finality in order to satisfy read-
ers. “The arc had to be a little different for my
stand-alone piece,” she explains. “It had to come to