How hard hearted can I be in Editing Bound Feet Blues?

I Finished the script of Bound Feet Blued a couple of weeks ago. Now be hard task of editing it begins.

I laid out all 25 pages of the script on the dining table so that I could see the flow of the story in one glance. Also, having it spread out in front of me means that I could see how each section relates to other sections.

Assuming three minutes per page, the script was running to about 75 minutes – which is the outside running time. My aim is to try and

reduce it by about 5 to 10 minutes if I can. This is likely to take me several attempts.

So, this first attempt, I looked through the whole script, searching for duplication – phrases and words that do no more than reinforce what I has already been said . I was also looking for redundancies – sentences that did not add anything to the story of meaning.

It was incredibly hard because, as the author, I am too close to the story and everything seemed relevant and important.