I remember the first time I did this in Skyrim. I was so excited when I saw I could catch a butterfly and then…well, I felt kinda bad.

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I play a game while I’m editing stories now, called “paragraph importance”. Each paragraph has to work like the piece of a puzzle, or a link in a chain, where the overarching idea is portrayed in the small steps. It must form a cohesive whole. As I’m reading through I ask myself, “What is this paragraph about? Is this paragraph important? Would anything change if I deleted it?” It works wonders for weeding out the unnecessary bits.