On July 1, I e-mailed the completed manuscript for my second YA novel, The Bullybuster, to Astraea Press (now DBA Clean Reads). I was cautiously optimistic that they would agree to publish it. After all, they published my first novel after requesting that I make only a few minor changes. But the response I received from CEO Stephanie about 6 weeks later made a distressing — and largely accurate — observation: “I feel like you have WAAAAY too many characters introduced.” But with that piece of criticism came a ray of hope: “Would you be open to changing this up?”

I readily agreed. So in recent days, I’ve been swinging an axe over the heads of the novel’s helpful but nonessential characters — and often letting it fall. Some were fairly easy to jettison; others were hard to let go.  About 10 “throw-away” characters could simply be dropped from the story without making any significant changes in the writing. That included some teachers and students who only appear in one scene. Two or three characters were erased by blending them with other, more-important ones.  Ricky is a good example. The junior chemistry whiz was a frequent bully victim as well as a friend to chief antagonist Michael DeVere. He appears in six chapters so he wasn’t a throw-away.  On the other hand, his role in the plot paralleled that of another character, Roger, so it wasn’t that hard to “merge” Ricky with Roger. The storyline remained unchanged with Roger now the chemistry whiz as well as a bully victim and friend of Michael.

Some characters, despite not being essential to the plot, were still hard to cut. Morning newscasters Clark and Monica added a lot of humor with their over-the-top announcing “skills.” Students Herb Logan and Harvey Adams livened up the scenes in which they appeared, but like Ricky, they could be absorbed by other characters. For his part, arrogant student council president Winston Smurr provided a glaring example of how not to treat other people — making it so nice when protagonist Owen outsmarted him.

As I prepare to submit a revised draft of The Bullybuster to Clean Reads, 16 bodies have been laid to rest in my “graveyard” of deleted characters. I don’t know if that will be enough to satisfy Stephanie. An argument I will make in my cover letter is that since much of the story unfolds in a high school, a larger-than-average cast of characters is needed to make the setting plausible. That said, if Stephanie wants more characters cut, I have already identified three or four that will get the axe. It won’t be easy, because like the other deleted characters, I’ve grown rather fond of them.