I shortened a story too much!

So one time I wrote a really long short story. I wrote it in 11th or 12th grade. (I'm guessing here.)

It was a story about a girl, a dragon, finding family, and finding faith in God.

Anyway, last year I shortened it, and submitted it to a magazine (Young Salvationist).

Because of their stringent word requirements, I had to cut it to something like 1400 words. (It was originally 20+ sprawling, handwritten pages.) So I did what seemed impossible, and cut it short enough. I got 'into' the cutting process, kept cutting, and took at least another 100 words off.

I hated the way it read, which was with very short sentences, and none of my original poetic wordiness. But hey, it was an accomplishment. I had cut it.

It was rejected.

So I sent it to an online Christian science fiction / fantasy magazine.

I got back my *first ever* marked-up-submission back from an editor.

The editor had a lot of good remarks, which I hadn't been able to see clearly myself.

The thing was, they almost all had to do with my cutting it too much! She didn't know it; she thought I was just a bad writer (although the story idea interested her, I believe).

The things that were confusing in the short version had been better in the larded original! At least, then the story made complete sense, even though it was long. I hadn't seen it, because I knew the story by heart.

It just goes to show you, if you take too many props out, the building falls down.

Recently, I decided to dig the story out and restore it to a moderately longer version, then submit it elsewhere.

But I'm going to take my time with it, since I'm working on other projects as well.

Since I've discovered the wonderful sub-genre market of Christian science fiction and fantasy publications, I've had loads of ideas to submit! I can dig out, oh, so many stories which I thought would never fit anywhere.

And they still might not fit, but they *might.*

I'm hyped!