Laura van den Berg

An Unannotated List of All the Things I Cut Out of My Novel:

1. A ghost ship

2. Montauk, New York

3. Subplot about a drug-dealing televangelist

4. A kidnapping

5. A seaside mental hospital

6. Subplot about teleportation conspiracy theories

7. Subplot about mind control

8. All other subplots

9. Diamonds

10. A sad detective

11. A lot (50-60%?) of backstory

12. A lot (40-50%?) of “plot”

13. An accordion

14. Credit cards

15. A tornado

16. Prayer

17. Pyromania

18. An abandoned library

19. Tarot cards

20. New Jersey

21. A gun

Laura van den Berg is the author of the short story collections What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us and The Isle of Youth, and the novel, Find Me.