Decide what to cut from a story that's trying to include everything
Every detail feels essential to whoever lived it, which is exactly why an outside cut is needed.
- Use it for
- Anyone with a story that's grown too long by trying to include everything that happened.
A story that tries to include every event that actually happened usually loses the thread of what it's actually about, because every detail feels essential to whoever lived through it — the same closeness that makes the story worth telling also makes it hard to see what's expendable. This prompt cuts against a specific throughline rather than trimming everything a little.
When not to use this
If the story is already tightly focused and just needs minor editing, this full cutting exercise is more than it needs — do a normal edit pass instead.
Did this work?
You have a specific, ranked list of what to cut, tied to what the story is actually about, not just a shorter version with everything slightly trimmed.
Tested on claude-opus-5. Evidence status is draft; it moves to battle-tested only on recorded runs, never by hand.