I need some help...

[Tesh Any pronouns]

Okay. So, I came up with this amazing first line three-ish years ago. (I don't know what woke me. The gunshot, the screaming, or the pain). This amazing story started forming. But my pacing was terrible, and i couldn't figure out why. Finally, after listening to several episodes of WE, I figured out that i had two problems. One: not enough bad stuff was happening. Easy enough to fix.

Two: I needed to get rid of two of my characters. The ones i named after my cousins.

Those two characters are in over half of what i have, and removing them will result in me basically having to rewrite the whole thing. (It's only around 23000 words, but it's the longest (and best) thing I've ever written).

So i was wondering if anyone has any tips for getting rid of these characters, or anything. (Oh, and does anyone have any idea how to saddle a horse)?

[Pagliacci he/him]

Figure out what purpose those characters serve and see if you can give that roles to pre-existing characters.
(longer response pending)

[+Invocation]

54 minutes ago, Tesh said:

(Oh, and does anyone have any idea how to saddle a horse)

Very carefully. Steps under the spoiler.

Spoiler

1. Brush the horse and the underside of the saddle's pad

2. Pad goes on horse's back, leather patches at the front shoulder of the house (aka withers)

3. Check the girth strap on the saddle, make sure it's attached

4. Flip said girth strap over the saddle along with the right stirrup to get them out of the way

5. Grab the saddle by the right side (holding the straps up) and approach the horse from the left side

6. Let the straps down

7. Tighten the tie strap (through the ring on the girth strap, then loop it up through the dee ring from the front down, then pass it back through the girth ring, then pull that tight again.) Don't worry about hurting the horse with the tightening, you'll know if it starts to hurt them (probably by getting kicked)

Yeah, Pagliacci is accurate, try to assign the essential parts of those two character roles to others that can fit, paying close attention to continuity. Trim whatever is superfluous and maybe mess with the sequencing a little to allow some of the reassigning, if possible within the framework of your story.