Brenda over the shark tank

I must have 10,000 6,000 words around a very interesting news reporter, Brenda Doe of KORI Seattle. Only, she is not vital to the plot. The story works without her, and it tightens considerably in my imagined edits.

Damn it all! I was liking Brenda. She lent a certain city sophistication to the country bumpkins. She was fun, nosy and fundamentally a good person. I thought she moved the plot along several places, but absent her efforts, the plot moves along without her.

Here I go. Sorry Brenda. I love you, but not as much as I love (spoiler deleted).

Edit: That was a 6,000 word CHOMP. I saved Brenda to my cuts.docx file. She would make a great chick-lit main character, if I knew anything about broadcast news reporting. Maybe I can stick her somewhere out of broadcast. With guns. And an attitude. Brenda Doe, ex-KORI Investigative Reporter… who, um… takes her ex-husbands guns in the divorce settlement… and… decides to keep them! Little does she know that hidden in the stock of one of the old civil war rifles is a…

Can guys actually write chick-lit crime mysteries?

Probably not.