Fixing MY point of view

After speaking with some people, first and foremost my lovely wife, I've been assured that I need to work on one thing above the rest. Not fixing the POV in my story. Not even worrying about which characters will get the limelight and which will potentially get deleted. I need to learn to look at my story from my reader's point of view. 

I can't believe that after all this time, pontificating about different ways to improve my work to you guys, listening to podcasts on writing, watching YouTube videos for tips on voice, I didn't consider the most important view point of all, the reader. I know my work. I know my characters. I know my world. I know it all WAY too well. So when I started panicking yesterday about Patricia, it was because I was looking at it with all the cards face up on the table. My reader, however, has no idea what's going on behind the scenes.

It's true: I need to work out Patricia's backstory a bit more, especially if I want to give her any attention in a supplementary work. Right now though, she doesn't need to be deleted. She doesn't significantly add or detract from the story right now, at least from the reader's point of view. Cutting her out won't necessarily hurt the story, but it also won't help. I know I need to cut a bunch of words right now, but her parts are a spit in the ocean. Even removing her entirely from the manuscript will likely save me less than a thousand words, and right now, I need around 30,000. 

I need to look at the bigger picture and find entire scenes and chapters that can be lost. So, at least for now, Patricia is saved. And I've been taught a valuable lesson about remembering what the reader sees is not what I see.

​DFTBA, my dudes.