"the"

Writing Tip: Sometimes "the" is not needed.
I'm not really done for today so I am not going to list chapter and word count. But a reader note brought my attention to this passage, and I saw another edit. In the end, my editor has to take the manuscript away from me, or I would tweak forever.

In this sentence:

Tipper gasped as the pain shot from her foot, up her shin, and beyond her knee.

we can take out the "the."
And have:
Tipper gasped as pain shot from her foot, up her shin, and beyond her knee.

I like the second version a lot better.

A and The

Read through seven chapters today and edited, so very little word count change.

Writing tip: Some people do not realize the difference between the articles a and the. If my character takes a candle from the table that implies he chose from several, maybe just two, but he did have to choose. If the character takes the candle from the table, there was only one. That seems elementary to me, but I play with words all day. Also, if there are rows of keys on the jailroom wall, and the character takes a key, that implies he might not know which one is the right one. If he takes the key from among many, he knows it is the key he wants.