Novel he's torn and cut (7)
I believe the answer is:
shorten
'cut' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'novel he's torn' is the wordplay.
'novel' indicates anagramming the letters (letters in a new or novel order).
'hes'+'torn'='hestorn'
'hestorn' is an anagram of 'SHORTEN'.
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for shorten that I've seen before include "Curtail" , "Clip" , "Reduce in length" , "Put extra fat" , "Abridge" .)