Today we’re sharing chapters or sections of our longer novels that might have been cut from the final draft. For those who haven’t read the full story, maybe this piques your interest – for those who have read the tale, here’s how it started…
And down below, check out the openers from Robin and Trish!
Parker Broaddus
Author of A Hero’s Curse & Nightrage Rising
A Hero’s Curse, Excerpt from Chapter 1, First Draft
(Kitty and Essie are following the ancient pipeline that brings water out of the Valley of Fire to their farm. Their job is to find and report leaks…)
Something thumped. It sounded like Kitty walked into a rock while making fun of birds and lizards. I laughed out loud. “My, are you blind too?” I felt a damp spot on the pipe. “Here’s another one. It is not a bad one Kitty—just a joint.” I let go of the pipe and tapped the ground and the surrounding rock for a second. “Ok—I know where we are.”
“So do I,” said Kitty.
I smirked. “Nose still sore?” I grabbed for the pipe and set off again, one hand on the pipe, one persistently tapping away with my neatly whittled willow branch. Dad had carved the branch. He was always quietly making some little invention or device to make my life easier. The next few steps were quiet as Kitty thought of an appropriate comeback. I smiled at the unusual silence. “Cat got your tongue? Here’s one,” I said, feeling a small trickle coming from the pipe. I reached into a small leather bag around my waist and pulled out a small dab of pitch which I rubbed over the tiny hole. “There,” I said a minute later. “How does it look Kitty?’
Kitty jumped up on my shoulders in a smooth bound and examined the pipe. “Good job.” He jumped down again. “For a girl.”
I laughed again, “You are obnoxious today! Well thanks anyway for inspecting the job, and well done…for a cat.” Kitty chuckled, which always sounded a bit like a cross between a purr and a cough. He usually didn’t stay mad at me for long. He complained it was hard to stay mad at me when I couldn’t see him put up his tail and stalk around looking moody. Then to Kitty’s extreme annoyance I would pull him into a hug and rub his belly, and the next thing he knew he couldn’t remember what he was mad about.
I got back home just a little before noon. Mom must have heard me coming because she was at the door by the time I got to the porch. Dad said she was the prettiest woman in the country. I knew Mom’s face by heart—I had memorized it with my hands. Mom’s face was beginning to be lined with fine wrinkles—she called them “laugh lines,” but she would clasp her hands in mine and she wouldn’t laugh. I could tell the unusual heat and the dry weather was withering more than our crops. I wished she could see her. Her voice was the loveliest voice I knew—but I could only barely remember seeing her face—a long time ago, before the curse.
“Any leaks today?” asked Mom. Her voice was soft and beautiful, but there was heaviness in it. She spoke less these days.
“Only a couple of small ones Mom,” I said.
“Come inside,” she sighed. “There’s milk and bread for your lunch.”
Kitty moved in on my heels and whispered, “Essie, I really didn’t mean it out on the water lines, you know that, right?”
I grinned, and whispered as I found my chair, “You big milk loving hypocrite.”
I could hear Mom walk to the stone basin in our kitchen, but she must have seen me whispering. “What’s funny?” Mom asked, “I could use a laugh myself.”
I tried to hide my grin and sopped up some milk with my bread. “It’s just Kitty Mom, he was making fun of me earlier—down by the water lines, but now that we are having lunch he’s sorry–of course—the big fraud.”
I heard Kitty stop licking the piece of milk soaked bread in front of him. “Traitor,” whispered Kitty.
Mom huffed. “How did he make fun of you?”
I hesitated. Mom didn’t like hearing about Kitty talking. She played along, but I knew she didn’t believe that Kitty could speak, and I felt she was getting a little impatient with what she called, “our game.”
“Just something about how I would be ‘running into rocks and things without him,’–same old nonsense.”
Mom let out breath, “but of course Kitty didn’t really say those things.”
I stopped eating. I could tell from Mom’s tone that she was both concerned and displeased, and that she probably had her arms crossed.
I shrugged, “He did say it; he talks to me all the time.”
Mom let out a short breath but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Was she angry, sad–did she think I was crazy? For the hundredth time that day I wished I could see.
“It’s true–you’ve always said I was special–and so is Kitty.” Kitty had stopped licking his bread. I could almost feel his eyes flicking between Mom and I. He swished his tail. “I can’t see anything but maybe I can hear things you can’t. Sometimes I hear singing too.”
Kitty coughed, “Maybe that’s enough Essie.”
“Of course dear,” said Mom in a gentle voice that surprised me. Then her dress rustled and she was gone. I took a milky crust and held it out to Kitty, about a foot to the left of my bowl where he had been. Nothing. I reached over to pet him with my other hand I bumped him drinking out of my bowl. “Kitty!”
I could imagine his guilty look as he picked his face up out of my bowl, and quietly moved back to his spot. “Thanks,” he grunted.
“Now you’re a hypocrite and a thief?” I joked.
“And you’re crazy–talking to cats,” he whispered.
I heard Mom’s dress rustle back in and over to the basin in our kitchen. Kitty must have noticed Mom staring out the window over the sink. He hopped from the table to the counter and started relaying to me. “Somebody walking up the trail, dusty, stopping to lean on a staff, and staring at the fields,” he said. I perked up. Not many people came out this far unless it was specific to our farm. We lived at the very end of the valley, nestled against the old lava flow. The dirt was best here and we were closest to the water source, but many people said the Valley of Fire was cursed and dangerous. Most did not care to live this close to the razor sharp rocks and the monsters they hid.
“It’s a traveler,” Kitty said. “Long cloak, staff, crooked upper lip, no shave and looks to be what once was a green hat.” Kitty paused, then continued, “he could be a minstrel, but he’s a long way from town though.”
“Is it a minstrel Mom?” I asked, excited.
Mom started and I could feel her looking at me. After a seconds pause she said, “I don’t know Essie. It does look like he’s wearing a green hat, but I don’t see an instrument.” She paused, then walked briskly over to to me, guiding me out of my seat by my shoulders. “Go upstairs Essie, until we find out what he wants.”
(Read the first chapter for free, with “Tig” instead of “Kitty,” and much more, here.
Robin Lythgoe
Author of As the Crow Flies
Do you like to see deleted scenes that didn’t make it into the final version of your favorite books? You’re in luck. Up until I wrote Crow’s Nest, I … didn’t keep deleted scenes. I’m one of those people who like to clear the decks and get rid of rubbish (except, apparently, in my office, where I need it the most!), so once I had the Final Version, I threw away what I deemed was junk.
Only it’s… not?
I know, what?? An author friend freaked out and forced a course correction. I now have scenes…
Patricia Reding
Author of Oathtaker
As the issue of cutting is directly related to editing broadly, I’m commenting on how removing text fits into that process in a general sense. (In the final edit of my first work, I cut roughly 80,000 words. Imagine that!)
Some cuts come easily. Unnecessary verbiage may be removed with a simple change from passive to active voice. In particular …
There it is! What about you? Do you have a first draft or a scene that never made it to the final story? Why did you cut it? Drop me a line or leave a comment below!