Cut scene from By Arrangement
This shows the aborted duel at arms between David and Morvan. It occurs right before his confrontation of Christiana in the bath.- Cut scene from The Protector
This scene occurs right before Anna’s rescue of Morvan at the end of the story. - Cut scene from Lord of a Thousand Nights
This scene occurs right after Ian has saved Reyna from being abducted by the knight she thought was going to protect her. - Cut scene from The Sinner
In this scene, I had Dante’s physician friend Wheeler explain his suspicions regarding all those sickly women that one reads about in early novels. I personally think Wheeler is correct. However, one should not include a scene in a novel just to explain one’s theory regarding some historical phenomenom, even if it ties into the story very neatly. So, "snip"—it was gone. - Cut scene from The Romantic
The first draft of The Romantic had more flashbacks in which we saw the youthful relationship between Julian and Penelope. My editor recommended that I trim some of those, because they slowed the story and interfered with the story being told in the "present." She was right, and a number got cut. This is a special one, that shows Julian learning of Pen’s engagement. It also gives an insight into Milton, Pen’s deceased older brother.
Welcome to the cutting room floor. In this area I post some of the scenes that I have cut from my stories after the first drafts were written. There are a variety of reasons why they get removed.
The most frequent reason I cut a scene was because I realize that the scene no longer moves the story forward. At the time I wrote the first draft it seemed necessary. However, once the book was completed, I realized that whatever was being communicated in the scene was actually covered in other scenes.
Sometimes the rewriting process made a scene inconsistent to the story. This was the case of the scene cut from Lord of a Thousand Nights. At the time I wrote it, the rest of the story developed a certain way. Later I subtly changed that development and this scene did not fit right anymore. Normally I can tell when that happens, but with this particular scene my editor had to point it out.
The scene cut from The Protector is a special case, but also the victim of revisions. In its first form, The Protector was much longer and the priest Ascanio had a bigger role. Some scenes were in his point of view. As I revised, I realized that some of his scenes should actually be in Morvan’s point of view. One by one, Ascanio’s scenes got shifted or removed. Finally, only one was left. It was his last scene in the book, his swan song so to speak. I am not what writers call a point of view purist, but I find it unbalanced to go into a character’s point of view only once, and even odder to do it close to the end of the novel. So, this scene had to go. I regretted it, however. It was one of my favorite scenes.
These scenes will not make a lot of sense to you if you have not read the books from which they were cut. I hesitated posting them on the site because I thought they would create more confusion than interest. However, I have been receiving some requests for them from readers, so here they are. You can decide for yourself if you think a scene should have stayed or if I was wise to remove it.
I do not write first drafts that need big cuts so much anymore, so I do not know if there will be additions to this page in the future. There are a couple from The Seducer series, however, that I will probably format and add here.
