Deleted Scenes?
Dan (a reader) asked about deleted scenes, and I started to answer his comment with one of my own. But when I re-read my reply, I realized that I wasn’t answering Dan personally. Instead, I was writing a general answer to all the people who ask about the subject. To paraphrase Dan’s question:
Have you ever thought about keeping your deleted scenes and posting them on the web site after you publish the story?
It’s a good question, and I didn’t want to sound like I was landing on Dan like a ton of bricks. But I have some strong feelings about publishing deleted scenes, and I thought I’d share them as a blog post.
So, without further ado, my answer:
Deleted scenes are deleted for a reason. Either they don’t belong, they’re fluff, they take the characters/plot in a new (and unwanted) direction, or something else. But for whatever reason, I decide to delete them. And once deleted, they’re gone.
Now, why won’t I post them? If they weren’t good enough to remain in the story, why would I want to publish my failures? Artists don’t display their sketches and studies. Musicians don’t distribute their half-finished songs. And writers shouldn’t publish their deleted scenes or working notes.
Art (painting or music or writing) is about creating a vision, and then presenting that vision to the world. It isn’t about the painter’s palette or the musician’s riff tracks or the writer’s revisions. It’s about the final work.
I take a lot of time and effort with my stories. So I’m not going to publish anything that detracts from the story, or changes the reader’s perception of characters or events. IMO, delete scenes would do just that. So I won’t publish them.
And once they’re gone, they’re gone… with no lingering memories and even fewer regrets.
Thanks again for asking the question, Dan. As more people read the blog and gain an insight to my creative process, I’m sure the issue will come up again and again. So I appreciate the chance to address the question where everyone can read the answer.
Sorry the answer wasn’t what many (most?) of you hoped it would be, but I’m a perfectionist, and I take pride in writing at a professional level. When you see behind the curtain, some of the magic goes out of the story. So I’m going to let you enjoy the show… without seeing all the rehearsals.
- Nick
Comments
10 Responses to “Deleted Scenes?”
Leave a Reply
I agree with you Nick, I don’t have any interest in deleted stuff, same goes for movies… with obvious exceptions, Lord of the Rings being the most obvious, Peter Jackson didn’t want to leave all the stuff out that he had to, the movies just became to long, so putting the stuff back in on the DVD imho.
I just realised that I was making an argument for deleted scenes in a movie based on a book… *doh*
I’ll climb back into my box.. eerrmm I still agree with you Nick (That was really my point) the rest was just fluff.
I figured that would be your answer. But, it never hurts to ask, does it?
I understand and respect your reasons for not publishing deleted scenes. I think, possibly, what prompted the query is the number of movie DVD’s that contain deleted scenes. I have been very fascinated with some of these where the director explains why the scenes were deleted; mainly for the same reasons you mention. I realize also that they are doing this to help sell the DVD.
I am an avid fan and have read everything you have aleady posted. Keep up the excellent work. You can be certain that I will continue to read whatever you choose to post or publish.
Well, speaking for myself, you’ll prise the pre-edited versions of “Equal Shares” and anything else I write out of my cold, dead hands… I understand exactly what Nick means.
Nope, Dan, it never hurts to ask.
- Nick
I agree with your reasoning with most of that, although many artists sketches can now be viewed, often alongside the finished work, certainly not that the artist ever intended this, but it can be absolutely facsinating to see the genisis and evelolution of a piece of work. (wow, Genisis and evolution together! you don’t see that very often). If there’s a piece which disrupts the flow of the narrative and isn’t necessary it should be trimmed from the story, but might be interesting to people who have fallen in love with these characters and are waiting for the next chapter (hint)
It’s best to not let deleted stuff see the light of day. Much like being a photographer: several times I have included a shot (in the proofs the customers are given) that I really didn’t like much at all. Imagine my shock when they ordered 16×20 or 20×24 canvases of a shot that I practically hate, while ignoring far better shots.
True ~ beauty is subjective and in the eye of the beholder, but it’s not a good feeling to have something that isn’t at all representative of my best work on display in the homes where an untold number of people will see it.
So ~ regardless of how much Nick might dislike his deleted scenes, someone out there would probably love them, so it’s more sensible to avoid that.
Lisa, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that happen. But I’m working on major weapons systems.
Often we know what the right answer is, but we have to do a trade study. So we come up with the second best answer, and throw in a third that we pull out of the air so it looks like we’re really considering every possibility. We compare every possible factor, and the original answer is the best.
Then the customer wants the one we pulled out of the air. And won’t take no for an answer.
Then they have Congressional inquiries when it doesn’t do what the customer wanted. The company folds, hundreds of people lose their jobs, the housing market around the company crashes, and the engineers get blamed.
Nick, I totally agree with you on the deletion of unwanted and/or unused sections of text, but I can see the other side of the coin as well.
It is a distinct possibility that within your group of readers you have one or more budding writers, and they are looking to “slingshot” their careers by using these deleted thoughts and scenes as a starting point for their own “what if” stories. Point in context, authoress J.K. Rowlings is having major discussions with her fans right now on the final book of her “Harry Potter” series — they are afraid she will kill the lead character at the end to prevent other writers from building on her work.
Hopefully, anyone wishing to use previously written work (published or not) as a starting point for even a cross-over story, would have the good manners to contact the original writer for agreement and approval.
To paraphrase a more famous line … “I may not be a writer, but I know a good story when I read it”… Keep going, Nick, you’re doing great.
I also agree with Nick about not publishing deleted scenes.
Something I don’t see mentioned here I think explains why it wouldn’t make sense, where it might for a DVD. The movie has to fit in a certain length in order to get shown, so scenes get deleted from a movie so it’ll cut down on distribution costs and allow movie theaters to make more profit by stuffing more people into increasingly smaller spaces for shorter amounts of time and still charge more money for their junk food! [Oops, wrong rant!]
For example, I just rented Tim Allen’s movie “Shaggy Dog” and watched a deleted scene that really *should* have been left in because there was a major plot jump between the scenes. But I guess they thought the kids couldn’t sit still that long and the parents wouldn’t care if the kids movie didn’t make total sense? :-/
No such constraints exist for publishing an online book! So if Nick and other online publishers have no reason to leave in a section that doesn’t work becuase they don’t have to save space to keep costs down, stay within the limits of their audience’s attention span (and tiny bladders) or cowtow to the demands of greedy theater owners.