Not everything written in the first draft of a books makes it through subsequent edits. There are a host of reasons for cutting something: it doesn’t add anything to the plot or characterisation, it’s from a self-indulgent author having fun, it slows the pace, or it’s made redundant by plotting changes later. Here are three small scenes that didn’t make it through the editing of The Chains Of Their Sins. Note: the link allows you to download a pdf file.
Finding The Navigation Chamber
A much-curtailed version of this scene was left in the published version after editing. A vignette of life aboard the Gyrfalcon, starring Shield Captain Bennet (currently enduring his final year of rotation out of the Shield Regiment), and Fleet First Lieutenants Flynn and Cruz.
Finding the Navigation Chamber
Playing Tierce
This little scene didn’t make the final cut. It follows Bennet’s return to the Gyrfalcon after he and Felix give evidence to the Intelligence Committee (IntCom) on their findings so far regarding the prisoners Bennet had rescued from the Maess in Makepeace. This slots between that meeting and Bennet and Flynn’s encounter on Yule Day.
Writing To Cruz
The first draft of Chains of Their Sins had things in a slightly different order, and Cruz was injured much earlier in the story. A section where Flynn wrote to her while she was back on Albion, recovering, was a flimsy excuse for Flynn to write oodles of stuff all about Bennet in a light-hearted scene intended to ease the tension a bit. But the exigencies of plotting meant I moved Cruz’s injury to a later battle, and the opportunity to meet LiteraryGenius!Flynn was lost. This, by the way, is an example of that self-indulgence I mentioned earlier!
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Anna Butler 