Deleted Scenes

One of the things I love about buying DVDs (as opposed to simply watching a streaming movie online) is that the DVDs come with all sorts of extras, including deleted scenes and making-of featurettes.  I love movies, so the insight into the broader picture of the final version of the movie is always fascinating to me.

When you're writing a book, there are loads of deleted scenes, ideas, and notes that never make it into the final manuscript.  Cutting scenes and choosing which scenes to include is a difficult, but necessary, part of the process to writing. 

I remember while working on The Double Stroller Hand Grenade--I got super excited about a particular scene, and kept writing with that furious energy that comes when words just flow.  About 15,000 words later, I realized that I'd deveated from my outline in a serious way, and that I had written myself into a corner.  I tried eveyrthing I could think of to keep those words, but nothing worked.  Going back to the fork in the road and deleting those 15,000 was super painful and hard, but in the end I'm glad I did it.

The same goes for the first chapter of my novel This Side of Eden.  I loved the first chapter--thought it was really great, but ultimately, it didn't add much to the story.  My editors told me as such, but I kept fighting them, insisting that the first chapter was important.  I eventually agreed that it was just fluff, and that the book would be much tighter and less confusing without it.

Fluff, indeed, but it was my fluff, and I liked the fluff--and I still like that particular piece of fluff.  So, I'm including what was the first chapter of This Side of Eden below.  Consider this my "deleted scene" and enjoy.  In the comments, tell me about your experiences with cutting chapters and scenes and characters that you really loved, but that bogged down your story.

(Disclaimer--the chapter below comes from an early draft, so the editing and pacing are a little off...)

I think about that one time, that one time when Eden was laying next to me, her head on my stomach.  That time when we talked and talked.  She smelled like oranges—but she always smelled like oranges.  I ran my fingers through her hair and touched the side of her face.  I could feel her smile on my fingertips.  We lay there together and tried so hard not to fall asleep…

            When I was I child, I always pictured my death as something glorious—a metaphysical reality that transcended everything I’d ever thought of or experienced.  Many times, I would daydream about my death, entertaining the idea that I would be some sort of hero, saving someone or sacrificing my own life for the life of another.  I would dream about these things in the middle of class, or while brushing my teeth, or while eating a bowl of cereal at breakfast. 

            One of my favorite dreams (in my teenage years at least) was a car accident that I would happen upon.  Someone would be seriously injured, rain would be pouring down and splattering into little lakes.  I would jump out of my car and rush to the smashed vehicle, my footsteps creating slow-motion splashes in the puddles as I ran, and the rain swirling unnaturally around. I would reach the person who was bleeding and dying; sometimes the victim was my current girlfriend, and in that case I would cradle her in my arms and kiss her gently, caressing the side of her face.  If it wasn't my girlfriend— it was always a girl—I would perform CPR and save her.  The girl would open her eyes and I would help her to her feet, right as a semi truck careens out of control toward us.  I would push her out of the way, saving her just in time and sacrificing myself for her life.

            Always, I would be laying there, in my last throes of life, my current girlfriend cradling me in her arms—Pearl Jam’s cover of “Last Kiss” playing in the background.

            Other dreams consisted of equally heroic acts like taking bullets, or swinging on vines from nowhere to rescue the princess.

            I have no idea what a psychologist would say about these morbid dreams of being a hero, and really, I have no idea why I had these dreams.  Maybe it was some deep desire to be a hero, or to be loved, or maybe just to be seen by others as something more than the run-of-the-mill, dorky little teenager.

            When Eden came into my life my dreams changed dramatically.  We would be in some type of auditorium, full of people—maybe watching a play, or attending the opera, sometimes married and other times simply lovers.  We would be sitting close, holding hands.  I would squeeze her thigh, like I always do, and she would kiss my neck and my ear and then lay her head on my shoulder like she always does. 

The moment would shatter when we would hear the slamming open of the doors and the marching footsteps, as several hooded criminals, wielding large guns, enter the auditorium.  The criminals would walk right up to the stage and stop the performance.

"You are being held hostage," one of the men would announce in a thick Latin accent, his voice slightly muffled from the ski mask pulled over his face and mouth, "do not try to escape, do not try anything stupid.  If your government is willing to spare you're lives by allowing Cuba to once again export cane sugar to the United States, then you can live."

If we had been attending an opera, even though the performance had stopped, the singing would still continue as dramatic background music to our intertwined fates.

Somehow, while the man is talking, I am I able to slip away and crawl through the rafters and cat walks of the theater.  Before I leave, however, I whisper my love and she nods, knowing what I have to do.  We are, after all, the youngest people in attendance, and the most capable of heroics. 

So I crawl through the rafters, and somehow I would loosen a spotlight, connect it to a long rope and swing it to the stage—hitting one of the masked men and knocking him out of commission.  I swing the light again and knock out another gunman.  The others, by this time, are aware of my presence, so I swing down from the rafters and clobber another gunman, knocking the gun from his hands.  Then I dive for the weapon and train it on another thug, right as the leader fires.  The bullet, of course, will pummel through the air in slow motion and strike me in the chest.

Silence ensues; as people wait for the inevitable spread of blood across my white, button up shirt.  I drop the gun and sink to my knees.  I am sure I would be thinking about the embargo on cane sugar and the injustice of hostage situations, but mostly I would be thinking forlornly about my time with Eden coming to a close.

Faintly, I hear a scream in the distance—Eden is rushing the stage, pushing past the gunmen and sliding in by my side.  Her dress is conservative but sexy, sophisticated but elegant.

She cradles my head in her arms and I feel the hot tears splash down from her eyes to my face—like a warm spring in a heavenly garden, giving life.

Darkness clouds my vision as I stare up at her and smile.  You can't tell someone you love them right there, because if you love them and they love you, words don't matter and the words sometimes just get in the way.  Instead she whispered through her quiet cries, "I'll be reaching for the stars with you…"

"I'm sorry," I whisper softly, drops of blood pooling at the corner of my mouth—but the blood never actually drains down my face because it reminds me too much of vampires, and in my mind, vampires will never be romantic.

"Don't be sorry." She whispers and kisses my ear like she always does. 

"Wait for me," she says so softly I can barely hear.  I smile, but the strain is almost too much.  No pain, just the overwhelming pressure of warmth.

Bright lights and a veil of happiness shroud my vision as the curtain closes on my life.  My daydream ends as I die in her arms, comforted by something strong and unspoken.

Maybe these daydreams were a cry for love, to be needed and wanted and desired.  Obviously, I didn't see myself as a hero, and wanted to be—I wanted to be a hero in her eyes, someone who would give his life for others, knowing that love transcends death.  Morbid and sick as it was, that was my dream.

When I was actually in the last throes of life, when death was staring me in the face, it was not as heroic as I pictured it.  In fact, when the story of my death began, it was someone else as the hero.  And that hero was saving me. 

I am pretty sure that there was no background music, either—just the quiet lapping of water and the rustle of leaves in the breeze.  I had a song on my mind, though, especially at that moment when I saw my wife again.  She was my hero and she saved me.  She didn’t swing on vines, or take a bullet—she was on a sailboat, with furling white sails, marked with splashes of color.

She says, “You didn’t forget?”

I say, “How could I?”

Somehow, the quiet lapping of water on the hull of the small boat disappeared, and I could no longer hear the breeze whispering through trees.  It was just her.

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Check out the final version of This Side of Eden on the Kindle, or in paperback.