New Excision:One Arm and the Nightwolves
Added another deleted scene from The Painted/Warded Man on the Excisions page. If you’re new to the site, the Excisions page is where I show scenes that were cut from my work, and discuss the process that led me to write them in the first place, and then later discard them.
This scene, entitled One Arm and the Nightwolves, is one of the oldest deletions, getting struck from the manuscript long before any agent or editor saw it, mainly because it is unnecessarily expository, and a little too “wandering monster” (which is the sign of a bad DM… er, author).
Still, it is a nice actiony piece, and gives some worldbuilding details that many readers have shown interest in.
If anyone wants to discuss it, feel free to comment on this post.
Hm…you know the animals kind of remind me of the Krasians. It leaves possibility…
Wow, I’m amazed as to why you left this scene out of the book Sir, I would have loved to see this scene in the book, gives us a farther look into the world. I can uderstand your point that it doesn’t further the story but as a fan I would liked it very much.
From the excisions scenes, liked this one a lot alongwith the first kill story. Keep them coming sir 🙂
I still have a lot of Excisions to post, but I only rarely have time to put them together lately. It’s good to know people are reading and enjoying them, so it doesn’t feel totally self-indulgent to post them.
Oh, we’re reading them all right! And we’re hoping you continue!
I’ve got dibs on “One Arm & the Nightwolves” as the name of my new band.
By the way, that was a good chapter … maybe too good to have been cut!
No, I agree. It needed to be cut. I’ve said this about a lot of your work. You run off on flights of fancy that are really wonderful, but don’t serve the story. The irony is that I learned this from watching your writing process develop.
This is *really* hard for an author, because the stuff is really cool and allows us to delve into the world building which is what really makes fantasy fun. I LOVE reading it.
But if you allow those detours to sap the story of momentum, to slow the pace, you risk losing your readers. And if that happens, you’re doomed.
Some writers can get away with prose styling (or whiz-bang mules that haul no wood) for its own stake. Tolkien and Marion Zimmer Bradley did this. China Mieville does it.
But that has to be your overarching writing style. What makes Peter V. Brett’s writing so compelling is the breakneck pace. I assume that you write that way because that’s what other writers had to do to hook you.
Stick to that. It works for you. I would argue that it’s one of the key components to your success right now. Your writing is as combat operators love to say “high speed, low drag, wind tunnel tested.”
It’s also very, very good.