After I finish a book I always have two files. One is the final manuscript I will submit. The other is a mishmash of scenes and pieces of scenes that never made it into the book. I usually start off saving this detritus at the end of the file. By the time I’m three-quarters of the way through the first draft, I usually have an extra 30 or 40 pages tacked on. If I’m keeping track of my word count, this extra stuff throws it off, so at this point I start saving these extras in a separate file named “outtakes”.
The reason I leave it tacked on at the end for so long is that I keep thinking I’m going to use this wonderful stuff I’ve written. And it is perfectly good, usable prose, fairly polished and clean. In many cases, I’ve spent a lot of time refining it, making the descriptions nuanced and the dialogue crisp and compelling.
This time spent writing it is part of the reason I keep this stuff. Having put so much effort into these words, I hate to discard them. But really, truly, I’m positive I’m going to use at least some of of these outtakes. At least until I’m another five or ten chapters into the book. By then I’ve mostly forgotten what I’ve written. Or the story has taken another turn and it’s clear none of these extra pages make sense in the latest version.
I have a good friend who is a plotter and her first drafts are fairly sketchy and loose. She calls it the skeleton of the story, which she has to flesh out in the second draft. My first drafts aren’t like that. They need polishing and sometimes I leave things out, like a name or a specific detail I’m not sure about. But otherwise, it’s the full story.
What I’ve written doesn’t make sense, of course. Because a lot of my revision process involves making the book coherent and logical. Making certain that the sub-plot I threw in while writing chapter thirteen has some set-up for it in chapter three. Or that my characters’ motivations haven’t shifted back and forth a dozen times during the middle of the book.
Some chapters go down rabbit holes that have nothing to do with the story. Others contradict the whole tone of the previous chapter. I’ll have a whiplash sections, where the story goes one way and then a completely different one in the next chapter, and then back again. Revision for me is as much about taking things out as it is adding things. Mostly, it’s about smoothing things out and “calming the ripples” as one of my writer friends used to say. Because if you change things very much in one chapter, you will probably have to make changes in a later one.
Eventually, I will get to the part where I deal with the actual prose. Taking out all those extra words I don’t need. Looking for words I use too much. Fixing all my bad habits. By the time I’m there, I realize I’m never going to use those outtakes and I could probably discard them. Usually I do delete the whole file, but I cringe as I do so. All that work. All that good stuff and poof, it’s gone. But while I’m writing, I cling to it, carefully saving it along with the rest of my work. The words I write always seem valuable to me. I’m sure I’m going to use them some time. Until I realize, I won’t.
P.S. The reference to “darlings” in the title refers to a quote by William Faulkner who advised prospective writers that they had to “kill your darlings”, that is, get rid of your favorite expressions, tropes, character types, etc.
I do this too! But I actually save the files and lift sentences here and there for future books. I especially love when I’m stuck trying to capture just the right reaction or snippet of body language and I browse through and find something perfect in my outtakes ?
I’m so impressed that you use frequently use your outtakes. I almost never do. I eventually come to see this week as building an invisible foundation for the story, that even though it never appears in the book, enriches the story and the characters. Or maybe I’m just wasting my time…although that’s pretty depressing to contemplate.
And you can choose to share the snippets you didn’t use to your readers through your web-site or in your newsletter. Readers love getting this “behind the scenes” look at the writing process.
This is a great suggestion. Although it would only work part of the time, as a lot of my outtakes end up contradicting the storyline instead of enhancing it. Still, I need to look at doing this more.
I have a file that I call “spare parts.” i never completely delete scenes or characters from a manuscript, I just put them in there. I’ve gone back and pulled quite a few pieces out for later books in a series, and I also know there are some that I will use in future books that have yet to be thought about. I usually put my “outtakes” at the beginning of the story, so that each time I open the file for edits, etc., I can scan through them to refresh my memory before I got back in to edit. It does throw the word count off, but I usually don’t consider that until I’m in my final edits unless I’m way under or over already. Your article helps validate the rest of us for not wanting to kill (and bury) our darlings.