Sunday, December 27, 2015

Stuff I Tossed



I’ve been working on Rizkaland for ten years, and it represents a good deal of my writing journey. It’s also represents most of the “Crazy Ideas that I Cut.” Sure, there have been bad ideas that have gone through some of my other books, but none as insane as Rizkaland.

Nerissa. I’ve talked about Nerissa, Clara’s doll before. But she still remains one of my great examples of “stuff I cut.” In short, she was a magic doll that Clara received in lieu of the sword she has now, and she could use it as a second pair of eyes. She lasted a year or two, but was gone before I finally actually got to the scene where Clara and Andrew met. I was sad to see her go, as she was a neat idea, and I had spent several hours one night searching for the perfect name for her, but she just didn’t belong to Rizkaland.

Sandra. Before I had Laura, I had Sandra Elizabeth Nedor and Jinalie Maybella Tunsut, two beings of a four-dimensional race called the Kentalidayi. Sandra was going to be my pen name. Neither could be harmed by anything three dimensional. They both had really long hair. I enjoyed working with them, but I eventually cut them because they were getting too weird and making my head hurt.

The Weed Scene. This only made it through one draft – the first draft I finished, incidentally. It was a scene in then-entitled The Giraffe and the Dragon in which the Dragon sent a field of weeds to impede Petra, Edna, Lulu, and Ashna’s journey to the Iron Noose. It involved pulling weeds, ants, lions, and hemp jewelry, and was inspired by the long hours I spent pulling weeds as a kid.

The Iron Noose. Actually, I’m somewhat proud of this, and I only cut it because it made the book too similar to LWW. Basically, it’s what I had in exchange for the Stone Table, and it was literally a hangman’s noose made of iron. The Dragon had to breath fire on it to make it useable. It was going to turn into normal rope after Jeptha’s sacrifice, and then mice would chew through it. It was awesome.

The Engagement Aura. This … this was a part of the deleted draft 4.5 of book two. Basically, in Rizkaland people who were engaged had an aura about them that other engage-ees could see. It was weird. After I deleted that draft, I never considered it again.


And … there was probably more stuff. If I think of more, I’ll come back and add it!

Also, I'd just like to say that I'll be putting together the fanart post in an hour or two, so if you plan to submit artwork, hurry up and send it!

10 comments:

  1. Cool! I think the engagement aura should be used, somewhere else. The weed scene could be interesting too, if done right. But it doesn't sound right for Amber.
    I had thought that Sandra was a one-and-only. Multiple four-dimensional beings?

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    1. Oh, there was a whole race of them. Sandra and Jinallie were just the only two that could interact with our dimision. Well, Wallace and ... Hiiroto (I think that's how I spelled his name????) showed up once, but that was for a date.

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    2. I must have missed reading anything you had mentioned elsewhere.

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  2. You had some interesting ideas! I've cut several scenes and paragraphs from my manuscripts, but have kept most of the extensive ones.

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  3. The Weed Scene actually sounds rather interesting . . . not for Amber, but still interesting.

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  4. I like the Iron Noose idea, even if it is similar to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

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  5. The iron noose concept is very interesting!

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  6. Iron noose! Very Narnialike, but it's still really cool! :)

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  7. The Iron Noose does indeed sound interesting, but yeah, I see LWW in it. The weed scene cracked me up, and Nerissa just sounds creepy.

    Very interesting.

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    1. If I can find the notebook where it is, I'll share the weed scene with you guys. But I mislaid that notebook, so I make no promises.

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Hi! Now that you've read my post, hast thou any opinions that thou wouldst like to share? I'd love to hear them!

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