Today, I’ve posted a deleted scene from the book on SmallTownWitch.com. You can read “Poetry Slam” to see one of the scenes that didn’t make it into the novel. It takes place sometime after Rosa’s full moon flight but before the kiss. There’s more context before the scene on the other site.

There were a number of scenes that got cut for various reasons. Sometimes, I have to cut scenes because they no longer work as the plot changes, or because they slow things down too much, or they’re mostly just filler. For the nearly 86,000 words in Small Town Witch, I have a folder of over 20K words from “deleted scenes”, and I am sure there were plenty of little snippets that I failed to save at all. So a lot got the axe in the editing process.

One major reason for things to get cut was that many beta readers complained about the number of subplots in the novel. They told me that all of the extra stuff going on at the school was confusing. The rumors about Heather being unlucky number thirteen was one of the subplots, so to tighten the story, they were cut out. Other things that I enjoyed, like more time with Glen and Ashleigh, scenes in orchestra rehearsal, and conversations between Rosa and Kai about the school paper were also cut. They added fun to the novel, I believed, and they showed a lot of the friendships in the story, but ultimately did not move the main story forward.

The number thirteen plot was fun. I really wanted some of Rosa’s poetry to make it into the novel at some point. I’m sad that I couldn’t integrate it better. But I can share it online on the site, and I hope that you find it entertaining.

I do make sure to save my unused plot ideas, in case I get the chance to use them again in a future novel. I already have plans for the sequel to Small Town Witch, and no doubt some of these old ideas will be useful!