Why did you cut that great scene?

"Professor Allen,

I read your novel, All or Nothing. IT WAS AMAZING!!

It seems to be a very realistic view of gamblers and their addictions. I know that this novel is fiction, but I can't help but think that you got some of these ideas from your own personal experience . . . Were you ever sucked into the gambling world?

. . . one thing is that reading the passage of How I killed My Beloved Son on your website really helped me understand what was going on in the novel. I don't know why the publishers would make you take that out!! That was such a good chapter!!!

All in all it was a very great book. It only took me two days to read it, which hardly ever happens. I would love to read some more of your books! Which ones would you recommend that have that harsh reality tone? Keep up the great writing!

A. F. "

Thanks for the email, A. F., and for the great semester. It was fun having you in my freshman rhetoric class.

One of the first rules we learn in creative writing classes is "kill your darlings"; i.e., cut those sections, no matter how beautiful they are, that are preventing the work from being as strong as it can be.

Yeah, that happens sometimes. We have to cut things--things that we love--when we edit. It is hard for me to explain (now) why that particular section or any other was cut, but I do know that as we were working on the book, that part of it felt "wrong," either to me or to my wonderful editor Katie Blount, and so it had to go. There were other sections like that, well written passages that slowed the work as a whole, or great scenes that did not fit the overall feel of the book. I think the cuts worked--I like the feel of the book now.

[Check out my blog on Editors on my other blog site (Ing and Bling) at http://www.prestonlallen.blogspot.com/ December 8, What's It Like Working with an Editor?].

Ironically, A.F., some of those cut scenes (3 of them) have been published as stand-alone short stories, and some of them are the basis for the sequel (in progress), which may or may not be called "Son of a P." Yes, sadly, P's beloved son grows up to be a worse degenerate even than his father.

The other book of mine that you might check out that comes close to having that "harsh reality tone" that you speak of is HOOCHIE MAMA--it is gritty and harsh, but as a thriller it deals with a "less real" kind of reality than we encounter in ALL OR NOTHING.

Thanks A.F.,

Prof. Allen