Outtakes. Love ’em? Hate ’em? Indifferent?

One week.  From the point I decided something came before Revelation to figuring out what it was, creating characters, plotting the whole thing out, outlining it, filling out Pot’s blueprint, titling it, and filling out scene questionnaires for the first Act.  I have to say, I actually feel like I’ve accomplished a lot.  At this point the only thing I feel like I need to do before just diving in and writing the hell out of the thing is to sit down and write up a few character sketches with my hero and heroine to try to capture voice before I sit down to actually write their story.

Which actually brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about today.  I know that with DVDs, one of the things hubby and I like best are going back to look at the outtakes.  Stuff that got left on the cutting room floor when the final version came out.  Sometimes we like them, sometimes we’re glad they were cut.  Either way, it gives an interesting insight into the director’s mind.

Q4u: What would you, as a reader, think of having outtakes from books?  The kind of thing that would be freebie reads on the blog.  Either scenes that were cut from the book or scenes like the character sketches I plan to write later today, which have no place in the story itself.  Is that something readers would like?  Something fun that’s an additional view into the story world?  Let me know in comments.

14 thoughts on “Outtakes. Love ’em? Hate ’em? Indifferent?

      1. I was just telling her yesterday she should put it up. This’ll be motivation. I’ll let you know when she gets it up.

  1. I love getting the glimpse of character and/or story. Sometimes it adds to the read of the final product and sometimes it’s a nice tease to hold me over till the finished product is ready. So, yes, I’d like to see outtakes.

    1. I’ve really narrowed down my use of fluffy scenes, but now and again one slips through and gets ruthlessly cut from the book itself. It’s the kind of thing that’s usually fun, shows something about the character, but doesn’t really add to the plot. I was thinking it would give me a good excuse for using them somewhere.

  2. The key word for me is “fun”. For instance, I love outtakes in Jackie Chan movies because they are funny. So if the outtakes are interesting and fun, I would enjoy reading them. And if you are talking about offering these BEFORE the book comes out, they could be great teasers. It would be good preparation for the book. We could know a little about the characters before we actually read it. So I say, yeah, do it.

  3. I would love it for the insights, and also because when a book ends, I miss the characters.

  4. For me, the valur of outtakes would depend on how the book affectedme. If it was just a normally enjoyable read, I wouldn’t be so concerned about exploring every last nook and crany of that universe. But if it was profound, striking, life-altering – then I’d want to know every little thing about how and why it was written and what infulenced the writer. And I’d comb the outtakes for clues.

    The two works that spring to mind that affected me that way were a movie (The Right Stuff) and a TV series (The OC). I suppose in literature the closest I’ve come to such an experience was Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. That didn’t have actual outtakes as such, but the collection “Foundation’s Friends” which featured stories set in the universe of the Foundation Trilogy came close.

    -Steve

  5. If you haven’t checked it out, Liz Borino (@LizB1987 on Twitter) has done an incredible job with this sort of thing for her book “Expectations” at her blog Write Words . I had an opportunity to read her book already yet I’m *still* hooked on reading all the blog entries because they bring a new depth and perspective to the work.

  6. It probably depends on the writer/reader. I think writers find these kinds of things more interesting than readers because we love knowing more about the creative process of others.

    I’ll probably get laughed at but the main reason I liked the twilight series was because so much of the process was revealed on her site. I’d heard of it, looked at it at Amazon, read the bit they let you sample and knew I wouldn’t like it. I went to her site because I like looking at author sites and seeing how they do their thing. She had loads of info on the origin of the idea and process of writing, then the publishing process, then the script writing and on to the graphic novel design. She included free downloads on her site of out takes from the books and an unfinished draft of Midnight Sun, which was her first draft of the story written from Edward’s POV. (making it a whole other story that probably would’ve rocked) As a writer I loved all this information from inception to finished products.

    As a reader…I don’t know. But I do think it’s a cool idea for fans. Isn’t that what leads to fan-fiction?

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