An Intro to: Splintered Elm Bonus Content

"Bonus Content", as you may recall, if you are about my age, are what they slapped onto DVDs to enhance sales. The stuff that never made it into the movie that they picked off the editing room floor and repackaged it as some gem that only you, who bought or rented the DVD, could see.

Splintered Elm is my first book, which, by the time you read this, may be in the process of working itself under the right set of eyeballs in order to get itself to print. Or, it's already in print and you read it and loved it and crave more tales from Williamston, Illinois. As I sit in my cubicle in July of 2024, this is the head space in which I prefer to dwell. Right now, you are a figment of my imagination. Hopefully soon enough you will be real.

Let me first start by saying how happy I am you're here, and how happy I am you may have found enough joy in my story that you want to learn more. With this in mind, I want to submit a few blog posts that at one time occupied the pages of Splintered Elm but ended up on the chopping block. Not because I decided it wasn't good enough, mind you. I adored this stuff, that's why it was so hard to part with it. Fortunately, thanks to the magic of the internet, it can live again.

After my first few rounds of edits, Splintered Elm weighed in around 120,000 words. It had three more POV characters (that is, a “point of view” character, one in whose mind the reader occupies) than what it ended up with. At the time, I considered SE my debut novel (I now have two books written, and I think my more recent one may actually be my true debut), and I knew, generally, books over 100,000 words are not what publishers are looking for from debut novelists. Unfortunately, I learned this well into my editing process, after I had already had all my chapters done and my plot holes fairly plugged. So, I had a decision to make: forge ahead with a long debut or pare a few characters out of the book. I chose the latter, as painful as it was, and was still left with a preponderance of POV characters: Danny McGarvey, Story Byker, Prudence Snead, Doc Byker, Reverend Dinkens, Floyd Flanders, Hagga McGarvey, Judge Charles Johnston, Cecil Thorne, Miss Hutchens, Ernie Brown, Clarence Boller, Virgil Boller, Abner Loney, and Aphodius Drath.

Fifteen characters in 100,000 words is an undertaking I wish upon no debut author. Not that I shy away from making fifteen separate voices, that’s actually kind of what I excel at. But you have to do something with these characters, and that thing must be unique and propel the plot forward. It led to three different subplots and the town ripped apart in chaos before everything came together at the end. All said and done, I’m glad I didn’t study up on book-writing before penning this, because I probably would have never taken it on.

Anyway, the first two characters whose brains I opted for you not to inhabit were Sheriff Grater and Jacob Thorne. The third, and I know I’m cheating here, was Aphodius Drath.

Grater is a man of mystery who, I decided, would be much more interesting if he were observed by the townspeople rather than getting in his head in his own dedicated chapters. I really wrestled with his removal, because his intro chapter was early on my very favorite to write. I held onto him for a long time before finally giving in to my inner editor and axing him. But, as I don’t ever really get rid of anything, I saved his POV stuff and it will be my first bit of “bonus content”.

Jacob Thorne was also a painful cut. He’s still in the book, of course, but gone is his point of view. Remember when he showed up at the Sheriff’s Office, battered and bruised, to report his missing brother, Cecil? The story behind that will be, I just decided, my second bit of bonus content.

And Aphodius. Dear, sweet, maniacal Aphodius. I removed his point of view at the Hay Bale festival and his arrival at the train station, as well as the conversation he had with the town fathers, pushing them toward panic as the days ticked down to the Moon o’ Black. He’ll show up in the bonus content as well.

Again, thanks for being here, and I hope one day you’ll be a real person. I hope you enjoy the next few blog posts.