CURRENTS
Deleted scenes from Currents
Currents was first posted on Wattpad in 2015. I had a fairly comprehensive plan, but on the whole I was writing a chapter then uploading it straightaway. (More recently, I tend to write the whole book first, then upload chapters on a regular basis after editing.)
To my surprise (and excitement!), the book went viral on Wattpad, reaching #1 in the charts and gathering millions of reads. I then got an opportunity to publish it traditionally. This didn't go any further, but it had given me the chance and motivation to re-write a lot of the book.
As part of this re-write, I had to cut the word count from 140K words to 85K words. Not an easy task! It meant some scenes, and even whole chapters, were removed. We also lost a character who caused quite a stir with readers when she was first introduced...
When I created Currents, there were four core themes I wanted to focus on:
Romance and relationships: Rosalie’s struggle over a relationship with Alastair that made her both happy and unhappy, her blossoming romance with Brent and the stark differences between him & Alastair, the determination not to act how Alastair acted (i.e. she remained faithful)
Friendship: how Rosalie’s superficial friends in London contrasted with her genuine friendship with Mia
Family: Rosalie’s difficult relationship with her mum and how they grew closer over time, not wanting to disappoint her parents or affect their business by breaking up with Alastair
Superficiality: how Rosalie’s London life revolved around image while North Carolina was more about people, how Brent judged Rosalie initially without getting to know her
During the re-write, I chose to focus more on the romance theme. After all, Currents is a romance book so readers would expect the majority of the plot to follow romantic relationships. But I didn’t want to completely abandon the other themes. These remained in the edited book but to a lesser degree. The deleted scenes are now available here for you to enjoy.
To help you identify where in the story these scenes took place, I have included chapter numbers. However, I would take these with a grain of salt. As so many words were cut from the original book, sometimes multiple chapters ended up being condensed into one. Hopefully it still gives you a rough idea.
