Readers of Mega Robo Bros in the Phoenix will know that the last couple of episodes have featured Alex and Freddy and their mum and dad, out at a neighbourhood hostelry, attempting to have a pub lunch. BUT WAIT, I hear you ask: why are they doing that? Haven’t they got food at home?
Okay, look. Admittedly, no-one was asking these questions. This is just my way of introducing something I wanted to share here: a DELETED SCENE, from my roughs, saved from the cutting room floor and presented here in a very-lightly-adapted-for-vertical-scrolling form!
Getting the whole thing down to size has been the hardest challenge (of many) with this book. We’re dealing with an absolute hard ceiling in terms of pagecount, and there’s so much huge stuff to come that we had to be pretty brutal and ruthless in terms of killing darlings to make it all work. And I think this was ultimately a very useful process, because what we’ve ended up with is I think the tightest and most powerful version of the story possible. However, yeah: some darlings sure got killed along the way.
This scene was I think the very last thing to come out; the hill I nearly died on. Ultimately though, it just didn’t fit, and I couldn’t justify keeping it at the expense of what we’d have to cut otherwise. Does it advance the plot? Not really. Does it contain vital information you’re going to need later? Again, no. However, does it include some lines and moments I absolutely love between there characters, and give us something tonally that I think is really important? It sure does. And so I wanted to share it here, at least. Save it from oblivion in some tiny way.
Okay! After all that rambling introduction, I present - in very artistically rough form, apologies - The Tale Of Why They Ended Up Going To The Pub For Lunch.
Aaaand cut to:
…okay, thanks for indulging me! I am super busy finishing up the FINAL BATCH OF MRB PAGES (!!!) so I won’t detain you long. I will merely mention that if you are in the midlands, I will be at Step Into Stories Fest in Bewdley next weekend, Saturday April 13th - and indeed at Stratford Literary Festival Saturday 5th May, so please do come along to those if you’re in the area! Check my tour page for details of these and other places I’ll be around the country this year - more events to be announced soon! And just a reminder that NEMESIS, the seventh and penultimate Mega Robo Bros book, is coming out SOON, that you can pre-order it now, and that doing so is enormously helpful and appreciated.
Okay thanks bye!