30 Days of Writing Questions - Day 22

22. Tell us about one scene between your characters

that you've never written or told anyone about before.

Serious or not.

Oh geez. The problem is that Diana has read or heard most the scenes and scenarios that I've come up with so there's not a lot that's really "secret". I've thought about and/or written a lot of alernate universe stuff because the idea of "what if" is fascinating to me. Such as with Pandora's Box - what would have happened if Cat and DeCarlo got married and she never left the army? Or what if he had succeeded in killing her right after that? What if Turlo had married Zarina back when they were engaged? Stuff like that.

Part of the interest in it is because a lot of my projects began in a very different way then they ended. Eidolon, the TV Show, had at least three different concepts and plot lines before I came up with the one we filmed. It was always supposed to be set at least 15 years after The Curse, but how the heroes all get together is vastly different in each version.

Version 1 - Ghost Hunter: Starts out with Maria and Mordecai already married. Zelda is left in her care after her mother, Zandra, dies (that part stayed the same) and then Zelda starts hitting on Mordecai, 1663 to help them stop Zelda. That's as far as I got with that version before I realized how weird it was. And from me - that's really saying something.

Version 2 - Ghost Hunter: Similar to version one, but without the 1663 ghost and this time Zelda is the reincarnation of Zoey and Namtaru and she made a deal that if she kills Maria, then she gets both her soul and Mordecai. Parts of that were kept in the final version, but not all. Then something happens and Maria (the original) wakes up inside Marion (now Maria) and they have a split personality thing going on and all hell breaks loose with sorcerers coming after them and others protecting them and once again it was too weird. I kept the idea of having a scene where Maria and Marion talk to each other but in a dream sequence that ends up as a nightmare and isn't real.

Version 3 - How to Save the World: This one was drastically different. Maria and Mordecai are NOT married, Mordeaci is the reason that Zelda got cursed because he dumped at a burial mound and drove away. Basically the world is about to end and four heroes are called together by Atropos - Maria, Zelda, Mordeaci, and Skyler, a sarcastic tech nerd (but not a ghost hunter in this version). The GO has requested that they save the world from 7 demons who have come to earth to destroy it and each episode has them square off against a different demon. Obviously they fight a lot amongst each other but end up getting the job done. In the end it turns out that the 7th demon has possessed Atropos and gathered the heroes to eliminate the competition and they have to destroy the demon without destroying Death. Yeah, wow. Final version = nothing like that! I find it interesting that none of the previous versions had any character resembling Terri - who is too awesome. Although I like the basic idea of How to Save the World, so maybe I'll change some stuff and reimagine it for a mini-tv show.

I've also written some scenes that happen "in the background" or "in the past" that may never end up being seen/read because they're not important enough to include or would be difficult to work in if it happened like 10 years ago. But if I want to allude to the scene then I really need to know what happened. For example, thus far I have no intention of including the scenes where Esteban is smuggling Ketlan out of the kingdom right after his parents are murdered because it doesn't really fit in any book - it sort of happens between books. But I've written bits and peices of that set of scenes because I need to know what happened between them and what made Ketlan be willing to change so completely so quickly (he and Esteban hated each other when he was a child, long story as to why).

Then there are the scenes that get cut from a book and never actually happen because you realize that you've gone in a totally different direction then you meant to go and you really need to scrap those scenes and start again. I have at least 30 pages from the original Part 2 of Destiny where Ketlan and Esteban get kidnapped in the Shadow Forest (a nasty and sort of forbidden place) in Liliya, and end up being held prisoner in an abandoned insane asylum where the patients rioted, over threw and killed the staff, then most of each other and now have a weird "kingdom" which is ruled by a meglomaniac. Balthazar, who is following Esteban and Ketlan in order to kill them also gets kidnapped and the next we know Esteban and Balthazar are tied together to a sacrifical altar and Ketlan, who's joined the "Crazae Kingdom" as the King's heir (since Ketlan's a real prince), is wearing blood red robes and is one doing the sacrificing. Of course Ketlan was really pretending and ends up saving Esteban - and Balthazar by default and they all join forces to get out of the forest, then Bal tries to kill them and Est and Ket escape into Illishar. It had some really great characters, was a lot of fun to write, but obviously it was totally not right for the book. Ah well. I think Diana's the only one who's read that version though.

And...um...I really can't think of an image to go with this post so...um...I'll leave you with a picture of an angry pirate muffin.