Today I am so pleased to welcome Nora Phoenix back to Joyfully Jay. Nora has come to talk to us about her latest release, No Shame: The Complete Series. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

Deleted Scenes: Yay or Nay?

I used to watch a lot of TV series a few years ago and would eagerly await the DVD boxes coming out. Two elements were always my favorite: the blooper reel and the deleted scenes. The first was laugh-out-loud funny, of course, but the second was even cooler. It offered even more of my favorite characters…

Then, and I still don’t know what changed it, I slowly started feeling differently about deleted scenes. You see, there’s a reason they’re deleted. Sometimes, it’s because network shows run on a tight time frame and they were just too long. But other times, I found myself watching them and agreeing that it was for the better they’d been deleted.

In box set from books, I loved deleted scenes as well. Again, why wouldn’t I, when they offered more of the characters I loved so much? But here, the same thing happened. I would read them and then agree that yes, they didn’t belong in the book. Only rarely did I feel a deleted scene should’ve been included in the original book.

When I released the box set for my No Shame series, I debated long before including some deleted scenes. In the end, I decided to put them in. Funny enough, the most important reason was because I truly feel they don’t belong in the original.

Well, some of them. Two of the deleted scenes were taken out because I decided to start the fourth book, No Shame, at a different point in the timeline. But I’d already written two scenes when I felt it didn’t work, so those offer truly a behind the scenes view that doesn’t change the original story.

The other two, I still feel I was right to take them out. Don’t get me wrong, they’re both hella sexy and I did use some paragraphs of them later on, but they didn’t really fit the vision for the series.

So why did I decide to include them? Maybe because some readers will feel differently about deleted scenes and will love the extra time with their favorite characters. And maybe because I wanted to show that there are reasons why authors take whole scenes out, even when they’ve spent hours crafting them. It hurts to “throw away” words like that, but there’s usually a good reason.

But now I’m curious how you feel about deleted scenes: yay or nay? Do you love them, hate the, or couldn’t care less?

P.S. If you haven’t read my No Shame series yet, try the box set. It has all five books plus bonus content. You’ll love this steamy, emotional series with kink, a little suspense, and all the feels!

Bio

Would you like the long or the short version of my bio?

The short? You got it.

I write steamy gay romance books and I love it. I also love reading books. Books are everything.

Come hang out with me in my Facebook Group Nora’s Nook where I share previews, sneak peeks, freebies, fun stuff, and much more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/norasnook/