Her Fallen Protector Synopsis:
When a trio of
demons kidnap Vdarra Jansen, her normal life is ripped away. Her abductors
claim she is the “lost heiress” of the Underworld, and the commander of the
mighty Army of Duemos. They don't seem to care that she knows nothing about the
Underworld, or that she only remembers the last ten years of her life...
Former archangel
Jacob will do anything to bring back his lost love’s memories. But if he
succeeds, it could mean the end of the world. Torn between love and duty, Jacob
will do whatever it takes to save her.
Jacob and Vdarra
must learn to trust each other, and push aside old hurts to find their way.
They are in a race to find the one thing that will decide Vdarra’s, and the
world’s, fate – the lost Seal of Solomon.
It will mean choosing between innocent lives ...and their hearts.
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Blog Post Title: Six Things I Edited Out of Her Fallen Protector
There
have been times when I’ve rewritten an entire book from front to back.
After going through that with two separate books, I vowed never to do
that again and started plotting out all my books in advance. I’ve had
huge success with this change as well as revising as I draft. Very
rarely now days will I have to rewrite scenes during edits or cut
chapters out, but Her Fallen Protector (Entangled Publishing, 2015) went
through the ringer.
So here are the elements I had to edit out or revise before release day:
*
Not everyone enjoys torture scenes like I do. I’m not sick in the head.
I promise. But, man, do I like to torture my characters. And not just
emotionally. I have a torture scene in Let Me Out (Beyond the Page
Publishing, 2013), one in White Trash Beautiful (Evernight Publishing,
2012), as well as an upcoming romantic thriller. But I realized (after
some pushing from my editor) that those scenes can be triggers for
readers, especially in a romance. So an original scene, which included
torturing my character Rachel in order to get Vdarra to cooperate with
the demons, was cut from the manuscript.
* In one of the
very first drafts of Her Fallen Protector, Jacob fought half the book
thinking Vdarra was an imposter for his mate. He didn’t believe his mate
had been resurrected, and this woman just happened to look like her.
However, the demons did think she’d been resurrected, and he couldn’t
just let them harm a mortal. He had to protect her, but he wouldn’t let
her get the best of him. But with my last pass through the book, I
thought to myself, “This is just stupid. He’d recognize her instantly,
even if he didn’t want to see the truth.” So during my last revisions on
the book, I made him wonder if she was pretending not to know him
because of what he did to her.
* A character I deleted,
Rachel, was a single mother of three whose husband died in Afghanistan.
Not anymore. Something along the lines of torturing a single mother of
three. And you know what, this was the best suggestion I could get from
my editor because I had no idea how the kids would fit into the book. I
never write about kids. Ever. And when it came to investigating Rachel’s
murder in the second book (coming soon!), I still didn’t know how they
were going to fit into the plot line. Now Rachel is gone and I think we
can all agree that’s for the best.
* Vdarra had a best
friend named Vin (inspired by Vin Diesel) who worked as a mechanic and
security for her repo business. Vin had to go. First off, his name
started with a “V” and I really only reserve that for my heroine’s names
in this series. Second, when I looked at the book as a whole, he really
didn’t have a point. So this character later turned into Sorren. I
already had Sorren playing a huge role at the end of the book. Why
couldn’t he be introduced sooner and be the one charged with watching
over Vdarra until her memories came back?
* Vdarra was
originally held captive for a week instead of one day. By Damien,
Isabel, AND Jacob. There was an escape attempt scene and Jacob going out
to get her hamburgers. She thought about starving herself in an attempt
to move the interrogations along and two chapters whole of seeing Jacob
as nothing but a captor. All gone. When it came right down to it, I
needed to show Vdarra falling in love with Jacob and not in a
captor/captive relationship. So he became a victim. This was the hardest
of my revisions. I cut a six chapters into a little more than three
chapters and nearly cried when my word count dipped significantly. I did
it again in the second round of revisions. Taking those three chapters
down to two and revising to make sure Vdarra knew Jacob wasn’t there to
hurt her. Luckily, my awesome editor made suggestions on what to expand
later in the manuscript, and she helped make Her Fallen Protector a
stronger romance.
* Chapter One? Gone. In my original
chapter, Vdarra is repoing a car from a woman named Ms. Daws. That woman
nearly knocks Vdarra unconscious with a tire iron and Jacob rushes in
to help. They have coffee. Isabel makes an appearance and Vdarra swears
she’s met Jacob before. A little bit of that feeling made it into the
new Chapter One. Much better fit there. Ms. Daws is gone too. Two
characters cut.
These are the major changes I’ve had to
make to Her Fallen Protector over the last couple years. The book has
been through many edits and revisions and with each pass grew stronger. I
can’t thank the wonderful people who helped make this book what it is
today enough. Siobhan Muir for critiquing, her husband for helping me
plot, Candace Havens and Allison Collins as my editors (who are patient
beyond belief with me) and, of course, my readers.
Thank you for your support.
Would you have picked up the book if these changes had stayed in the manuscript?
Nichole Severn Bio
Originally from Las Vegas, Nevada where she spent most days
at her grandmother’s house watching X-Men, Married with Children and The
Simpsons, Nichole Severn migrated to the Salt Lake City valley to live life as
scandalous romance author.
She graduated with a degree in psychology from Utah Valley
University and resides with her very supportive and patient husband, as well as
her terrorist of a toddler, in Sandy, Utah. When she’s not writing, she’s
constantly injuring herself running, rock climbing, practicing yoga, and
snowboarding.
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