Taylor Conrad's Blog: Keeping Up With the Chaos

Hello Readers!

So, I figured it would be awesome to start out my new blog with a bang, despite the fact the saying is "going out with a bang."

Here's a scene that didn't make it into the final cut of Entropy. It takes place at the end of chapter one: Nightmares As Ghosts. To get the context, I'll include the bit that made it into the story, which will be italicized.

Just as a warning: since it didn't make it to the editing process, this brief snippet has only had some shallow editing.

“Gracen,” Mr. Hues said quietly, tears falling down his cheeks as his wife buried her heaving form into him. “Faith."

Chelsea fell to her knees in the middle of the road, sobbing into her hands. “No… please, God, let this be a dream. A dream, God. This can’t be happening to us.”

A young man with long black hair and torn, dirtied clothes pushed his way through the crowd.

“Chelsea?”

She looked up at the sound of her friend Jordan's voice and fought back choking sobs as she tried to halt her tears and regain her composure.

His face lined with worry, Jordan dashed over to join her.

“I’m so sorry- I should have come sooner. I was just on the edge of the forest and-“

She started crying louder. “We couldn’t-“ She sniffled. “-couldn’t ha-have d-done any-anything.”

“Why don’t we go get some water and make some breakfast?” Jordan replied gently.

Chelsea nodded through her tears and stood up. Her father looked at Jordan with suspicion.

Not noticing his jacket sleeve catching on a nail protruding from a nearby fence, Jordan walked forward. It yanked the sleeve up from around his wrist.

“Oops,” he said as he unsnagged it. “This is my best jacket. Don’t want to get another hole in it.”

Chelsea’s father stopped and looked at Jordan’s wrist again, trying to make sense of what he saw. A large letter zeta was tattooed to his left wrist.

As they headed back to the house, the sun just began to rise over the horizon. It painted the fields and flat plains of orchards, vegetables and cotton with a pink and orange glow.

A man, his skin sagging with wrinkles, spat into the earth and said, “Someday... someday we will be free. Someday, we will work the earth for the joy of tending to plants. As the sunrise changes the darkness of night to the bright of morning, so shall our children change the world. It will be up to them.”

He paused and glared at the truck that was still bumping across the road.

“But we’ll not have any youngsters to change the world if those blasted officials keep stealing them for Strellas and killing those who have an idea different from their own.”

The main reason this piece didn't make it into the official book is because it felt a little awkward and clunky to me, especially with Jordan's early introduction.

I adore the quote at the end said by the unnamed old man, but it didn't feel like how a dream would've ended, especially one that has haunted Chelsea since it occurred. It made more sense to end it with something more dramatic.

In the original draft, this first part was not a dream or a flashback, but an event that Chelsea was observing at the same time as the reader. It seemed like a better idea to have it as a dream, to make the seven year transition period a little more smooth.

Actually many things happened in the first chapter that never made it into the official book– or canon, for that matter. But, that's a story for another day/blog post.

Yours Authorly,
Taylor