Behind the Scenes: Deleted Passages from River Road

Novels take a lot of twists and turns on the way to publication, especially early novels by newbie authors. Royal Street was the first novel, I'd written, back in 2009, followed almost immediately by River Road. I was learning as I wrote. (And still am.)

Not surprisingly, both novels underwent epic changes between sale and publication. (Have I ever mentioned my brilliant editor at Tor? She comes up with these gentle suggestions that have me going "Duh. Why didn't I think of that?")

For example,...