The Girl From the Sea - cut scenes

Jan 31, 2022

I wanted to share something from the vault today!

I ended up doing major rewrites on The Girl From the Sea after drawing a good chunk of it. Basically, I was so excited to get to write and draw the romantic scenes that I didn’t introduce much else outside of them—and as I started to realize, a good romance story needs conflict and context and other stories around it. It takes contrast for a romance to stand out as a remarkable occurrence, one worth telling the story of.

So here is a chunk of pencilled pages that I didn’t end up using, but that I still find sweet! There’s commentary in the mouseover text on some pages.

Also, as I was pulling together this post I found out that the Girl From the Sea was nominated for a GLAAD award! Thank you for buying and reading and talking about this book. It means so very much to me.

Barrett's Privateers by Stan Rogers is a CLASSIC martimer anthem and a total banger. Also those are my parents listening in the bottom left corner :)

different last name for Morgan! lots changed as I rewrote this story.

for the record, no one has ever danced romantically to Barrett's Privateers, but that's okay

in this draft, Morgan lived in Halifax and only came to Lunenburg on vacation - but I decided the story worked better if she had deeper, year-round connections to the town.

Serena was still here, as a summer friend, and she was meaner - but as I delved into the rewrite, I realized how much I hate the ‘mean popular girl’ trope. So I tried to find something more for Serena than just being a basic antagonist.

Earl and Val were also different (they’re named after our real neighbors in Lunenburg!). I don’t think either of them was going to be a (spoilers!) selkie in this draft.

Morgan’s parents were together in this draft. As I dug into rewrites, I found that her personal story made more sense if her family had gone through a conflict.

this scene is SO much better if they haven’t had a romantic connection yet! As I rewrote, I realized that pushing back that moment of love and connection made it so much sweeter when it happened.

I don’t regret all these edits, because it made a much stronger book. Sometimes it happens like that! They’re cute no matter what though <3

In The Telling

Discussion about this post