Are there any deleted scenes from “How to Be” that you can share with us?
oh i love this question, because yes. yes there is. and i hope you buckle in because this will be LONG.
so there's quite a lot of scenes that were completely scrapped and never implemented. the majority of these weren't written like you would see in a published chapter and therefore not exactly readable that way, so i'll explain them!
- in the beginning of the story, i had a flashback scene based from reiner and bertholdt's pov of the morning after a sleep over at mikasa's house (the sleep over including the other 104th kids the year before reiner and bertholdt graduated). it was some dialogue about how they found levi's presence creepy, noticing how he didn't take too kindly to eren, and was more on the humorous side with reiner being a little perverted. this all took place really quietly at the kitchen table while levi made all the kids bacon and eggs. it was a short scene really just to show the dynamics of the kids and highlight levi's everlong disliking of eren at the time, as well as place more of a light on reiner and bertholdt back when i was originally trying to implement more of the college kids (which i inevitably realized was biting off more than i could chew in terms of multiple plots, and i honestly didn't have the passion to write for those characters and their own issues than i did eren, mikasa, levi, and petra). i didn't consciously scrap it, i just didn't have a place to cohesively fit it and by the time i remembered it existed, we were way past that point in the story.
- this next one is a scene i had full intentions of implementing, included it in a chapter plan, and even half wrote it! in chapter 13 "liar," we were totally meant to see a flashback of petra walking in on roman cheating on her. i'll spare the specifics as i'm still deciding whether i'll include it later on, but i scrapped it for a few reasons: 1. the chapter was long enough as it was, 2. i wanted the focus of the chapter to be levi opening up to petra about mikasa and thought it would derail that, and 3. i wasn't totally satisfied with how roman's personality was being portrayed. i didn't have a clear enough vision of how i wanted him to be perceived/how i wanted him to behave, which is extremely important to how petra displays the ways she's affected by him. there's always a chance for this one to creep back up into the story, though.
- there was a silly scene of the 104th kids playing Twister, can't remember where i was planning to put it but it was definitely in the early chapters.
- there was a scene where levi would quite literally pull mikasa out of bed to spar (it was a saturday afternoon and she was still sleeping in), and eren, who was on his way over to their house to hang out, would burst through the front door like a superhero because he thought levi was just, you know, beating mikasa up because he was an evil little man lol. it all got explained to him and everything would turn out okay. this would've been for one of the early chapters.
- i had another scene that didn't have a place, so it's just 'unused' but it was a cute sequence of scenes that explains why armin has the haircut that he does (his season 4 hair), which was that his grandpa was the one who cut his hair for him but his arthritis was getting more severe to the point where he couldn't. armin tried cutting his own hair himself, butchered it (as one naturally does), and called mikasa for help who then invites him over — so levi can fix it! the reason why i haven't put it in the story is because i try to write every scene to have a purpose for the plot, and this unfortunately didn't. but although it's not published anywhere in the story, i can officially confirm that levi cuts his own hair, mikasa's hair, and armin's on the occasion. isn't he so nice?
- last one isn't technically scrapped, it just doesn't have a place and also goes against my "this scene needs a purpose" rule like the previous, but i love it to bits because of how slice of life it is, so i'll spare the details for this one too because i DO want to throw it in during a more calmer stint of the story. to put it simply, wilcox & co upgrade all of the computers at the firm and erwin offers one of the old ones to levi so mikasa could use it to study. levi can't figure out how to "surf the web" and is wholly unimpressed when mikasa shows him what to do, all while she develops an internet addiction — specifically myspace — which turns her into a zombie. that is it. that is all i will share about this one.
i have a ton of other scrapped/obsolete scenes intended for the future of the story that i've ultimately decided weren't the right fit, but i can't really share those without spoilers (maybe at a later time?)
but i CAN give you a scene that was heavily altered from the original:
- this one is incredibly recent! but the original plan for the scene where levi finds eren naked in mikasa's room in chapter 26 was mocked up a good long while ago as a completely standalone moment in the story, so i didn't yet know what point it would be taking place and therefore the tone of it was a lot more humorous and less serious. so originally, levi wasn't going through his sleepless night terror phase, and his more understanding behavior towards eren was only meant to show how much he had grown to trust him, though most of the dialogue you see in the published version is true to what the original plan had. what WAS changed, however, was what happened AFTER mikasa came home. eren and mikasa were supposed to go back to her bedroom where eren would explain why he was shirtless in the first place and assure her he only wanted to make her feel less scared about the idea of sex by showing him his body, and she would start to question his logic (again, naturally) by asking him if he thought being naked led to having sex. she then proves her point by stripping to her underwear and encouraging he does too, because it wasn't his body that scared her away from sex but the act of it itself when coupled with her trauma. so eren does what any normal teenaged boy would do when his half naked girlfriend asks him to, and completely strips. completely. junk out. nothing on. yes, i bet you're imagining the dialogue i had planned for THAT. levi would almost walk in on this (again lol) but mikasa pushes herself up against the door and eren falls over trying to grab his pants. again, it was meant to be more on the humorous side and depict teenagers being curious teenagers, which would have read a lot better when actually written out. this was obviously scrapped because of where we are in the story, i felt it would've been too jarring to follow the conversation eren and levi have, especially in the state levi is in and while mikasa herself isn't in the right mindset to mess around like this. :(
there's been scenes a few other scenes i've changed throughout the story but can't remember right now as i don't have any record of the original plans. i tend to write OVER my plans when writing a chapter, i know, i'm basically just a monkey with a typewriter. the scrapped scenes i'll always keep on the off chance i ever want to use them, take inspiration from them, or a really curious reader wants to know if any scenes got left behind!
this was such a fun question to answer, there's so much HTB content that sits behind the scenes and it's not until i post chapter by chapter do you guys get to see more of it. i'm glad i could share these with you all!
