[Deleted scene] Pascal, Lexa, and Colin in So Forward
This month I went to Makati and walked a couple of kilometers through the area that inspired the setting of Colin’s school in So Forward. Even if I fictionalize settings in my books, they’re usually based on real neighborhoods in Metro Manila, with some tweaks for timelessness or convenience. I walked right past a bar that I had “repurposed” as a cafe in an early draft of the book, and was supposed to take a photo and tell readers that this was the cafe…and then remembered that I had cut the scene in revisions and readers wouldn’t even know what I’m talking about.
So Forward (and its companion book Kiss and Cry) are books I’ve rewritten almost completely several times. Sometimes the version contradicts the published book so I try to not remember it haha, but sometimes (like in this case) the scene just isn’t needed anymore.
Here’s the scene set in the fictional cafe, so now you know about it too. Though I enjoyed writing this I eventually had to admit that most of it served to establish the next book’s lead (Pascal in Totally Engaged) and that book was going to have to stand on its own.
So Forward is available on many retailers, but if you don’t have this yet, consider buying it from my new online store: minavesguerra.com/snack!
