If you’ve been among writers at all, you’ve probably heard them say “kill your darlings” a time or two. It’s important to realize this is not writing advice. It’s editing advice. When you’re writing, you should follow your passion in whatever direction it takes you. However, when it’s time to edit, you need to be objective and cut out the parts of the story that don’t fit. In this post, I’m going to explain the origins of this phrase along with five types of darlings to watch out for in your story. At the end, I’ll present a way to soften the blow of losing parts of your story that you love.
Murder Your Darlings Origins
The phrase “kill your darlings” actually started out as “murder your darlings” in 1916. The writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote the following in his book On the Art of Writing:
“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Since this debut of the phrase, many writers such as William Faulkner and Stephen King have popularized the advice. While Sir Arthur’s initial use for this phrase was to warn against writing lavish prose, the term has widened to any part of the story that is solely in the book because the author loves it. If the detail does not push the story forward, then it should be deleted.
Types Of Darlings
Darlings can be anywhere in your story, and it’s often hard to find them yourself since you’re biased. The best way to catch them is to listen to your beta readers for anything they think is unneeded. However, you should also comb through your work for any darlings that are loitering where they aren’t needed. To help you identify them, below is a list of five main areas where your darlings may be lurking.
1. Purple Prose
Purple Prose is a term for overly clever writing that detracts from the story. It’s when you write in such a way that the reader is pulled out of the story to focus on your prose. While this is accepted in some genres, most readers want to enjoy the story, not your witty prose. Sir Arthur realized this when he coined the phrase “murder your darlings.” He knew that, while writers love when they create an exceptional sentence or paragraph, most readers prefer a good story. If you want to make money as an author, you need to give the readers what they want. Clear and concise prose is often the best style.
2. Character Redundancy
Characters are like a writer’s children. We spend time creating and molding them, and it’s often hard to part with any of them. However, often we have a larger cast than needed for the story. There are various character types that fill different roles, and you need to make sure two characters aren’t fulfilling the same story role. If you have two mentor characters, you may need to delete one and have the other take all the scenes for mentoring. The best way to identify these redundant characters is to look at your list and ask two questions about each character. 1) Why is this character important to the overall plot? 2) Can another character fulfill this purpose instead? If you answer yes to the second question, it’s time to kill your darling.
3. Unnecessary Scenes
When we’re writing, it’s easy to get carried into the story and let the scenes flow out of you. That’s good and shouldn’t be stopped. However, when you go back to edit, you need to look for any scenes or chapters that don’t push the plot along. Examine every scene for its overall purpose, and then ask yourself if the plot would change if you deleted it. You’ll find scenes where nothing would be lost if it went missing, and those scenes need to be removed from the book. It’s hard to lose an entire scene, but I like to keep them in a separate file as potential extra content for readers once it’s published.
4. Research Details
Regardless of your genre, you will have to do some research. Some of us enjoy research more than others though. Often, once we go down the rabbit hole and explore a topic, it’s hard not to put all we learned in a story. The same is true for creating a backstory for each character and the history of our setting. We create so much more than what ends up in a published book, and sometimes there are details we just really want included. However, not all of those facts are important for the overall story. There must be a balance between showing a fully-developed world and boring readers with every detail.
I recently struggled with this in a short story I wrote. There was one detail I discovered in my research that I thought was fascinating, but all my beta readers kept pointing out that paragraph as “feeling off somehow “not quite right.” Finally, I realized I needed to delete my beloved fact, and the story grew stronger for killing that darling.
5. Empty Dialogue
Dialogue is an important part of books. Often readers will skim paragraphs of details and then pause to read when dialogue appears on the page. Yet, while dialogue is eye-catching, you need to make sure it has a purpose. Writing dialogue that doesn’t push the story along is useless. Don’t write small talk between two characters. Make every quote impactful. It should advance the plot, create a setting, set the mood, or develop a character. Writing dialogue so it fulfills more than one purpose is even better. If you can take the conversations out of a scene and not lose anything important, then delete it. While dialogue grabs readers’ attention, it won’t keep them reading if nothing pertinent to the story is said.
The Afterlife For Darlings
Let’s be honest, murdering your darlings is not a nice thought, and it’s not easy to do. The way most writers are able to do this and not have a huge meltdown is by saving the information for another story. Many people make a “Boneyard” document where they paste all the darlings they had to delete. It’s a place for them to Rest In Peace until they can be reincarnated into another story. So, if you absolutely love a character or scene you had to delete, put it in a new file and use it later. You could make a spin off book with the spare character or write a new book that includes the scene you love. You don’t have to abandon your darlings completely; they just can’t be in your current story. Knowing the darlings have an afterlife makes it easier to kill them.
Final Thoughts
Every writer falls in love with certain aspects of a story, but it’s important to be objective in the editing stages. If something or someone does not advance the story, you will have to remove it. The darlings that really are dear to your heart can be saved for a later tale, but don’t let your attachment to them ruin your current story. If readers are all pointing at one spot where the story isn’t working, take their opinions seriously and kill those darlings. Writers always have another story; hence, there is always the option to use your darlings in a new way so readers can love them as much as you do.
Thanks for reading!
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