William Faulkner (and many others) advised writers to murder their darlings. I used to think this meant to get rid of unnecessary characters—or even to kill your favorite ones on the page—but that’s not quite it. “Darlings,” in this case, are scenes or paragraphs or sentences that you love, but that don’t fit into the rest of your story.
Or Maybe…
I’ve always had a hard time with this advice. As a writer, sometimes I get so emotionally invested in a scene that I can’t see the bigger picture. It’s difficult to step back and admit that as well-written as a scene may be, it isn’t necessary for the story. At all.
I have found it helpful to soften this advice a little. Maybe I won’t kill this darling. Maybe I’ll just cut this darling from my manuscript and paste her in another document. Maybe I’ll reform this darling for another story. It’s more of a imprisonment of the darling. I’ll lock up the darling rather than sentence her to death. It certainly makes me feel better, knowing that my darlings aren’t gone for good.
The Effect of an Outline
Editing my manuscript this week, I was on the hunt for darlings to kill (or at least imprison). And it was actually pretty difficult. I wrote the story according to a pretty strict outline, and every scene had its purpose. Each event led to the next one, and to remove one would break the chain of the story.
Instead, I went a little more micro. I pulled a few fluffy words, sentences, and bits of unnecessary dialogue. It did help with tightening up the manuscript a bit. But this wasn’t a story I overwrote. I have definitely written books that had a little more glaringly-obvious darlings to kill/imprison. Entire chapters that served no plot purpose, but were so fun to write that I had a hard time removing them.
But for the Writing Rules Project, I think my darling-imprisonment is done. For now.
Need some creative writing activities for kids, students, or yourself this summer? Check out the Writing Rules Mini Project I put together a few weeks back!
I’ve got stickers, notebooks, and more on Redbubble! Here’s my latest Writing Rules Project logo sticker.