Subscribe in a reader
 Print This Post

Variation: Kill your babies (Albert Herring)

Some attribute this quote, or the slightly different version “Kill all your darlings”, to Mark Twain and some claim that it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said it. However, it was author William Faulkner who said it first and teachers of creative writing, film makers, journalist and other kinds of storytellers have been carrying it forward ever since: Kill your darlings.

Note: This does not mean that you should kill your loved ones. What it does mean is that you should cut the crap in your writing, even if it hurts. As a writer you have to have the backbone to get rid of the needless elements in your stories, even if you love them, when they don’t add any value or significance to the piece. These elements are detrimental to your writing, no matter how small, and can weaken the message you are trying to get across.

So what is a “darling”?

The most common darlings you want to slay are:

• clever (but unnecessary) turns of phrase
• insignificant trivia (remember you are not playing Trivial Pursuit, every single word has to have significance or kill it.)
• funny anecdotes that don’t really relate to the question at hand
• etcetera

It’s hard to kill things you love

Samuel Johnson has some advice on killing those blessed darlings once and for all:

“Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

Your work can only gain from being edited more strictly, and in this case, cruelly.

In other words, omit needless words

Rule 17 of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style:

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences . . . . This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail . . . but that every word tell.”

Ah, your finally finished. The End. Now you can relax after all of your hard work. Hey! Snap out of it! Uh, sorry, but you still have work to do. As Rick DeCost from TrippingTheMuse.com put it,

“It is time to cut it up into tiny pieces and bury them in the garden….”

Yep, don’t scream, cut up your manuscript and make sure every word means something. Every scene matters. I know it’s hard, but the truth of the matter is, your work isn’t done with the final keystroke. That really is only your first draft.

Need to make it a little easier?

Let your work stew. Yep, just put it somewhere and let it sit for a few weeks (at least two, be patient, hide it, whatever you have to do) to collect dust.

Time cuts the umbilical chord so that you can look at it with fresh eyes. A good rule of thumb is this equation: 2nd draft = 1st draft - 10% –Tripping the Muse

I promise when you come back to your work to start slicing and dicing, it will be much easier to re-read your manuscript as if you aren’t the author. As if you have never seen this before and really aren’t the mastermind behind it. Hey, you may even find yourself sharpening your shredder. This isn’t a twelve step program either.

Step One: With every paragraph that you read ask yourself these two questions:

1. Was it really necessary?
2. Did it move the story along?

Step Two: If you can’t honestly say yes to both of those questions, then kill it (if it’s really to hard, save it for another story, wimp).

When the “manuscript murder” is over and the evidence is buried, you’ll feel like a weight has been lifted and your manuscript will cost less to mail to publishers, but it will be much more powerful.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Tags: Creative Writing Tips