Edit objectively. Excessive attachment obscures all reason. The more enamored you are of those gorgeous, amazing lines, the warier you should be. Kill your darlings.
The more you love your darlings, the less objective you can be about them. Without objectivity, you can’t see your darlings for what they are and recognize when they lie, cheat, steal, or choose a bad path. You can’t see when they do wrong or, worse, when they do you wrong. They’re probably not as good as you think. And that’s why you should kill your darlings.
Killing your darlings is a violent proposition to be sure. Killing seems so extreme. You could just tell them to behave better. If you’re at your wit’s end, you can tell them to keep their mouths shut. Or you could simply ask them not to visit for a while. You have many less murderous options.
The problem is that it’s easy to get so attached to characters, scenes, entire plot lines, and individual sentences that you can’t bring yourself to ditch them even when the story is begging you to. For God’s sake, cut this beautiful sentence, your manuscript is saying. It’s shaking you by the shoulders and demanding that you look it in the eye. Anthropomorphically speaking, of course. If your manuscript actually has its hands on your shoulders as it lectures you, you have a slew of problems that warrant immediate attention. On a related note, feel free to stop reading and rush yourself to an ER, stat.
For those who aren’t speeding down the road to their local medical center, here’s the gist: Sometimes your gorgeous, amazing lines don’t work. Not here. Not now. Maybe (take a deep breath) not ever.
William Faulkner had it right. Kill ’em.
Or maybe it wasn’t Faulkner. Maybe it was Stephen King. He wrote, “kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
Or maybe it was someone else entirely. Some guy named Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, distant relative of Ms. Marion Cotesworth of Marblehead.
Here’s what Quiller-Couch wrote in The Art of Writing: “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — wholeheartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
The point is this: Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch is a stupid name. A secondary point: Edit objectively. Excessive attachment obscures all reason. The more enamored you are of those gorgeous, amazing lines, the warier you should be.
