If you're a writer you’ll know what this means. If not, then you must've seen the movies if none of those, change your friends.
It has been going on since the 16th century. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch said, “Murder your darlings”. Stephen King said “Kill your darlings Kill your darlings” What does this mean when it comes to writing?
I’ll loosely translate it to you as best as I can.
SO, this phrase has been used and is gonna be used long after you and I am buried in the ground. It means, getting rid of the unnecessary character, storyline or some cool sentences in your creative endeavour. The parts we have worked hard on, the ones which we think would be a game-changer in the overall story. Just. Kill. them.
I suppose what it does is, it leaves you with the understanding of what you think is the best can fuck up your overall storyline, the whole picture of it. It also teaches us to not be so connected to that one character or a scene or dialogue. because we writers are egocentric people. full of our selves because we are god’s favourite. We have the attention to detail and observant of almost all the things happening around us and eves dropping on strangers conversation is fun. So we think highly of ourselves. Most of us are high for most of it.
To make something stronger, kill your darlings. Even if you have an emotional attachment to those pieces. Because always remember the bigger picture than just a character or scene. If you’re gonna be a bitch about it. Just put it in your drawer, or just be a drama queen and make a file and call them “the darlings I've killed.”
Readers are not dumb. They’ll have a hard time understanding why the same things are happening over and over again, while the story is not moving at all. the stuff which you’ve worked on polished or spent more time in will be hard for a reader to understand.
You might think, you’re missing something but the person who hasn't read the original draft don’t know that it was even there. After all, writing is rewriting. And killing your darlings.
