Kill your darlings. Kill’em dead. (Writing Workshop)

My hard-drive is littered with carcasses. It’s a literary graveyard. Overflowing with the remains of sweet, beautiful little darlings cut down in the prime of their lives. And with every darling I’ve ever butchered, I died a little inside.

Some of you will understand my murderous tendencies. Others are edging their way towards the door/back button.

What’s a darling?

First, an explanation: Murdering your darlings is a phrase coined by somebody much smarter and/or much more literary than me, Arthur Quiller-Couch. I’ll let his words speak for himself:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to penetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it-whole heartedly-and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

Over the years this has come to mean as writers we must remove those sequences of letters which, when crammed shoulder-to-shoulder, will form words and subsequently sentences that do nothing more than peacock around the page in a vain attempt to show the reader just how terribly clever/poetic/thoughtful/poignant (and other thesaurus-y words) you, the author, really are. Care for an example? Simply refer to the previous sentence. No, not that one. The one prior to the previous. Yep, that’s the one.

On the whole, killing darlings is great advice. If you really want to dive into the craft behind this, then Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is a great resource.

You are not the thing you do. Or are you?

Now, every so often I have to remind myself: I’m a storyteller, not a writer.

It just so happens writing is the medium I most often use to convey those stories, but I’m constantly having to remind myself that the vast majority of people are not reading books to be wow’ed by words. They’re reading to be whisked away on an adventure, to feel something, learn something, see something, DO something that they would never, could never, (and in the case of Fifty Shades of Grey) should never do in their real, actual, consequence-laden lives.

Remember this next time you sit down to work on your next great American novel: Readers read for the story, not the words.

So, anytime your words draw attention to themselves, they’ve upstaged the bride on her wedding day. They’ve stolen the microphone in the middle of the vows. And while this might be immensely entertaining for those in the audience, it upstages the thing they came for.

Here’s the problem, and I alluded to it earlier: I die a little every time I murder a darling.

Some darlings are easily spotted. They are flagrant and deserve to die. I feel nothing when I delete them. These darlings tend to elicit a sly grin on my part, because I know just how bad they are. I see them for what they are and appreciate their smutty nature, but I stay true to advice my grandfather gave me when I was 12 years old: “Never fall in love with a call-girl.”

Kill darlings, not call-girls.

This wasn’t advice given straight out the blue, by the by. We’d just watched Pretty Woman, so this probably seemed to my grand-daddy as especially pertinent advice to give an impressionable pre-teen.
Digression aside, there’s a second sort of darling, and they are the ones that chew you up a bit on the inside. You’ll agonize for days over these ones. They’re the ones that are actually good. Under the right light they might even be beautiful. But, within the context of that story at that moment, something about it feels off like a sliver of popcorn sheath wedged between molars.

These are darlings that you’ll eventually throw away (’cause at the end of the day you’re a cold blooded professional), but you’ll always look back and wonder if that was maybe the one that got away. Of course it’s not, but it certainly feels that way.

Cutting Ties

Dating advice time (don’t worry, I’ll probably circle this back and make it relevant to writing at some point): After a particularly gut wrenching break-up, you should, without fail, cut off all contact with your ex. This includes, but is not limited to: deleting their phone number (drunk, sad, pathetic you will eventually abuse this), blocking them on all social media, and removing them from your rolodex.

Staying connected only draws things out longer. You’ll check their Facebook 22 times per minute, just to see what they’re up to, only to get gut punched every time they post and you realize they’re actually moving on without you. But that still won’t stop you from smashing that refresh button a few more times. You’re reopening wounds that need time to scab over.

How’s this apply to murdering darlings?

Well, the approach to getting over murdered darlings is much the same. When you stumble upon that raised nail of darling, you need to either hammer it down or pull it up. And unless you’re truly weird, you won’t hang onto that now bent nail with the hopes of someday finding a place to use it. The advice here? Murder darlings clean and clear, then get rid of the evidence.

Of course, this is purely hypocritical advice. If you recall, I’ve already admitted my hard-drive is a CSI: Salt Lake City wet-dream. The evidence of my literary misdemeanors are everywhere. I keep them like a serial killer’s trophy in a file labeled “little darling morgue”.

But those words refuse to go quietly into the night. They’re haunting me. I hear their heart-beat beneath the floorboards. I’ve lost touch with the reality of their demise. I second guess myself, wondering…maybe I could make this work?

Deep down I know better. We’ve tried this before, my darling. You were no good for me, and I was no good for you. This could only ever have ended in one way. I thought it was a you or me type of situation, but it wasn’t.

It was both.

Bukowski said something along the lines of, “Find the thing you love and let it kill you.” (I know it’s wrong to covet thy neighbors darlings, but I’d murder a small village of the things for that one on my resume.)

So don’t make my mistake, friend. Murder your darlings, then dispose of the bodies. If you figure out how to do this, please, come back and drop a comment below telling me how. I need help letting go. You can be my lifeline.

Before you boogie on out of here, I’m curious, do you save your darlings? If so, drop your favorite one in the comments below!