Right! Hi, guys. It’s 10 minutes before work starts and I cannot for the life of me find the motivation, so I have a topic I want to throw in the group. Specifically, the concept of “Killing your Darlings”.
There’s plenty of explanations online for those who have never heard of it, but for a short summary: it’s the act of getting rid of unneeded storylines, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentences or descriptions in your writing. Especially if it’s a bit of writing that you’re very passionate/enthusiastic about, or have worked very hard to bring into existence. Often it’s the bits that you are the most proud of, and also the bits that your readers sometimes can’t connect with. It might be an inspirational quote from a character that readers don’t understand. Or a super-detailed description of a structure, or culture, or magic phenomenon, or a bit of world building - something that you loved making, but that has no direct influence on the story and your readers might dislike, skim or even skip entirely.
Experienced writers often give the advice that you need to “kill” these “darlings” and leave them on the cutting room floor in order to improve the story for your readers.
So my question is: What do you think about this advice? Have you used the concept of “killing your darlings” in your writing before? If so, what did you remove (if you can answer that without spoilers)?