This is a casual variation on a reading circle. There is no real obligation to read each others' stories (although many of us do read each others' work already anyway), and no structured weekly discus...
I think I’ve told you how I outrightly removed a sub-chapter in Ch.3 of Season 1 and have beaten myself up since. (That chapter is STILL sitting in my drafts) :bawling: So I’m not a huge proponent to killing off chapters that you feel passionate for. Me thinking of Athena, Curtis and Grim’s street adventures still gets to me.
Now I'm really curious about this, and maybe you could do a bonus content section and include this chapter. Or even do a spin-off story once the main story is concluded. Totally just a suggestion and don't feel pressured to include extra stuff if you don't want. :)
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)?
I have heard about this idea before, and I agree, that it probably applies more to books. A book is already written and then edited by an outside party, and books usually have beta readers, who will read the book, and give advice to the author before the book is published. So I can see why the concept applies to authors of books, and maybe not so much to simlit.
With that said, I do kill my darlings. I think it's easier for me to do because I already have most of my story written up in a rough draft form, so I already know the scenes in my chapters and the ending. As long as what I'm cutting doesn't completely mess up my ending, I will cut things if I think it's necessary. I'll try to make my example as non-spoilery as I can. In my current story, I had a scene that I really liked, but I took it out because it wasn't relevant to the plot anymore. In the scene, Ian gets kidnapped by a mermaid, Hailey and Barnes find him while the mermaid is putting kelp on him and flirting with him and he's all awkward about it, then Hailey and Barnes end up rescuing him. I cut it out because it wasn't going with the tone or direction my story was taking. I won't say much more about the scene other than it doesn't happen. But if you have read or read further, you will see why this scene should have been cut. At least I hope it makes sense, and I'm not just taking a machete and hacking my story to bits while wearing a creepy hockey mask. Sorry, all day I've been throwing out old pop culture references, lol. I have other scenes I've cut, but those are a little too spoilery, and they were just minor scenes that got replaced with something else. I've cut a lot and rewritten quite a bit of what I originally wrote in story 2. I didn't do that so much with my first story. There is also one character that is fairly new that I added in and that character had a whole different storyline and fate that I cut and changed. Not going to spoil who. :) The only things that are pretty set in stone are my character backstories, the crime, the villain and their motivation. And I always save what I've taken out because sometimes I can rework a scene or piece of dialogue into a future chapter or story.
Sort of going off of this topic, I was watching something the other day that was talking about TV show writers who will cut future content from a story just because viewers predicted what would happen. I don't really agree with this. I wouldn't cut something just because one of my readers predicted a future outcome. Sometimes I think it is more satisfying for the reader to predict something and be right than to be completely blindsided all the time. And if you've already done the work of foreshadowing then it's sort of a waste of content to change what happens. But I'm a big fan of foreshadowing, and this doesn't always work in every story. I sort of went on a rant there but feel free to agree or disagree with what I said.
And I completely agree with everyone, and I'm glad you kept the May Day chapter. :) It was a very poignant chapter, and it really influences who Morgana becomes as a character.
About The Sims 4 Creative Corner
Share screenshots, stories, builds, custom creations, mods, challenges, and funny moments in our Sims 4 Creative Corner.