But you're not honestly suggesting that Indiana Jones should have been excluded from the movie just because he didn't advance the plot, are you? Or that the movie would have been better without him? I mean--that makes no sense. There's more to fiction than plot. If you can recognize that in Rebecca, why wouldn't you recognize it in the movie?
But how did it advance the plot? Oh, it contributed to the theme? So we're going to include "theme" in our definition of "story". I assume that also means we'll include characterization, setting, mood, style, etc.? Can I get a clear definition of what you mean when you say "story"?
Darlings are vanities, you should line them up—after NO last meal—and exterminate them—kill them all. Vanities? Yes, the indulgence of authors who love the sound of their own voice. They’re ignorant to their own discordance, pfuff, social misfits in real life I reckon, unaware of general consensus and wallowing in the delusions they’re spewing forth harmony. Is that all? No, it’s not all, darlings hinder story progression too, they're clingy thingies that require readers wear waders. So what is story progression? Um, it’s the story being clear from inception to finale, bereft of dead end asides that lean against its skeleton and eventually break out with semi-florid allusions to a grandeur that just ends up a purple rash on the pages. Makes me wanna regurge such splurge. Hack. I’m hacking thinking of it. So, darlings are vanities that hamper story progression? Indeedy yeah, there’s that, then there’s the creation within the story of concise characters—those like me you know, ones who don’t prevaricate, procrastinate nor beat about any bushes at all. So KISS? Naturally, kickup your speed by keeping it immutably simple stupid dumbass. But what of the author, how do we get to know them otherwise? Look, I want to reach the end and still be in my comfy slippers. No throbbing frontal lobe here chappy. Why do I want to hear the errant mootings of a wannabe mind-spert? Someone skilled with SPAG, that’s spelling puntucation and grammar by the way, and a route one knack with words. I want a philosopher—I’ll go read some solipsistic Descarte slop on the toilet while dropping off a Rudolf Carnap. What next? Punctuation for speech, ain’t necessary you should line it up—NO last requests—and delete it all.
FWIW—I've got the flipping ear worm of the Indiana Jones theme music now! One darling I could do without. I saw the redundancy of Jonesy mentioned in Big Bang Theory; it's pondered here.
Okay, I have an example of my own that came up while I was writing just now... This: After the crash, I was all turned around and with the corn as high as a cherry bough tied up within easy reach of someone on a ladder, I couldn’t see shit. Became, after killing the darling: After the crash, I was all turned around and with the corn being almost seven feet high, I couldn’t see shit.
Inhabiting that haven of ambiguity @BayView I'm on the fence in reality. I hold much an each to their own opinion with this. But I'll say the short and to the point stuff gets more commercial success. Definitely.
Huh, painting and writing are 2 differing skill sets. From one way to interpret the OP is by what I have learned around the forum about George RR Martin, and the fact that he has likeable characters and then kills them off just because. The way I look at it is that you should not spend an excessive amount of time on any giving theme/character/plot device/scene what have you. There is no right way to go about it, but gushing over how something is at great length will only show that it really is there only for you. And that will make one wonder why you spent such amount of energy to something that could be nothing more than a wrench. But these are but my opinions on the topic. I know some like to vary based on what is and isn't important to the overall story line they have created, so that will be at their disposal.
I reckon Boswell got it right when he wrote, 'Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.'
I don't think the first is a darling at all. Cherry boughs are far more relevant to your story than feet-and-inches measurements.
Most books are filled with many, many things that aren't strictly necessary to the stories. Those aren't darlings. I view darlings as self-indulgences that actually detract from the story. And that's not in line with the original intent: https://overland.org.au/2012/07/dont-kill-your-darlings/
And I think it depends on the mood you're trying to create - if this is supposed to be a gritty action sequence, cherry boughs may be an unnecessary distraction. If the cherry boughs tie into a pastoral theme or setting, though, possibly more relevant. It's almost as if there are no easy answers...
I think that's poor advice, and somewhat ironic from the author who wrote a novella that opens thusly: "Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia."
I think "darlings" is used when a writer thinks everything they wrote is precious gold. Not everything in your first draft is good and some need to be cut especially if you draft is particularly long.
Mom, dad, brother, sister, dog, and secret crush have been stored in the basement freezer. Who do I kill next? :S
Even when decorating a house, some things are only darling to us. I know many homes that are over cluttered, just like books.
Haven't read the back and forth - but obviously every first draft is going to have things to cut and refine (unless you're Steven King, in which case, have fun and enjoy your massive pile of money). Sometimes there are "darlings" in there that are ideas the author likes that don't help the story - and the story has to come first. Honestly, I'm getting to the point where I have to decide which darlings to kill and which to keep with my own - and right now my strategy is actually to kill the darlings of a few of my readers in order to make my own darlings more integral to the plot. That is to say, if you're not willing to take something out that isn't working, you better be prepared to reshape both that that thing and the story around it to make sure it does work. I know I have a big thing that at solid portion of my readers would like me to cut (my setting in the near future - I have multiple readers who get VERY adamant it's not sci-fi enough and therefore INSIST that it MUST be set in the present and all future trappings removed) - but I also know that the plot blows up in my face without that, so I 'm more focussed on refining the setting until it works rather than taking the advice of people who hate the setting. I do think there is validity for trying to distinguish things that you like as a writer from things that work for the reader - every story is going to require hard cuts, because lots of things are hard to cut and you can't keep all of them. However, elevating "kill your darlings" to a rule that basically says "your favorite part is always going to be bad and therefore cut your favorite part because it's your favorite" - well - that's just insane.
That's what I've always taken the phrase to mean. This thread has been much more in-depth than I would've thought.
.....Unless you're George R.R. Martin - in which case - yeah - kill all of them with reckless abandon
Given that this is a quote from Stephen King, who can write big ass horror epics, it's hard to understand what he means by darling. So I'm taking it to mean that the darling is something personal to each writer and it's something that is precious to the writer but not really necessary. I've just re-read Lolita and used an old copy to make notes in the paperback just to analyze the text & story. One wonders exactly what darlings Nabokov killed because his entire book is a herald to darlings everywhere. After re-reading it there was only a few instances of darlings that I might've stricken - one included when Charlotte finds Hum out. The little pillow-shaped blocks of ice---pillows for polar teddy bear, Lo--emitted rasping, crackling, tortured sounds as the warm water loosened them in their cells Was it to reinforce that he was thinking of Lo during the disaster, was it referencing back to the day he was telling Lo and Charlotte about a bear he shot. Since Nabokov is such a meticulous person I'm sure this interruption has deeper meaning than I give it. Personally I'm not for killing darlings - ( if darlings are to mean not really necessary - if I was to delete everything unnecessary from my story I would be bored as shit and wouldn't write. I like to gild the lily occasionally ) - only for killing things that don't work in the context or with their genre and those aren't necessarily darlings.
