I have a really hard time with this. I would like to think it's not my ego or any kind of inflated head that makes it hard to kill my darlings, but something sure does get in my way with this. I think some people are confused as to what this saying means, but I also think that is understandable. The word darling makes us think of something sweet or nice. Why would we want to kill that? Here's the thing. These so-called darlings are actually holding you back. It's not so much they they aren't helping the story. They actually hurt the story or the prose or both. Not that long ago, a writer friend said she was willing to take a look at one of my manuscripts. She is super talented. I love her work. She also has several books under her belt and has won some awards. She's totally the real deal. The biggest thing she did for me was tell me where to cut. Cut a line or two here. Cut a word or two there. This was not a first draft I showed her. What I showed her was my best work, my best editing. I thought things were tight and clear and done. I'm not going to lie. It hurt a little. I kept thinking, why would she cut that and how can she not think that line is great or that word is not needed. I don't think I would have taken the same recommendations from someone else, but coming from this writer it was different. I really looked at all the cutting and just felt like I couldn't bring myself to cut everything she said. Oh, my darlings. A few days later we talked again and she mentioned she knew an editor that might be interested in my work. She said to send it back to her once I made the changes and send her back to her so she could pass it along. It was a really great offer that I didn't want to miss out on. So, I made the changes and the cuts. All the cuts. Even the ones I didn't think I agreed with. I told myself I could put everything back if I wanted to, but I was going to see how these changes would turn out. Still, the process was painstakingly difficult. A few days later when I reread my manuscript, I couldn't even remember what was missing and everything just felt more polished. The transformation, though it seemed like it wouldn't make too much of a difference, was huge. I think this would have been very hard to do on my own. Actually, it probably would have never happened on my own.
My darlings; the lines, gags and over elaborations I contrive to include because I like them so much, till a nagging doubt grows and I see them for what they are – a stretch too far.
As I see it: You write a piece. (Novel, story, nonfiction thing, whatever.) There are things in the piece that the piece is better off without. The ones that you don't actually care about, are easy to remove. That leaves the ones that you love, but that the piece is nevertheless better off without. That's what the saying refers to. IMO. Now, it's entirely possible that you may discover that by removing those darlings, you have sucked the soul right out of the piece. So sometimes maybe the rest of the piece should be recast as a better home for the darlings. But, IMO, not usually.
Identifying when this is the case, or even finding agreement between multiple authors as to what constitutes a "darling" seems to be the tricky part. For example, I like Neal Stephenson. Part of the reason his book Cryptonomicon is 918 pages is that it is filled with what many people might call darlings. Content that doesn't advance the story, per se, and that you don't need to know to understand the story. It's just the author geeking out on stuff or, basically, just being Neal Stephenson. If he'd taken all that out, I doubt it would have sold as well as it did or won the awards it did. So what do you do with that type of content? And if everyone identifies those things are darlings and kills them, then doesn't everyone start to sound like the same generic writer?
But presumably HE doesn't call them that. The question of what a piece is better off without is, in the end, the author's decision. If the author's vision includes lots of stuff that isn't needed for the plot, that's the author's vision.
...for example, I wrote a scrap for Coriolis Effect that included a lot of puttering with a record and a turntable. Some of the comments thought that stuff was unnecessary, but I decided that it belonged. On the other hand, it had been preceded by a lot of stuff where Emily was making spanakopita. I liked that stuff, because it was pleasantly puttery and foody and crunchy, but it didn't fit--didn't fit for me. It had an awareness of sequence and detail that Emily wouldn't have had at that time, because Emily doesn't care that much about food and Emily was a combination of detached and emotional mess at the time. On the other hand, Merry cares about food, no matter how bad things are. So the spanakopita bit might move to Tulips and Butter, someday.
@ChickenFreak I agree entirely with the points you've made above. I suppose that's what makes it difficult for reviewers on internet forums to tell another author what is a darling and what isn't. We can identify possible darlings, but ultimately the author will have to decide (which is true of any kind of editing).
I'm late to this thread. but that pretty much sums up my own attitude. Cut out what doesn't fit, no matter how good you thought it was when you wrote it. That's probably a wordier, but less emotive way to say 'kill your darlings.' When I started writing, my language was loftier than it was when I finally reached my stride. So I've had to go back and reduce the level of my earlier word choices so they don't call attention to themselves. I just replaced 'fashioned' with 'made' in one particular sentence. Fashioned is a perfectly good word, but in this context it sounded overly full of itself. As it was. Another darling dead. But it just didn't fit.
So - semi off-topic. Everybody here seems to be associating "darlings" with scenes and particularly with lofty or creative prose. I've always thought of them in terms of entire characters or subplots that may need to be eliminated. Granted, maybe thats because I'm not given to purple prose (I tend to be sparse and really dialogue-heavy - any purple prose is in quotes - although I do have issues with monologues), but I am given to large and potentially bloated casts. So maybe that just says more about where my own blindspots are But seriously - for those who have experiences "killing darlings" - what are the darlings you kill? Scenes? Sentences within scenes? Plotlines? Characters?
In my opinion, this discussion is tripping over the idea that a darling has, as one of its inextricable defining characteristics, that it doesn't progress the story. I don't see why that needs to be at all. To me a darling is that diva actor who comes onto the stage, inappropriately acknowledging the audience with a smile and a nod as if to say, "Yes, yes, I'm here now, poppets. Thank you for putting up with these clods until my cue." It can still progress the story, but lord, what a ham. JMO
Makes sense - although in that case you have something that UNDERMINES the story. I'm reading a book right now where I'm worried that I've already figured out the central conceit at the end, and that it's going to render the entire rest of the book to have been a dream while the main character is in a coma - and if that happens with no extra plot or anything to accomplish, I'm going to be really mad. So yeah, I can totally see how jack-in-the-box plot elements can be something that need cut - or at least massaged.
Man, I hope not. Surely EVERYBODY knows by now that 'It was all a dream!' is not an acceptable ending to a story.
Anything that doesn't belong, based on the author's definition of what doesn't belong. An author is entirely capable of simultaneously thinking, "Yeah, that's hurting the piece," and, "But! But! But! But I love it! How can I make it work?!"
Well we will see. It's set in an alternate reality without terrorism, and the foreshadowing has been hinting strongly that the main character is not from this reality (although he doesn't know that) and that he and a lot of other people in his world are actually the ghosts of victims of terrorist attacks in our reality. That, and in his reality, opium reamains a drug of choice and there is just opium everywhere - and now he's having phantom neck pains and numbness and all sorts of other things that lead me to believe that he's in a coma, on morphine, and it's going to be a Wizard-of-Oz ending where he wakes up in a hospital bed and we're left wondering if any of it was real. Personally I'm fine if that happens and then there's some plot action afterward to explain the movement between the two worlds, but if not I'm going to feel like I got cheated out of what I thought was an alternate-reality novel.
I think the crunch comes when you know it's hurting the piece, but you love it ...and you simply can't make it work within the piece you're writing. Possibly because it pads out the story and you need to unpad it? That's when the knife comes out and the darling dies. Or, wait.... In some cases, you can just remove it and insert it into a different story. I know I've had to do that. I had to remove several chapters that focused on one of my minor POV characters. I loved his story so much I wanted to include it. Unfortunately, it made an already too-long story much longer, and it also watered down the main story. It hurt, but I pulled his chapters. I've saved these chapters for another story, though. Sometimes you don't kill your darlings, you just send them away on a long vacation.
Make up your own definition - that's what everybody else in this thread has done. FWIW there is nothing in your manuscript that I would call a darling.
Okay, here goes... Darling: that which adverbly equates to what is adjectivity in nouns. Cool. Good to know.
If we're taking "darlings" as a connection to "golden word syndrome" I think it's much easier to accept the advice - like, if every single word is a darling, if the MS is the author's "baby" and must be protected from any evil edits, then, sure, the author needs to smarten up. But anything beyond that seems really subjective.
Killing your darlings to me seems like a situation in which you as the writer need to accept that while you may love the phrase, paragraph or chapter you've written, it's overall hurting the story. If you fell in love with this big battle that ends your story arc, but while writing it, you notice the story is more personal, you shouldn't cater to that big battle you love, but to the strength of the story you're writing. Don't kill your darlings just because they're your darlings. Kill your darlings because they don't work. Sometimes what you love is actually great, why should you throw it out, then?
Maybe that's why I don't really understand the concept of darlings. If something takes the story off-course, I chuck it. I'm not saddened by the loss of so much writing (I've sometimes chucked over 100 pages in one go) but rather by the amount of rewriting I'll have to do to get things back on track.
Yeah, I'm kind of with you. I don't think I have darlings. My words are my slaves, and if they don't do their job I whip them into line!
