How do you kill your darlings?

[rajillustration]

It honestly just happens naturally because I have a time limit or a space limit. Like I have this story I wrote when I was young, there's well over 40 characters, and I still know each really, really well...but they can't go into the comic that I made.

I like to think of each medium I make my story in as just a medium, nothing personal--so what goes in my comic is for a comic, so it'll be naturally shorter and have less characters. A book can have more, but even then--it still stops somewhere.

The universe in my head, however, it's separate from that. It's full and complete and has a crazy amount of detail (especially that particular story, since I invented it when I was a kid and full of daydreams). When I write, I think of it like I'm just writing the abridged version with all the best bits.

[imagineemmajun]

That's a really good way of looking at it. It helps to make that separation so you know nothing is lost. They live on. And your just showing choice bits in your story. Well put

[borzoiteeth]

Yes, giving yourself a time/space limit really helps edit out the extra branches of your story. When do you want to have this story completed? In 5 years? 2? 10?

My biggest comic right now, Anamnesis, is an anthology of stories that can be no longer than 20 pages. These stories are actually elements/questions I wanted to explore in my bigger works but I've clipped out for clarity/bloating.

Those larger works they were taken out of? Those scripts are still WIP but 1 of them is very close to finally being finished and the other has a solid skeleton of plot progression! Meanwhile Anamnesis has 10 finished stories with the 11th to complete before this year ends. Thanks to this, Anamnesis has been giving me the practice of what it's like to complete a work, as well as experiment with different art styles.

I don't kill mine, I let them reincarnate.

[Rhonder]

With a big ol' knife >: )

jkjk. It's definitely difficult, but on principal the purpose of killing darlings is to improve the work as a whole- in other words, it's for the greater good. When approaching it that way it's still hard but... you can just look at it like a gut punch you have to take in order to win the bigger fight.

I admittedly don't have that much writing experience under my belt so I don't have many instances to talk about... but there were numerous instances of this in my Tapas comic. TreasureHUNT!! both went through character and scene trimming between the first draft and the final storyboard (and honestly could have used more, I didn't kill enough darlings ) There were originally 4 additional main characters in the initial version where the rival had his own treasure hunting team of 4 and the main team had an additional 4th member. They competed throughout the story while chasing after the thief and their conflict came to a head with a big group battle scene at the midpoint, prior to the confrontation of the actual antagonist. At the climax the teams reconciled their differences and teamed up to defeat the big bad, and the rest of the story played out similarly to how it does now.

In my case I had to do some editing down for a number of reasons. Due to it being a short story, in my case, the number of characters was way too many. Most of them were played up as important but didn't really have much characterization in the script. There was a large number of characters just to make the middle fight feel more epic, but not to actually serve the story. So they had to go. Further, I had a page goal in mind (50 pages was what I was aiming for) and I could tell just at the outlining stage that that middle fight and the hijinx surrounding it were going to blow me wayyyyy over my mark, so I edited it out completely and merged some of the later events together into the current mid-section. I still overshot (70 pages) but not by as many as I would have otherwise xD

I guess my current series is somewhat like this too tbh... it's a tabletop RPG adaptation so the writing in general is being done on its own, but it's still up to me to carefully pick and choose which scenes to actually adapt. I would love to just tell the campaign as a chronological story, but I decided very early on that it was more feasible to pick and choose only the best moments and present it more as a slice of life adventure with plot threads woven through because... it just... takes way too long to draw even doing it this way lmaoo. If I didn't kill some of those cool fights and moments which are still very enjoyable to focus on hitting the main beats and funniest skits, I would never get anywhere.

[Legendofgenii]

Do you mean kill them off in the comic, or take them out of the comic before you begin?

[Lazu]

The thing I have found helps A TON is writing drabbles. They are very short stories, that has to be exactly 100 words, no more, no less.
I always start out with a word from a random word generator, or a theme, and then I write a little story, not worrying too much about the word count.
And then comes the editing part, where I have to cut everything away, strip it until it is just the very bare minimum, and exactly 100 words.
Meaning that I must kill a lot of darlings I have just met/made.
And yep, it's super hard. And it sometimes hurts. But it also really helps me realize just how much I can cut out, that either makes the message of the story weaker, or doesn't help it at all.

So I would recommend that as a first step, so you get the practice and experience with editing things that might not be AS emotionally attached to you.

Another thing is to question your writing as a reader.
A story that's really well edited doesn't have anything that isn't necessary for the plot. Ask the questions about if it helps move the plot along in any way, or if you are trying to work around it to MAKE it work with the plot. If it's the latter, cut it.

That said, it's really really hard, of course, especially when having put super much time and effort into it...
But like a band-aid, it's better to just give it a clean cut and then tie up loose ends afterwards.

Depending on the story, however, I also think it's not always necessary to cut into the bone. I have a story that I enjoy writing as well as reading, which isn't edited into the bone, as that would make it into something else entirely.

So it mostly depends on what story you want to tell, and what message you want conveyed, I think.

[arbiterswake]

I've struggled before with having too many characters and what to do with them. Honestly for the sake of getting the story out there in comic format, some just had to be cut or characters had to be consolidated.

My recommendation for cutting characters: Put them on the backburner. If you really enjoy the character you can save them for future projects rather than abandoning them all together.

My recommendation for killing characters: This is hard for every writer or artist but here are some questions to ask yourself:

"Why am I killing this character?

"Does my reason for killing this character make sense?"

" Has this character reached its full potential/has their purpose been served?"

"Am I doing this only to create a reaction or create conflict/drama?"

"Am I satisfied with how this character will die?"

Some things to think about.

[Rai_Muffin]

I've had to cull a lot of character designs from previous drafts to keep things streamlined.
My thinking is, "how does this character benefit the story?" and "Can this role be played by another character?".
I ended up rather than killing, fusing characters into new ones.
For example, I had a character who was constantly drinking, a supporting character to a general, and a soldier who used a specific fighting style using lightning rods.
I ended up fusing them into one character, rather than wasting traits that benefit the story.

As for killing characters, the question should be "how does this benefit either the plot or another character?"
Does the killing help advance a revenge narrative, or overcoming grief for example.

And make sure they go out with a bang.
Make it their defining moment, either tragically or heroically.

Ultimately, story construction is like the interworking of a clock; each gear does something, and if you take one out you need to know what other gear will stop working, or if that gear is just taking up space that makes it harder to understand.

Bottom line,
taking your babies out of the story sucks and it's hard to do, especially when you get so attached,
but you can always shelve them for another story or if they have to die, make sure the story benefits.

[darthmongoose]

My approach:

The thing you replace it with, that achieves the same goal but in a more efficient way while moving the plot forward should be better than the thing you took out, so you don't feel bad about what you've taken out, but excited for what you're putting in.

If you feel frustrated because you're having to remove scenes with a side character you love to put in more scenes with your main character, it may be a sign you need to make your main character more fun to write or give them more interesting stuff to do that gets across their personality, goals and obstacles. The important thing is that you enjoy the scenes you're writing, so if you feel bummed out that you need to take out the silly joke scene because on top of the serious exposition scene it made the chapter or arc too long, but the exposition scene is boring... see if you can make the exposition scene more fun, by putting the exposition into a funnier or more exciting context.

[jcmraz]

Accepting critique is a good start. The better you are at taking what others say doesn't work the better you can make decisions about removing things.

[nostalgicroxas]

Keep in mind that "in the real world" everyone dies and we aren't protected by "protagonist armor" or "main character armor". So assuming you aren't buying into that trope, your characters will die of something at some point.

Perhaps flip it on it's head and take something that is "real" to the characters and place them in actual harm. Chrono Cross is a time travelling game with repeat playthroughs encouraged. One of the most important decisions you make in the game is when a character gets poisoned - it changes a crucial bit of your route for the immediate next part of the game and, overall, the next giant chunk of the story. A main, plot impacting before this, character gets poisoned and will die. You have two options: go off on the side quest and do something else, or go and find the antidote. Both actions have chains and effects branching from them. If you go to get the poison, you basically disrupt an entire ecosystem and marsh, and murder a bunch of innocents by chain reaction. If you do the "more pressing" thing and find the next dragon instead, the marsh will be saved, but your actions with the dragon also effect that same populous but in a different way, and the marsh won't be the "best" either. Leaving that either choice you make the marsh and populations will change just by the fact that this character was poisoned. The "saving" of the character is irrelevant.

I tend to think of all of my characters as not immortals, and if they are, is their being immortal make them indestructible? If they cannot be killed or destroyed, or chopped up into tiny little bits like a certain Egyptian god, then can they be sealed or harnessed, or somehow have their energy syphoned off them?

Now, bringing this back to "how do you kill off characters you're super attached to?"
I make two decisions. One are the important to this current story, or can the story work without them. And two, if I like them so much, can I pull them out and make a story just about them "when they're away from the camera in these scenes, this important thing happens." Kind of like what happens with Gandalf the Gray and his passage to become Gandalf the White - he goes on an entire adventure all by himself - and he was basically killed off for this to happen. Now, let's say Gandalf doesn't survive the fall and actually dies. OK good. Is he an important character I like enough to write a story centered around him from his youth? Yes, or no. Or could I take him and his identity and make something akin to an A.U., or have him remember what happened. Think of those stories that start off with "I came from somewhere else and now that I'm here, I can't get out. / I lost my powers / Do I want to leave?"

[thedude3445]

Maybe sometimes the best option is to keep your darlings, since they are your darlings after all. Maybe kill everything that's NOT your darlings. Sometimes self-indulgence can be more interesting than anything else.

[cherrystark]

The thing is, i've been thinking that it might be the good idea to kill my darlings or at least some of them for my own good. but its really hard to do that. especially given how much i poured into them.

so how do you do it? how do you make it easier on yourself to kill your darlings? especially the ones you're super attached to and have had around for years?

I've always heard that phrase in terms of putting your characters through the emotional rinse cycle because even if you love all your characters, they might not all survive until the ending. You don't want to sacrifice the emotional impact of your story for the sake of keeping a character around.

If you want to get rid of a character because they don't seem to fit in the world, just take them out in rewrites. You probably won't miss them. If there is a character that probably needs to be removed but you're attached, maybe give them a reduced roll before giving them the axe?

One of my characters is the best friend to another character in the series. She's important and symbolizes the fact that her best friend had a life and connections outside of the job. In the earlier drafts, I could not get a good sense of who she was to develop her character. In rewrites, she still didn't fit but I couldn't get rid of her yet, so I minimized her character. Now when she's called into the scene, she has a lot of impact than she did if she was still a primary character. I'm still planning on killing her off eventually but for the sake of organic writing, her death is going to mean something instead of getting rid of an extra side character.

[Luminescent]

Any of my characters I'm super attached to, I try to think of them as actors! So them dying in a story or comic is just for show, not "reality". In "the real world", they continue living on and may even cameo in future comics/stories!

[domisotto]

Kill your darlings advice doesn’t necessarily refer to characters. It refers to self-indulgent writing, i.e. anything that you enjoy deeply as you write it, like clever narrator’s jokes or walls of description or man-gazing or cringe sex scene with a totally wrong character, but your readers can do without or will find annoying.

It is very hard to do on your own, and that’s were beta reader—or the feedback by the collective—is helpful. Join writing clubs or groups, trade feedback and survive it, and it will come easier.

[Van]

Stab em, slice em, serve em as burger

[aqua03]

Mostly the "taking them out of the comic before I begin" because part of me has been debating replacing/heavily overhauling some members of the main cast and that's been the main thing I've been struggling with it seems.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

In the story? With weapons, disease, or random accidents

Out of the story...I just drop them if they have no significant impact on the story. They're not real so...I can always make more.

However that can't be said of Rip. Since I spent so long trying to make a story with him, I'm committed. But I'm also totally fine with him getting hurt or making mistakes. Because again. He's not real. I made him.

[Legendofgenii]

You could give them little cameos in the background occasionally

[aqua03]

Yeah, that makes sense. I've been trying to tell myself something similar regarding my characters as well when it comes to writing. That They're not real, and they're separate fictional entities from me. To quote a writing friend of mine a while back, "Those characters don't make you who you are. You make them who they are, And if they (Your characters) disappoint, you replace them. No matter what those characters are to you, You will make more, And one day you will have to move on from them. So just do your best, or don't do it at all."

@Legendofgenii

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. Or making them historical characters in universe like what my aforementioned writing friend did with characters from previous versions of his stories that weren't clicking with him that much.