Kill Your Darlings

[kip]

Let's talk about killing your darlings.
Essentially, taking that one line or scene or character which you love and maybe your whole motivation goes towards, or even visually a panel or a design, and cutting it off becuase it doesn't work well with the whole piece.

Have you gotten to killing your darlings yet?
How'd you feel about it?
How do you find which darlings need killing?

For me, i'm just not very good as a writer and I dont think I really got around to killing my darlings there, but I do have a lot of killing my darlings in art. "that sketch looks perfect i just can't figure out this one detial" usually means the best thing to do is trash it completely and start over. it's hard, but with practice I guess the knowledge its best for the overall piece does help

so hby?

[Raven_C]

yyyep, i'm actually in that process right now. I have about 3-5 characters to "kill" since they don't serve a purpose much in my story, even though they are cool characters.

EDIT :

in case anyone doesn't understand: "Kill your darlings" is a famous phrase among writers. It means editing out a piece of your story -- whether that's characters, plot point, a sentence, a paragraph -- and removing them because they don't serve your narrative.

Even if you super duper love that one scene or you adore your character's accent or you just love that flowery prose that took you all night to write -- you have to "kill" (edit) them for the sake of a better story.

[Kann]

I don't plan on killing any characters yet, but I had to cut off a lot of scenes, because they were nice, but unnecessary.

[ar-ninetysix]

Edit: I didn't know how to answer it due to "darling" being used as a replacement word for 5 different terms, figured I'd answer as best as I can.

Have you gotten to killing your darlings yet?

Cutting or reducing lines and scenes? Yeah, but they were either unnecessary or changed altogether. Killing characters? For my zombie novel, it'd be crazy to have no one die, so yeah. I haven't started posting anything yet, but deaths are planned.

How'd you feel about it?

For lines and scenes.. it happens. I'm new to writing novels, so removing stuff is a part of the learning process. I was a bit of a perfectionist when writing music, and it's similar here as well. I won't move forward until I feel satisfied with my work. For characters.. Well, one death was planned from the very beginning, but.. as time went on, the idea changed overall. In any case, having death planned at the beginning makes it easy to get used to the idea of killing a character.

How do you find which darlings need killing?

Lines and scenes.. just asking myself if it's needed or if it can be inferred. Characters... This can be tricky. You have to think that death can affect characters and their relationships with everyone whether it's long-term or not, but either way, you look at it.. it needs to have some sense of a lasting effect. You can't treat death like it's nothing in a drama, for example. And you also can't treat it like a plot device, as it's a disservice to the character that died. Picking a beloved character of yours to get the death treatment can be hard, but if you know the characters and the plot well enough to make that choice with all this in mind, it'll be much easier.

[kip]

Killing your darlings is a pretty well known term so I admit I came into this assuming people knew what I was talking about (at least vaguely) but uh how would you have phrased it ? lol
all of these things can be darlings , "things" you love with all your heart but your story doesnt need.
of course the reply to each of the questions is different depending on what you cut out, but typically a writing process doesnt cut out more than like, 1 or 2 "darlings" i'd say, so if you have one for each of my examples youre probably just thinking of general deleted scenes

[ar-ninetysix]

Ah, I see.. well, I was editing my comment to actually answer it and you replied midway lol but this clears it up pretty well~

[kip]

i think when people say killing your darlings typically they mean completely extract them from the piece, so it was actually pretty interesting seeing you focus on a more literal use of the word killing

And you also can't treat it like a plot device, as it's a disservice to the character that died.

i was especially interested by this line, treating the character as something that deserves respect rather than just a means to an end (which, while emotional attachment is absuloutely there, is what characters and plots are: a way to tell a story)

so those are some really interesting points haha

[ar-ninetysix]

Well, I know you also meant "killing" in the sense of planning a character and changing your mind about their inclusion, but that hasn't happened for me yet! I just happen to be working on a zombie novel, so I focus on the literal use by accident lol

To add to that last part I had, removing a character or writing them out when they're already in the story is just as tricky, I think. There has to be a valid reason for them being out, it can't just be "nah, this character's not gonna be a part of this anymore", you have to somewhat build up to it. Like unless it's a reveal or there's some shock factor involved, I don't see why doing that suddenly would be any good. Out of the stuff I've worked on, it's easy to add a character and also add relationships to other characters in the process, even as far as affecting existing relationships. I haven't found a reason to write anyone out or not include them into a story

[A-weird-girler]

I swear I'm going to be the only comic in which none of my 10 main characters die or have fakeouts. It's just not necessary in the story

[Zhengo]

Yeah, I've killed a lot of "darlings" while developing my story. I've cut out a lot of characters and plotlines because I couldn't figure out how to fit them or the story has changed so much during development that there's no need for them anymore. Though I still keep those corpses around sometimes. Parts of them can be recycled into new and better ideas.

[Greetings]

In terms of actual writing/phrases and not plot issues I feel like it's good to not edit straight away, take a break from your manuscript or work on a new one in between, and then come back with a pair of fresh eyes to your draft. It'll be much easier to be distant from it and to see what's working and not.

[feardeer]

I've had to do this loads of times!! I'm doing it as we speak, reworking some pretty huge elements of the plot, ironing out kinks...

But I don't think of it as a big loss, since I plan to eventually do some "deleted scenes" comics and write-ups. I'll still get to show off my darlings one way or another haha.

The only "darlings" I don't tend to cut are characters. To be honest, it's mostly because my partner is attached to them. He'd be very upset with me. But I have made some previously key characters into background characters.

[kip]

Killing your darlings doesn’t refer to actually killing, just writing them out, not writing a character or scene you planned to have (and loved a lot) because it doesn’t add to the story

[punkarsenic]

Have you gotten to killing your darlings yet?

i feel like baby killing is a continuous process, ive done it a fair bit. i actually reworked the plot of my comic recently to fit into a clear timeplan. that was a baby massacre.

How'd you feel about it?

i have a file on google docs called 'killed babies' - i copypaste stuff there to rot so i feel less bad abt deleting it, the idea being i can get it back if i change my mind. i never do tho, usually the babies i kill are things that are causing major obstacles with moving forward, so im always eventually relieved when theyre gone

How do you find which darlings need killing?

if it doesnt aid in reaching your Goal - pushing the thing along - kill it. look at everything from a structure-only standpoint to identify the runts for the chop.

[7yLer]

Great topic, Kip!

For me, I've just recently come to a realization about this:

Don't view anything you write as finished, locked in, that's-the-way-it-has-to-be kind of mentality.

Not until you give it the seal of approval and it's published.

Using this mentality has given me so much freedom in my writing. I don't experience writer's block hardly at all (unless plot/characters need reworking, sometimes) because I essentially give myself permission to write total crap, knowing I can always add/subtract/edit every jot and tiddle if I need to.

I wish I had discovered it earlier. I've shelved several novrls and other projects because I just couldnt let go of subpar third drafts that really need to be gutted and reworked.

[A-weird-girler]

Oh in that case yes, as the twins in my comic were supposed to be triplets, but one of them was too annoying jaja

[dawgofdawgness]

I’ve killed so many darlings at this point that it’s to feel like I’m becoming indecisive
I mean, it can be anything. I’ve removed scenes I liked, places I looked forward to drawing, funny lines of dialogue that didn’t fit the mood, etc
Since last year I killed off an entire main character that I’d developed because she distracted a bit from the plot?

This is why it helps to keep a timeline and know what your overarching theme is. If some things don’t connect with the theme, it’s easier to decide whether or not to cut it out

[hisstidine]

I've struggled with this a lot and the only thing that really helped was getting some distance from the story. I have a comic project that I thought for sure was going to be an epic length undertaking but for years I had the hardest time getting much scripted beyond a few scenes, and I rewrote the beginning several times.

Essentially, the whole story was too "darling" to me, so I decided to start with a different comic. Something shorter, with less emotional investment. I gradually came to the conclusion that that other story would work much better as a 300-400 page comic with far fewer characters and tangential plot lines. I also finally came up with a beginning to the story that I like by cutting it down drastically.

I think my takeaway is if you have a story that you think is going to be "epic length," you should think deeply about just how long it would take to actually make it (how many pages can you do a week, how many years to finish?) and consider whether it'd work as a shorter story. Similarly, if you're having an awful time getting your first chapters figured out, there's a decent chance there's too much going on and you could cut some stuff out.

[indagold]

I thought this was talking about killing off characters but I guess its similar. I think when making a piece of work you gotta be as emotionally detached as possible so as to not become too involved with something or else you fall into a pattern of always holding back. Like I write up a ton of stuff and even though it could be an extra addition to the plot or is an interesting character I just sit back and realize "is this really necessary?' and if its not, trash it. Maybe it can work as a side story but I really don't want my plot to become over bloated. I did that in the past where there was like 5 billion characters and storylines and i've come to learn from it. I still look back in shame at a story where there was like 3-4 characters with no development because there was no room.

[kip]

Loving the responses so far! Sorry I can’t reply to everyone, feels kind of spammy since there’s so many comments & not much to say!

P.S.
Kill Your Darlings is also a fantastic movie starring Daniel Radcliffe in probably one of his peaks ! (alongside swiss army man and maybe forest. i watched all of his movies because i had too much free time on my hands as a neet )