A Writer’s Pain–“Kill Your Darlings”

by | Oct 21, 2018 | books, writing | 25 comments

There’s no blood, no knife, no handgun. An assault rifle? Heavens no! Just a red pen or a delete key. It’s still painful though.

You spend all that time coming up with a unique phrase or a perfect way of describing something or someone. And whoosh, it’s gone. Disappeared, never to be seen again. You invent a new character, choose a name for her, imagine her home, her accent, the color of her eyes. You really like her. And yet, you have to kill her. Sigh!

Writers have been advised to “Kill your darlings” for more than 100 years. The advice has been attributed to Faulker, Oscar Wilde, Eudora Welty,G.K. Chesterton, Chekov, and Stephen King. The earliest known example of the phrase is from Arthur Quiller-Couch. In his Cambridge lectures in 1913-1914 he expressed it even more graphically: “Murder your darlings,” he said.

After finishing the first draft of my as-yet-unnamed novel, it was time to go back and see how I could make it better. I looked for “extraneous ornaments” and precious, self-indulgent passages. Then I murdered them.

Well, well. that wasn’t so painful after all.

But that wasn’t the half of it. My novel was too long. My murder spree had just begun.

The standard best range for the word count of an adult novel is 80,000 to 90,000 words. My novel was 101,760. I needed to get rid of at least 11,760 words. A word here or a phrase there wouldn’t cut it. Whole story lines and side trips had to be killed.

How about that side trip my main character took with her maid to deliver an aquarium to the maid’s cousin in the barrio? There was rain, a narrow road filled with potholes, a jeepney that forced my character’s car off the road. Delilah and her three children were waiting for them, umbrella in hand. The children, Benjie, Banoy, and Baby were shy but eager to show off their toy cars and Barbie doll.

Gone, all gone now. I decided they were unnecessary to the story, slowing the flow.

That cut was painful, as were others like it. But those passages had to be sacrificed for the good of the whole. It sounds heartless, doesn’t it?

The good news is, I’ve cut the novel down to 88,752 words, lopped off 43 pages.

25 Comments

  1. evelyneholingue

    I feel your pain, Nicki, believe me 🙂
    My latest novel started at 90 000, which is still okay for a YA novel but was too long for mine, considering that it was slowing the pace and telling too much. I cut it down to 72 000 and I was very happy to cut in fact. It was hard at first when I was told to get rid of entire passages, but I was also suggested to keep what I cut and see if there were sentences that could still be used. And there were quite a few.
    Like you, I tend to write long and need to commit murder later on 🙂
    A friend of mine has the exact opposite problem. He writes very tightly and when asked to expand he is agonizing.
    Never easy for sure.
    Good luck with your completed draft, Nicki.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Maybe I should write my next novel fast and tight. That way I could get the plat right and then fill it in. Expanding on it would be easier for me.

      Reply
      • evelyneholingue

        You can always try, but it seems to me that there are two categories of writers. The ones who have to cut and the ones who have to expand:)
        Good luck, anyway!

        Reply
  2. Lani

    Well, you can always keep your kills 😛 and who knows? you might end up using them somewhere else! Happy Killings!

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Thanks, Lani. I do keep my “kills.” But life rolls on, and the things you loved yesterday eventually get forgotten. We’ll see.

      Reply
  3. Mabel Kwong

    It is so hard when you have to cut your words and make your draft shorter…sometimes I like to think, don’t kill them but pur them aside for another time, another day.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I will save the things I cut. Who knows if I’ll ever go back to them though. When I studied Chinese brush painting, most of what I painted was never framed or sold or hung on a wall. Horses are a good case in point. Horses in the Chinese style are usually painted quickly with a minimum of strokes with ink on rice paper. Few horses make the cut. A waste of time? Not really. You always learn something, if only to be patient.

      Reply
  4. nrhatch

    Hard to do . . . but worth it if the story moves more freely. You’re brave!

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I may have exaggerated how hard it was. In truth, revising and cutting are all in a day’s work.

      Reply
  5. siralientor

    or. . . a modern alternative???

    borrow from the dvd model…

    have you never been tempted to watch “deleted scenes”?

    if i’ve enjoyed the movie, it gives me more background and insight into the characters

    and, you can go 1 step better – interviews with the characters, themselves

    how did you feel when . . . ?

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      That’s an idea. The out-takes. I do have everything saved for possible future use.

      Reply
  6. Paddy

    Congrats on weilding that red pen! It takes courage and sometimes tears, but it’s worth the effort.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      You’re so right. It is worth the effort.

      Reply
  7. autumnashbough

    Good job! When Lin Manuel Miranda released a demo of a rap battle he cut from HAMILTON, his fans were like, “Why?! That was awesome!”

    He said something along the lines of, “The song might be great, but it slowed down the story.”

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Interesting. I love Lin Manuel Miranda. The other night on The Late Show, he said he was going play Hamilton again when they do it in Puerto Rico. Stephen asked what would happen if he forgot the words. He said his excuse would be that “It’s a rewrite.”

      Reply
  8. derrickjknight

    Now you have done the work you are entitled to a bit of Good Luck

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I still have some more work to do, but you’re right, I’m hoping for a bit of Good Luck.

      Reply
  9. Kate Crimmins

    I do that with blog posts! A little tangent here or there. A unique play of words. Argh! I did a rough edit of a book for a friend (never doing that again! at least not for free!) and I suggested some major hacks. Fortunately our friendship survived although she didn’t give me a copy of the finished book. She got very ill and died shortly after the edit so I’m not sure she had it published.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I’m fine with having my friends in my writing group critique my work. But it’s only a few pages at a time, and it’s the comments of all four of them. But somehow it would feel different to give my whole finished novel to one friend to edit. You said your friendship survived, which makes it sound like you worried that it might put a strain on your friendship. I’m sorry she got sick and died.

      After I do one more sweep through this novel, I’ll be handing it over to a professional editor for a developmental edit.

      Reply
      • Kate Crimmins

        The book was a collection of essays written by a group. You could see where the author changed (within the same essay) and the styles didn’t mesh. Some made no sense at all. It was less of a literary effort than a testament to their group. I was kind in my comments and about halfway through instead of “editing,” I would make general comments at the end of each.

        Reply
        • Nicki Chen

          General comments at the end of each sounds like a good way to do it. It sounds like it was a thankless task.

          Reply
  10. L. Marie

    Oh Nicki!! Like Jill, I feel your pain. It’s hard to kill the characters and chapters you spent so much time creating. I spent two weeks on a scene, only to cut it. My novel was 126,000+ words. Finally got it down to 98,000. So you’re doing great!

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      It’s sort of like cleaning your closets. You remember all the effort and money you put into choosing and buying that blouse, and you really liked it at the time. But you don’t wear it anymore. And after you give it and a few others like it away, your closet works a lot better. And the clothes you do wear aren’t crushed anymore. So it was worth it.

      Reply
  11. Jill Weatherholt

    I feel your pain, Nicki…trust me, I feel it. I’m experiencing the same blood shed as you. The only solace is that it will make the story better, but it’s still painful.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Writing goes much more slowly than reading. At that slow speed, it’s hard to have the feel of how the story is moving ahead.

      Reply

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