Kill your darlings

Kill your darlings is a common saying to writers. It refers to those times in the editing process when you identify that something is not required in your story and, even if it is a lovely piece of prose, you delete it. Yep, you kill your darling.

I recently got to experience that in all its truth. I have a story of which I’m really proud. I wrote it deep in my recent period of non-writing nearly two years ago. Before I wrote it, it constantly haunted me. On the bus, it was there. In boring meetings at work, it was there. Countless times while laying in bed it kept reminding me that no matter how committed I was to my writing funk; the story was still there.

So, I wrote it.

There was some great stuff in that story. Some nice turns of phrase that made me wonder if maybe I had not forgotten how to do this writing gig. Those 5,745 words were all wonderful (as far as I was concerned).

It waited nearly two years, but finally The Universe decided to get active in my life again. It told me through three different sources about an anthology that was pretty much there to publish this story. I know, OMG, time to submit! One small issue… Maximum word count was 3,500 words.

The first edit took about an hour and left all my darlings intact. I got rid of a bit of bloat and took out a scene that didn’t really add much. That got me down to about 4,500 words.

Four more hours later, with so many of my darlings expiring on the floor around me and my heart pounding, I got down to 3,498 words! Convinced the story couldn’t possibly make sense with so many important words missing, I stepped away and let it brew.

A few days later I came back. The story still made sense. There were no gaping holes where bits of story had ben excised. Even stranger, it felt better. Even with all those missing darlings!

I’m very excited to say that the story has been accepted! I signed the contract yesterday. I am so pleased that this story has found its way out into the world. It really showed me how darlings are fantastic when they add to the story, but they can be dead weight when they don’t. Even when they are lovely.