Young Writers Society

I finally got to the point in revising The Book Man where I realized that the entire part between Our Heroes' return from the Otherworld and their march into the climactic battle doesn't work at all. It's a bummer, because I like various things that happen in that section: the smatterings of romance, the character backstory, various scenes that have been deleted, added back in, and deleted again. But the section as a whole never sat right with me, and now I get why.

I died a little inside, sobbed internally in writerly anguish, and then started planning how this will all go down instead.

It's a terrible truth that, as writers, we sometimes have to delete scenes, characters, or entire plot lines that we love, but it's also one of the best-known pieces of advice out there: Kill your darlings. Said most famously by Stephen King, first said by Arthur Quiller-Couch ("murder your darlings"), and attributed to various famous authors since, "kill your darlings" has become possibly the most painful rule of being a writer.

Since I'm thinking about this nonstop right now, I want to know:

What darlings have you killed? What are the best scenes you've ever had to scrap, the best characters you've ever had to cut, or the best plot lines that somehow got derailed and had to be totally redone?

SO.

You're in the same place I am? >> Joy, such a fun time.
I had to scrap forty pages of some of my favorite scenes from everything I've every written - very emotional, powerful. Plus there was this amazing intro for a character. You know, blowing up stuff and all that. heehee And I had to delete all of it. hmph. Granted, the story looks much better without it, but those scenes were so ahmazing to me. ;_;

Oh, and I also had to take out a chapter with a parrot. Not that was hard. xD

An entire storyline in SiG (my current WIP). It was wonderful - it featured twin POC characters, one of whom also happened to be trans, secrets and dreams and adventure and creation and all kinds of stuff. The reason why I had to take them out was the fact that I suddenly just realised that their entire story doesn't really HAVE to be there for the sake of the overall novel's plot. Here and there they came in useful, sure, but they were still pretty separated and unnecessary, while taking up space for developing other storyline.

I still love it, though, and I love the twins as characters, so I might cheat with this whole killing thing and simply just move them to wait to be used in the sequel

I have a confession to make...
Readers of Imaginary Friends might remember the scene where Layla is locked in a morgue for the night (by Aiden: the villain). Well, that scene was a lot darker to start with.... In the original, he tapes her up and actually puts her into one of the lockers where they keep the bodies. He comes back for her before she suffocates, because I NEVER planned on killing Layla.
I changed it because I couldn't find a way to write the scene, er, tastefully. Also, it seemed kinda morbid to me, and was probably one of my most sick, twisted scenes ever.

PS. @JKHatt should totally reply to this topic.

I'm terrible at getting to revisions and second drafts, but from what experience I have had (Which you may know) I just hate all of it and re-do chapter one 50 times and never get past that. I also have trouble getting out of the mindset of what the story was and can't come up with new ideas or perspectives on it. And for that reason I've never gotten past maybe chapter 4 or 5 of a second draft. (Before I started a new story, but hey at least I finished the first draft)

As for cutting scenes, while not in story format, I have incredible difficulty with it in my essays. ("What!?" You may ask, "You consider essay paragraphs your darlings?")
Well yeah I kind of do, I don't want to have to drop any points. I had an essay of only due yesterday and spent over an hour rephrasing every single line I could into active from passive form (active normally takes 1 less word to say something that passive does), changing all "x of y" to "y's x" and dropping out half of the prepositions in the essay JUST so I could fit in the word limit without cutting any any of my precious baby paragraphs. Such a sacrifice to beautiful academic prose, but blame the professor for putting on such a measly word limit.

If there's one thing that I avoid at all cost then it must this advice:Kill your darlings. I've never been in a situation where I have to scrap off a scene or a character. Maybe that's why I don't have an audience. xP

But there was this one time where I had to change the climax/ending of a poem which I wrote for the Translature. It's a sad poem—"Brutal" according to my dad and "too much to take in" according to my cousin who helped in proof-reading. So, he tweaked it at the end and made it into a "feel good" poem. I was so against it but he was persuasive and said, "You should take it slow, considering its your first work in Tamil."

I don't know what it felt like but it didn't feel good. And surprisingly, I can't wait to feel like that again. D:

I haven't cut any of my scenes yet O.o

But in Eyes Wide Shut, a lot of characters die. For those who have read it and think a lot of deaths have already happened... there are plenty more to come. And usually I end up killing off characters I like as well

Fun fact: somebody once told me to "kill my darlings" with my whole novel project and the motivation to prove him wrong is one of the driving forces in finishing. I was too close to it and sinking too much time into it, according to him, and therefore the whole thing had become a darling to be given up on.

As a result, I'm not terribly fond of the advice.

Not because it's incorrect— you do have to delete things you love from your work in order to progress— but because it's incomplete.

You can often keep the same effect you're going after in the darling line/scene/arc by reworking it. You can reuse what you cut in other stories or plot arcs. You can write something better.

It's happened where there's an absolutely brilliant bit I've had to cut, but I end up not remembering it in the long run because after looking at it again, the bit wasn't actually all that brilliant. Stuff that sticks and won't leave my head gets reused, sometimes effectively, sometimes it eventually gets cut from that story. Plot arcs change, characters change... the only thing that really sticks is the general feel/concept, which is something that can be expressed a multitude of ways.

If it's not working with the story, it's not exactly something I'd call a "darling".

Rosendorn wrote:Not because it's incorrect— you do have to delete things you love from your work in order to progress— but because it's incomplete.

You can often keep the same effect you're going after in the darling line/scene/arc by reworking it. You can reuse what you cut in other stories or plot arcs. You can write something better.

I definitely agree with that! I feel like a lot of advice we get as writers is that way, though. "Never do this," "always do that," so on and so forth. But then when you're actually working and writing and learning, you find exceptions and footnotes and whatnot to all of these rules.

Deanie wrote:And usually I end up killing off characters I like as well.

Isn't that the best, though?

I do not giggle maniacally as I reread scenes in which I've put my favorite characters through horrible, horrible things.

I've never found myself in a position where I had to kill my darlings—mostly because, if I think I'm in one of these positions, the reality is that I was clinging desperately to a silly idea.

Recently, when looking at one of my (quite old) WIPs, I went through a bit of a problem because the main character was basically a cheap rehash of her mother, and I'd much rather see how her mother reacted to being put in that situation. So, I cut the original main character and put the mother in her place, and while the WIP is still collecting dust, I'm more likely to go back to it in a bit. It kind of hurts, because that main character (Chloe) was one of the first characters I was ever semi-proud of, but the character that was her mother (Audrey) fits much better and will impact the plot more significantly.

When I was actively writing Balance (which is still a very slow-going WIP), I ran into a bit of this situation where I wrote a Chapter 3 that I liked, but I couldn't go anywhere from there. It just didn't fit how the plot was evolving. So I figured out what wasn't working, cut the first Chapter 3, and wrote a new one where I could continue the story. At the time, it was more painful for me because I had to scrap a couple of characters that could have been interesting, but looking back on it, I have no regret.

So yeah, it's interesting to think about, but I don't think I've ever actually had to cut something that hurt and continued to hurt. If it had to be cut, it had to be cut, and I guess that's just how I see it.