Kill Your Darlings

Kill your darlings. Have any of you ever heard of it before? In the writing world it is a pretty common saying. Most of us have heard it hundreds of times, if not more.

Stephen King wrote a book called On Writing. In it he says, “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” That quote has always stood out to me.

So, what is a darling and how do we kill it?

Taken from a blog I recently read, (because I loved how they phrased this) https://thewritepractice.com/kill-your-darlings/

Darlings, in writing, are those words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters that we are often most proud of. We love them, to the point that we almost don’t care if those bits are clear to readers or not. We love them, and we want to keep them.

The problem is they can get in the readers’ point of view.

Now, how do we kill them? We get rid of all of the stuff that isn’t absolutely necessary, even if we love it. It’s a hard thing to do. A really hard thing. We create these characters and build these worlds and then we rip them to shreds to make the best possible story we can. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it makes us want to rip our hair out. But in the end, it is always necessary.

So how did I go from going to the Snake River Writer’s Conference and submitting to Pitch Wars to this? Ha! Good question. Actually, it’s pretty simple.

Jim McCarthy.

A very well-known and successful agent who works at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret as not only a literary agent but also as VP. He came to the writing conference I just attended. I paid for a fifteen-minute consult with him in where he reviewed the first ten pages of my manuscript. I submitted them ahead of time so the fifteen minutes with him was spent solely going over his notes with me.

Long story short, he made a few comments here and there. Clarification things. He said my writing was pretty solid so he didn’t have a lot of advice there. Then we came to the end of the 10 pages and he said something to the effect of, “If you’re willing to move the beginning of the book to here, right here, it will be powerful and potent.”

He explained how I could work in some of the pertinent information I was about to cut, back into the story without doing a lot of re-writing. Then he went onto explain why he thought the change would help my book. Basically, the way I had it written before was so intense that he felt like you couldn’t absorb any of the other important information because we were so worried about whether my character was going to live or die.

He also explained that if I would let the reader know from the beginning that she had indeed survived her suicide attempt and then worked the other information back in in small amounts that it would hook the reader faster.

After our meeting, my head was spinning, to say the least. But I could totally see what he was saying and I could envision how such a change would work.

But then my heart sank, just a little. I love these pages. I love my snarky, damaged protagonist. Could I really cut them?

In the end, the answer was yes. Yes, I can because writing isn’t about the author. It’s about the reader. How can they understand my story and relate to it? What will pull them in and keep them turning the pages?

So, it’s been a little over a week since the writing conference and the process has been painful. But today, I finally did it. I will have to keep working at it to add some of those important things back into my story, but I did it.

Here’s another little piece of advice I picked up from the writing conference. It doesn’t hurt to try it. Save your original manuscript and then make a copy for your re-write. If you don’t love the re-write after you have finished it, you can always go back to the original. You haven’t lost anything. It fit my situation perfect, so that’s exactly what I did.

I honestly have no idea if this book will ever be published. If I will get a request from Pitch Wars or an agent. But I know I’m not giving up. I love this book and I will keep trying.

Also, for the record, can I just tell you what an incredibly personable man Jim McCarthy is. So kind and friendly. One of the first things he said to me was “This must have been pretty hard for you to write.” All I can say is that he got it. Without ever meeting me, he knew how special this book was to me and how hard it was to write about some of the darker parts of my past. He knew.

If you ever get a chance to listen to a class or seminar given by Jim, I hope you will take the opportunity. He taught two classes at our conference and both were full of so much wonderful and helpful information. Things I will forever take with me.

I don’t know if you will ever read this Jim, but thank you. Thank you for not being the kind of agent to laugh in my face, or to say no one will ever read this. There are plenty of those kinds of agents out there. The ones who make an author feel like garbage. But you… you were kind and patient. You took the time to help me with my story instead of just saying this will never work. It was such an honor and pleasure to meet you. And heaven help me, I pray our paths will cross again someday.
Well, until next time. Just remember to kill your darlings. In the end you will be happy you did it.