Killing Your Darlings: Learning to Love Ruthless Editing
In On Writing, Stephen King famously encourages writers to “kill their darlings.” This advice is intended to make writers less precious about their writing and be willing to cut content that isn’t serving the overall book.
But how do you know what constitutes a “darling”? Oftentimes, there is nothing “wrong” with a piece of writing from a mechanical or skill perspective — but that doesn’t necessarily mean it advances plot, strengthens argument or character, or keeps a reader invested. In fact, including the wrong details at the wrong time can confuse or lose readers. To be a truly good writer, you need to learn how to tell if a bit of writing needs to go.
Here we’ll talk about ways to find the “darlings” in your writing and how to cut them so the remaining text is stronger and more effective. Let’s get ruthless…
Step 1. Save Your Cut Content
Cutting words — especially when you’ve agonized over them for hours or days — can feel like a waste. An expeditious way to avoid this feeling is to either save a copy of your manuscript before you start revisions/editing or keep a separate document for all the bits you cut from your book. This way, those words are never truly lost.
Some writers will choose to edit from the existing manuscript, cutting and pasting, revising word choice or sentence structure, or splitting things up as you fill in the gaps and build new transitions. Others will keep the previous draft in mind (or to the side of their desk, marked up extensively with scribbled notes and sticky tabs) and start rewriting their book in a fresh document. The strongest sections of your story will survive from one draft to the next largely intact. The amorphous bits between those crystal-clear sections are likely the parts that needed tightening up or rethinking. This may result in the previous version of these sections being replaced with all-new writing.
Smaller bits of excellent phrasing might find their home somewhere else in your book; larger chunks might be saved for a future project or even serve as bonus content that you can share with readers on social media or as perks for signing up to your newsletter.
In short, no writing is wasted time. You learn as much about what your book should look like from what it doesn’t contain as from what survives on the page. But if you find yourself struggling to “lose” some of that word count, allowing those words to live on in a separate document can help you delete with a clear conscience.
Step 2. Strive for Specificity
Another way that writers might hold onto their darlings is by taking ten words to say something that might have been said in three. Stephen King is, after all, a proponent of a straightforward style of writing — even though some of his books have massive overall word counts. The advice here is not necessarily to strip away all flourishes; in fact some genres, like historical fiction or YA romantasy, expect a more lyrical writing style. The advice is to find (and cut) the places where those extra flourishes are getting in the way of good storytelling.
First, look for “filler words” that result in ambiguous phrasing. Some common filler words include: almost, appear, began/beginning to, go/going to, just, more, off of, partly, really, seem, slightly, sort of, start/starting to, then, very. Usually, these words can be replaced by a stronger, more specific and effective alternative. For example, rather than “very good” use “excellent”; instead of “walked quickly” try “hurried” or “scrambled.” This extends into passive or participle phrasing, too: instead of “the book was opened by her hands, which trembled” try “She opened the book with trembling hands”; instead of “the morning sky began to brighten,” try “the morning sky brightened.”
Darlings also show up in pet phrases. These are turns of phrase (often metaphors, clichés, euphemisms, or shorthand phrases) that get used too frequently and end up being distracting as a result. A well-known example is “he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.” Often these phrases crop up around action or dialogue tags, or as a way to transition between ideas or paragraphs. If a specific phrase is used three times or more in the same work, it’s become a pet phrase.
Have a look at your writing for words or phrases that you overuse. You can check this by searching for these terms in your manuscript with the Find function. Review each instance and see if it’s really necessary to your meaning. If so, can you rephrase it more effectively so each instance becomes unique? If not, cut it so that the remaining instances hit more impactfully.
Step 3. Splice Characters
What do you do when your darling is a whole character? Unlike real life, books need to deploy individuals to achieve a narrative effect — in both fiction and nonfiction.
In fiction, the people are all made up. You might feel a characters’ twelve siblings are each important to their home life — but are they necessary for your storytelling? Maybe you can merge three of the siblings into a single person so that one character develops more depth and importance to the story. Maybe you can have half the siblings living overseas so you don’t need to work them into the narrative at all. Maybe you can metaphorically kill them off so that your character only has two siblings left.
When there are too many people in the mix, it can become challenging for a reader to keep track of all the names, relationships, and motivations of every character. This can be distracting or confusing, and undercut the strength of the plot. Look for places where characters appear only in a scene or two: could these actions or conversations happen with someone else? Do multiple characters overlap significantly in their personality traits, impact on the main characters, or skill set? If so, splice these characters together. The result is a smaller cast that has been more effectively fleshed out.
In nonfiction, cutting your darlings usually comes down to deciding which interviewee, case study, or quote to include. Considering which ones best support your message, which combination provides the most diverse spread of voices, or ensuring you’re not pulling too frequently from a single source can all be ways to help you narrow down to the most effective contributions.
Step 4. Sound It Out
A writer’s darlings also can refer to a specific sentence, phrase, or larger section that you are particularly proud of, and so it has survived from draft to draft intact. However, along the way, it ceases to work for the book the way you intended. This can happen when the logical transition to or from this excerpt no longer makes sense, or when the excerpt begins to feel out of place.
These darlings can be harder to spot because there’s likely nothing wrong with them from a mechanical or technical angle. A way to tease them out is to read your work aloud — or use your software’s Text to Speech function to have the program read the text back to you. By engaging with your text in a different format, it can be easier to hear when a transition no longer works, when a bit of dialogue no longer sounds in character, or when the tone or theme of the writing no longer fits.
This can happen with tautology as well: when you’ve presented the same information in slightly different phrasing but haven’t added anything new. If both sentences are perfectly sound, you may not realize you’re repeating yourself through new word choices. In this case, you’re best off either picking the stronger of the sentences and cutting the other(s), or by merging the best parts of the multiple sentences into a single, stronger replacement.
Step 5. Seek Support
After all of this effort, you might be surprised to be told there are still some darlings lurking in your text. The fact of the matter is, you likely are unaware they are darlings at all until you’re advised to cut them and experience a strong emotional resistance to doing so!
Working with beta readers or an editor may be your first time getting outside feedback on your writing. This can be a very emotional experience, especially after you’ve invested a lot of time and energy into writing your manuscript. If you find yourself having a knee-jerk reaction to disregard their feedback or to think that person doesn’t know what they’re talking about, take a moment to breathe.
Let the feedback settle over the course of a weekend or even a couple weeks. As the emotions settle, you might find some of that feedback sticking with you: criticisms that reveal places where your story isn’t as clear as it could be, comments that inspire you to come up with a solution, and opinions that reveal certain readers aren’t part of your ideal audience. All of this is valuable information.
When reviewing their markups, especially from an editor, consider why they’ve suggested a change. Maybe you decide to keep that instance of a pet phrase, but change it elsewhere. Maybe you have a conversation with them to clarify your intent and brainstorm suggestions for alternate solutions. Maybe you become aware of a writerly “bad habit” that you can now break and grow your writing skills as a result.
Learning how to kill your darlings takes time, effort, and a willingness to get out of your own way. Take what you’ve learned into all your future projects so that you can tackle future revisions with equanimity and an open mind. Developing the ability to sharpen your literary axe will make all of your writing stronger.