Kill Your Darlings

[marycatelli]

I'm back!  From Arisia!  And ready to burble about panels!

This one was writing oriented:  how to recognize and remove the little darlings that are warping the story.  (I arrived a little late from dinner to this one.)

Use a clippings file for one.  Cut it out of the manuscript and put it elsewhere and tell yourself that you will use it in another work.  Even a work intended for it.  (Some of them had actually gone and done that, with another work, but the important thing is to get it out.)

The real fun is perhaps in recognizing what is a darling and what is not.  It can, after all, be anything at all that you like too much to leave out but doesn't really fit.  A character that keeps worming its way into scenes when he's supposed to be minor.  An incident.  Even a phrase or a word, though one panelist preferred to call those "tics".  They recommended serious thought and beta readers.

Comments

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

But never forget when your darling actually has a part to play.

[marycatelli]

A character, plot twist, setting, etc. that is pulling its own weight isn't in the story because it's a darling.