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Heard a writing teacher say 'kill your darlings' wrong for years
I was at a open mic reading in Portland last month and this older author stood up and said 'kill your darlings' doesn't mean cut your favorite lines. She said it means cut the stuff you're too attached to even if it drags the story down. Made me think about a 300 word description of a sunset I've been holding onto in my fantasy novel. Now I'm wondering what else I'm keeping just because I like the sound of it. Anyone else reinterpret a common writing tip way later than you should have?
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irisg5712d ago
Wait, a 300 word description of a sunset?! That's... wow. I mean I get being attached to writing you're proud of but that's basically a whole short story just about the sky changing colors. I once spent an entire week on a single paragraph describing a character's garden and felt sick when my critique group said it slowed the whole chapter down. It's wild how we can hear the same advice a hundred times but it doesn't click until someone says it in just the right way. Now I'm side-eyeing my own novel wondering what other pretty sentences are just dead weight I'm too in love to cut.
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