A little less murdering, maybe?

The phrase ‘kill your darlings’ originated with a British writer, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who said, in 1916:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”

That phrase was picked out and adjusted by the worse-named but more famous William Faulkner who said,

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”

Now, a few observations to start with:

1. Why did all British writers of a certain generation have names like Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch – and why on earth was I not issued with one of them?

2. The phrase does seem to be a particularly bloodthirsty one to use when your country is right in the middle of the bloodiest way it’s ever fought. Maybe chill a little, dude?

3. Faulkner’s version of the phrase is better than Q-C’s. The one-syllable click of ‘kill’ works better than ‘murder’ when laid against the two-syllable ‘darlings’. Maybe that explains why WF is more famous even though he’s got an obviously worse name.

4. While we’re on the topic of names, I feel obliged to point out that Sir Arthur Q-C also had a better moustache than WF, although both men put in a jolly decent effort. Well done to both. I’d say the two men were evenly matched in the matter of pipe-smoking.

But here’s a bigger observation:

5. The phrase is bullshit, no? I mean it’s  fur-lined, ocean-going, gold-plated, 36-carat, spit-and-polish nonsense. 

I never kill my darlings. I look after them.

This is my policy as a proud family man. (Number of children born: 4. Number of children so far slaughtered: 0.)

But it’s also my policy as a writer. If you write a great scene, keep it. If you have a good joke, retain it. If you nail a descriptive sentence, hang on to it.

Yes, a lot of deletion will happen in your work. And the more inexperienced you are, the greater the ratio of deletion to final output. But killing darlings is not really the way to do it.

In practice, I think there are two or three real guidelines that apply when it comes to deleting your material.

1. Compact is always better

It’s pretty much inevitable that if your first draft just spins productively off your pen, that plenty of what you’ve written can be made more compact. Sometimes, that’ll be a 12 word sentence that you can turn into a 9 word sentence (that says the exact same thing.) Other times, there’ll be a para that can lose a sentence. Or a chapter ending that offers a page of farewell, when really a single paragraph will do.

There are inevitably opportunities like this throughout your text and you should take them all. Perhaps the single most dependable, most surprising, most effective editing tool at your disposal is simply deleting the unnecessary. It still astonishes me quite how much deleting text can improve a manuscript. Everything gets better. A dull chapter becomes a good one. A soggy book becomes a propulsive one.

2. Delete more than you think

This is especially true for newer writers. I’d say most manuscripts that come through our doors for editing are at least 20% too long. 30% is perfectly common. And even if your manuscript is only 10% too long, that could easily mean that you have 10,000 words that really don’t want to be there.

Set your sights high when it comes to eliminating surplus. And bear in mind that the goal here is mostly to eliminate word count whilst communicating exactly the same thing as you did before. You want the same narrative power, but delivered with fewer words.

3. Some of your text will have been direction-finding

When you’re writing your first draft, a lot of what you do will have been effectively probing around on a misty mountain at night, searching for the right path forward.

That’s fine. We’re not issued with a very precise map at the start of writing, and even if we have pre-planned everything to the last detail, those plans may need amendment.

So your way – my way, anyone’s way – to resolve that uncertainty is just to write. We throw in a bit of this, a bit of that, see what sticks. When we find the way forward, we take it. That’s absolutely the right policy.

But when you come back to your manuscript, you need to find the bits of it which were just casting about for direction.

With those bits, you mustn’t think, “Hmm, how can I make this more compact?” You need to think, “Yeah, I just don’t need any of this, do I?”

It’s never as simple as just Select-Delete. There are always dabs of crucial information that you need to replant somewhere. There are joins to smooth. Character insights to adjust.

But roughly: direction-finding text will be baggy and useless. Your aim is to knock down the whole unnecessary structure, then do what you need to do to make good afterwards.

But killing darlings?

Nope. I don’t do that in my family. And I don’t do that with my text. I rather suggest that you wax your moustache, fill your pipe – and love your darlings.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Delete, delete, delete

Once more, there are two FF options this week. One for those taking the Plan Your Romance Novel video course, one not.

Plot Your Romance Novel video course task: Write a final 400-word pitch for the romance novel you would like to write. Your pitch should include: The type of romance (sub-genre), the central premise of the story, the key trope or tropes, the spice level and your reader promise. When you’re ready, post your work in the forum.

General task: Find a 300 word passage in your text and cut it down. Your aim is to have the text say, essentially, the same thing as it said before, but with fewer words. I’m not going to be impressed unless you cut at least 30 words, and really, you’re going to try for 50+. When you’re ready, upload your work here.

Til soon. 

Harry