Taking a Machine Gun to Your Darlings

The harshest advice any writer has to heed is that you must occasionally kill your darlings. And trust me: It’s a murder that hurts to the core.

Every so often, you’re going to find yourself in a situation where you’re going to write something you really, really love. And then realize that it really, really doesn’t work for what you’re writing. You’re going to have to figure out what to do with it and no matter what you decide it’s going to hurt: You’re either going to have to put it away in a dungeon, possibly to never to see light again, or send it to oblivion. Neither choice is easy.

Be Vicious

This is just part of the craft and you’ve got to learn how to edit yourself, but sometimes editing can hurt. You’re going to write something that’s going to fall into one of three categories:
 

1) You’ve got this really great chapter that has a really great flow and there’s some really great stuff going on in the chapter. But the chapter just doesn’t go with the rest of the project.

2) All of a sudden, you find out that you keep hitting writer’s block after writer’s block, and it all comes back to the same particular character, place, or item. It looks fine, and you like it, but you’re having problems proceeding.

3) The project you’re working on just totally sucks. The writing is pretty decent, but your heart just isn’t in it. The project isn’t right for you, you just don’t like the project, or there’s just some reason you’re having problems getting into it as much as you would like.

How To Handle It

Don’t stress; this happens to all writers all the time. When it does happen, you have three options:
 

1) Just delete the writing. No muss, no fuss: Just select it and hit backspace. Send it to oblivion and put it out of your mind. You may regret the time spent, but look at it as getting a bad idea out of your system; life is too short for regrets. You’ve gotten the idea out of your system and now it’s time to get serious.

2) Save it to a different file. The neat thing about computers is that we can cut, paste, and save things for when we really need them. Sometimes this is the best solution, especially if the text you’ve written can be used as the seed for something else. However, try to do this only for the most promising of seeds. Otherwise, you’re going to end up with a ridiculously huge file that’s just going to cause you stress later on.

3) Figure out what’s going on and deal with it. You shouldn’t look at this as wasted time as it actually helps you try something just to see what would have happened. You need to go through and figure out exactly what the problem is, be it a character or situation or arc or it’s just not something you like. Once you figure out the situation kill it or save it but do something to get it out of the way and move on.

It’s A Relationship!

Look at it like any other relationship: Sometimes your relationship is going to hit bumps in the road and you need to decide if the relationship is worth continuing or if it’s worth fighting for. If it’s toxic dump it, if you can save it, and if you need to eliminate it. I know it sounds strange, but just like a relationship there’s an emotional investment and you need to decide if you’re going to invest further in the relationship or if it would be better to just cut it off.

You’ve just got to realize that sometimes things just aren’t going to work out. It needs a working relationship: No matter how great the person is all relationships have their issues occasionally and you need to decide if the drama is worth it.

And just like every other relationship, there will be some emotional feedback. Sometimes you will be relieved at removing the problem, sometimes you’ll need a bucket of ice cream. You did just end an intense relationship, however short, so don’t be afraid to engage in whatever ritual you feel is appropriate, be it getting a drink or lighting a candle. Yeah, some are going to look at your strangely when they see you lighting yet another candle, but forget about them; this about you not them.

But you need to realize that killing your darlings is part and parcel of the job. Sometimes you need to make hard decisions in order to create the best possible writing, choices that you don’t like but need to be made anyway. Just remember to be merciful and you should be okay.