Kill Your Darlings (And Their Unnecessary Cousins, Too)
A Guide to Merciless Storytelling
Writers, we need to have a talk. And it’s not about your caffeine addiction or the fact that you think staring out a window counts as “writing.” No, this is about something far more serious: your bloated, meandering, useless scenes.
Look, I get it. You love that quirky side character who only appears once but delivers a monologue about artisanal cheese. You think that four-page description of the protagonist’s jacket adds necessary depth (looking at you, high fantasy writers). You’re convinced that your subplot about the talking goldfish is secretly genius.
But I have some bad news for you. If it doesn’t serve the story, it needs to go.
BUT FIRST: If anything I say here resonates with you, wonderful, perfect—feel free to incorporate into your process. If, however, you decide I’m full of Grandma June’s Metamucil fruitcake—that’s also wonderful and perfect—thanks for reading and move on with your life.
Story Is King, and You Are Merely Its Loyal (and Merciless) Servant
Your job as a writer isn’t to impress readers with how many words you can fit on a page. Your job is to tell a compelling story. Every scene, every line of dialogue, and every poetic description of a sunset should work toward that goal. If it doesn’t? *Cringe alert, old guy about to use generational slang*
Yeet it into the void.
Now, some of you, especially folks who listened to the early episodes of Harry Strange, may shake your head and saying, ‘but you don’t follow your own advice.’ To that I say, it is easier to know the path than to walk the path. Imagine your story is a party. If a guest (scene, subplot, character) isn’t contributing to the fun, they need to go. Maybe they’re standing in the corner being weird. Maybe they’re loudly explaining why Godfather 3 was the best of the trilogy for the fifteenth time. Either way, if they aren’t making the party better, they are dragging it down: kick them out.
How to Know When It’s Time to Cut
Here’s a simple test:
Does this scene push the story forward? If the answer is no, cut it.
Does it develop a character meaningfully? If not, cut it.
Does it reveal something crucial about the world or plot? If not, you guessed it—CUT IT.
I know, I know. “But what if it’s really funny?” Great. Save it for your stand-up routine. “What if it’s beautifully written?” Cool. Print it out and hang it on your fridge. Seriously, save everything you cut in a folder called Cut Scenes, or whatever you want to call it...I’m not the boss of you. You may find these little scraps useful in a future tale.
If it’s not serving THIS story, it’s just dead weight. And dead weight sinks ships.
But I Worked SO HARD on That Scene!
Of course you did. And it’s beautiful. And I promise you, your story will be better without it. Don’t let your ‘precious words’ clog up your story out of sentimentality. The reader doesn’t care how much effort you put into something. They care if they’re engaged.
In Conclusion: Be Ruthless
Your story is a sleek, powerful sports car. Extra fluff is just junk in the trunk slowing you down. So be merciless. Swing that editorial axe. Kill your darlings. Kill their friends. Kill their third cousins twice removed.
Because the only thing that matters is the story.
Now, go forth and cut. And for the love of all things literary, stop describing that jacket.
Tony Sarrecchia
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