Kill All Your Darlings?

In today’s Journal

* Unbelievable Quote of the Day
* The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
* Kill All Your Darlings?
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Unbelievable Quote of the Day

“South Korea announces it will restart loudspeaker broadcasts of anti-North Korea messages over the border following North Korea’s delivery of an additional 330 trash- and sewage-filled balloons into South Korea ” 1440 Daily Digest

Now children! (Seems to me somebody needs to grow the hell up.)

The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting

A new writer jumped into the Challenge this week. Everyone welcome Vanessa V. Kilmer. (grin)

During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported their progress:

• Vanessa V. Kilmer “Whisper Down the Lane” 3,567 Murder Mystery
• George Kordonis “Flycatcher” 2561 Suspense
• Adam Kozak “A Walk to Trafalgar” 3615 Magical Realism

Congratulations to all who are still in the midst ofthe  battle. The Bradbury Challenge is a great deal of fun, PLUS it drives you to the keyboard at least once a week, PLUS you’ll add to your inventory without really even thinking about it.

And right here in the Journal, you have a place to report your progress and maybe the best cheerleader this side of the Atlantic. Well, except those in Dallas. They’re pretty good. (grin)

Kill All Your Darlings?

Or “On the Dubious, Misunderstood Advice to ‘Kill All Your Darlings'”

A very long time ago, when everyone who put himself forward as a serious fiction writer was

• widely read, and
• had already achieved a solid grounding in the “rules” of grammar and punctuation and
• had a firm grasp of the nuances and rhythms of language,

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

The attribution of that infamous quote to Faulkner is according to Pamela Ehrens in “The Joys of Trimming” (May 12, 2014, New York Times). (See Of Interest.)

And Faulkner did write that.

But I should also mention here that according to Book Architecture (again, see Of Interest), “Faulkner got [his ‘kill all your darlings’ quote] from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch: ‘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.’”

And according to writer John Crowley (“Spare the Darling,” Harper’s Magazine, c. 2024) (again, see Of Interest), Faulkner meant “kill all your darlings” as sound advice, “suggesting that the process of self-editing (cycling) requires stoicism and the suppression of a natural affection” for what you’d written.

Ah. So that’s a little different then.

Still, the quote is often repeated without that part about self-editing and employing stoicism. Plus, times have changed. Dramatically.

Today, especially with the advent and growth of digital publishing and the ongoing revolt against the gatekeepers of traditional publishing, only a fairly small percentage of fiction writers have that necessary grounding in the rules of grammar and punctuaion and that grasp of the nuances and rhythms of the language.

And I suspect a considerably small percentage of fiction writers read at all.

Of course, that unfortunate situation is reversible.

Fiction writers can always begin reading fiction other than their own, and they can always learn those important bedrock bits of the craft, even if they come late to the knowledge that understanding them is important to writing good fiction.

But many simply won’t.

Many would rather look for the “quick buck” to be made writing fiction. (It doesn’t exist.) Some of those are even blatantly plagiarizing earlier works, “generating” “new” works with so-called artificial intelligence (AI), and then hurling it at a wall in the hopes some of it will stick and be something.

Of course, those are not writers at all. At best they are “prompters,” and (whispered quietly but angrily) thieves.

But forgive the digression.

Even among actual fiction writers, many would rather listen to and bandy-about tired, worn-out clichés like “Show, don’t tell” and “Kill all your darlings” without ever knowing or bothering to understand what those clichés actually mean.

And so, today, Faulkner’s very sound advice to “kill all your darlings” has become not only dubious but misunderstood. Sorely.

Why?

The advice is dubious because it’s far too general, painting all fiction—ALL of it—with a brush that is exponentially far too wide.

And the advice as it’s offered today by lazy would-be writing instructors, members of critique groups, and others is also sorely misunderstood, even by those who pass it around so freely.

And to make matters worse, those who propagate it usually do so with a smugness generally reserved for an original utterance.

I’ve often wondered how many good stories have been ruined by that bit of ridiculous advice.

I’ve also noticed that those who belch-up that acid-ridden advice seldom offer to expand on it—other than to say something inane like “If you love it, cut it”—or to offer any concrete examples. That alone should send up a red flag for writers.

I freely admit to loving a lot of the words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs that pop into the stories I write. Primarily because they came directly from the folks who are actually living the story.

I also love almost every opening I’ve ever written, and almost every hook, and almost every cliffhanger.

For a fiction writer, what’s not to love about a hook like, “Of the three wingback chairs in my library, only one is upholstered in human skin. There’s a reason for that.”

With those two sentences, the potential reader either wants to continue or is absolutely certain the book is not for him. For me, that’s a win-win.

Likewise I love almost every short, terse, dramatic sentence or paragraph and almost every longer, emotion-laden sentence or paragraph.

So if I “killed (deleted)” all my “darlings” by the typically offered definition of darlings (i.e. words, phrases, etc. that you love) I’d spend a lot of time staring at a mostly blank page.

I’d rather go fishing.

All of that said, I can only offer my own translation regarding what Faulkner’s advice once meant, albeit in today’s terms:

If something you’ve written in a story is a “darling”— meaning it’s something you personally love—check in with your ego.

That check will reveal whether you love it because the character suprised you with it or whether you love it because it somehow showcases your own wit or literary brilliance.

If the former, keep it. Period.

If the latter—if it’s something you, the author, an outsider, shoehorned into the story—it’s an author intrusion. And in that case, it most definitely should be cut.

Just as you should cut any other author intrusions.

After all, the story you’re putting on the page—and recording for posterity—is not YOUR story. It’s the story of the characters who are living it.

“But—but characters don’t really exist!”

Yes, Grasshopper, they do.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

The Joys of Trimming

Spare the Darling

Kill All Your Darlings (Book Architecture)

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 1150

Writing of When the Owl Calls (novel)

Day 1…… 1884 words. To date…… 1884
Day 2…… 3699 words. To date…… 5583
Day 3…… 2086 words. To date…… 7669
Day 4…… 3167 words. To date…… 10836
Day 5…… 4011 words. To date…… 14847
Day 6…… 1724 words. To date…… 16571
Day 7…… 1633 words. To date…… 18204
Day 8…… 1378 words. To date…… 19582
Day 9…… 2332 words. To date…… 21914
Day 10…. 2038 words. To date…… 23952
Day 11…. 1960 words. To date…… 25912
Day 12…. 2157 words. To date…… 28069
Day 13…. 2122 words. To date…… 30191
Day 14…. 2254 words. To date…… 32445
Day 15…. 1594 words. To date…… 34039
Day 16…. 3976 words. To date…… 38015
Day 17…. 2227 words. To date…… 40242 (done)

Fiction for June…………………….….… 20660
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 361257
Fiction since October 1………………… 664314
Nonfiction for June……………………… 9740
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 193370
2024 consumable words……………… 554627

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 8
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 90
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 239
Short story collections…………………… 29

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies, and they will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

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