Should You Murder Your Darlings?
Ruthless editing is crucial . . . but not at the cost of your creativity
We’re not talking actual homicide here, let’s get that straight from the outset. Writers may be a weird bunch, but I don’t think running amok with an axe is going to improve our craft. I’m pretty sure of it.
No, we’re talking about cutting the overwriting in our own work — and our frequent inability to spot it in the first place. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t William Faulkner who coined the expression (though he did borrow it); it comes from On the Art of Writing, written in 1916 by a fellow called Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who had this to say:
“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — wholeheartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
Even earlier, Samuel Johnson is reputed to have said, “Read over your compositions, and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.” And this was in the eighteenth century, when I was still at school.
So it’s hardly new advice, and I’m sure you’ve come across it before. But how much heed should we pay it? And should we really cut all those bits on which we worked so selflessly and are so proud…
