The most useful and heartbreaking advice I've read about writing is a quote attributed to writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch that goes: "Murder your darlings". (It's also known as a William Faulkner quote that is a gentler "kill all your darlings".
It's brutal, but subtle and easily misunderstood, or, in the case of especially beautiful darlings, easy to ignore "this one time". The advice applies to those ornate passages you know in your gut should go, but can't bear to kill because of how exquisite they are, or how intelligent they make you sound.
Sparing those misty-eyed darlings is tempting, but readers rarely share the writer's infatuation, and find these literary ramblings tiresome and self-indulgent. The story must be told, and nothing should get in its way. Too many darlings, and the book will be shut with a slap. (Though some crusty old writers-let's not name names-get away with book-fuls of loved ones crying out for a good cull).
Recently I went through a story I'd written, with a hard heart and ready axe-hand, and by the end was left with less than a rag, a bone and a hank of hair. But I rebuilt from there, refusing to surrender to temptation, and found for the first time in my life I had a story, and not a static, egotistical "word painting". At last, I understood those rejection slips.
Excellent advice
However, killing your darlings, though excellent advice, can go too far. Following the rule tightens every story and streamlines it in a very American fashion. (It's probably the topic for an entire book as to why a people as voluble as the Americans love and create literature that's so spare.) But spareness, if you're not Hemingway, often removes the tics and flourishes that make a writer unique, and there are too many lean, beautiful short stories out there that sound as if they are all written by the same MFA graduate.
"Did you read about the writer who murdered his wife?" asked my own wife shortly after I told her about the theme of this article. I fell neatly into it. "No, I didn't. Where?"
"He killed his darlings," she said with a cackle, and vanished.
That made me wonder, if life informs your writing, could writing, or the rules of it, inform your life? What could I learn from killing darlings-apart from making sure my wife never told jokes again? There are other useful rules: "trust your gut", for example, is easy to remember in life, but easy to forget at the writing table. Another great one from screenwriting, "get into a scene late and leave early", taken literally could get you fired.
But at their essence, these rules are a call for simplicity; for doing things without ego and with respect for other people's time and intelligence.
If a writer gets into a scene late and leaves early he or she is trusting the audience to fill in the background that led to the moment, and letting them finish the scene for themselves. Think of the joy in the office if you brought that thinking into meetings. Or if you followed it when you met new people: if you were warm and open (enter late), and knew when to stop talking and listen (leave early).
And what of the darlings in your life? Everybody has a different one: the giant TV, or the fondness for rich food, or the all-consuming need for fashion. What would editing these flourishes from your life bring you? Most important, if you decide your life has too many of these materialistic darlings, will you be brave enough to murder them?
Gautam Raja is a journalist based in the US.
