The Meaning of Literary Expression “Kill Your Darlings”

William Faulkner is rumored to have coined the literary expression “kill your darlings,” but the expression actually comes from British author Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Born in 1863, the poet/novelist/critic is most famous for publishing the “Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250 – 1900″ and “The Sleeping Beauty and other Fairy Tales from the Old French.”

When describing “style” in his 1916 publication “On the Art of Writing,” Couch argues that “style” is something which “is not—can never be—extraneous ornament.” In an effort to stay on course, he created a practical rule to follow:

‘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.’

“Murder your darlings” has since become “kill your darlings” as attributed to William Faulkner whose famously quoted to have said, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”

Best-seller Stephen King is a big advocate of the “kill your darlings” approach, and discusses it in his book “On Writing,” published in 2000. King advises:

“Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggest cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings)…I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: ‘Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.’”

“If you’ve never done it before, you’ll find reading your book over a six-week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience. It’s yours, you’ll recognize it as yours, even be able to remember what tune was on the stereo when you wrote certain lines, and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else, a soul-twin, perhaps. This is the way it should be, the reason you waited [to read your draft]. It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darlings than it is to kill your own.“

Personally speaking, “kill your darlings” has been a hard pill for me to swallow, and it certainly is an element of my writing I need to work on, maybe much like you are as a writer. For as many issues as I may struggle with believing in and being confident about my writing, there are many times I fall in love with a fragment of something I wrote, and when my writing peers point out that it needs to be cut, well, the truth is I saw it coming, my heart was just hoping it’s instincts were wrong. To kill your darlings gives your polished darlings an opportunity to shine, to be read, to be loved, to make a difference in this world.

I first heard the expression “kill your darlings” during my mid 20s as told during class by a journalism professor of mine. I had never heard the expression before, but fell in love with it as soon as I was explained what it represented. As it was explained to me, the phrase takes life in the heart of our writings, among the filler, in that line or paragraph you wrote that makes your heart swell, that makes you want to boast.

We, as writers, may find ourselves reading our pieces over and over again, in disbelief that we could write such beauty, falling in love with our own work. But much like love of any kind, we sometimes fail to see the truth, blinded by our hearts. In this case, the words, images and emotions we have written on the page, although we may hold them near and dear to our hearts, we must focus on the big picture.

So, for example, while you may think the opening paragraph of the first chapter in  your novel showcases your  writing skills the best, you must recognize that if your editor strikes through that paragraph with a red pen, while it may pain you to see your words bleed on the page, it’s important that can recognize the bigger picture and put those words you wrote, those words you love, to rest. Because, ultimately, it’s not about the writer; it’s about the story, the characters, the message.

Sources: Bartleby.com, EasyWayToWrite.com, WattPad.com, “On Writing” by Stephen King
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