My Dead Darlings

In his book On Writing, Stephen King famously quipped ‘Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings’. What that basically means is that a good writer must be able to look at his or her manuscript with a dispassionate eye and exorcise any superfluous passages, even if it is some of the most beautiful prose you have ever written.

If you haven’t had this problem yet as a writer, you will. Oh, brother, you will. It might be a clever turn of phrase, a vivid metaphor, a piercing line of dialogue or even an entire chapter (or more!) of narrative which you are immensely proud of… but it does nothing to advance the story and therefore, it has to go.

None of us are immune to this phenomenon. I, myself, find myself doing it on almost everything I try to write. So for your enjoyment, I have preserved a few dead darlings from the last few Penstricken posts here, in the hopes that I might also encourage you to kill your darlings without mercy. Your story will thank you for it.

Dead Darlings from ‘How to Make a Spin-Off That Doesn’t Suck‘ (27/11/16):

The biggest change I made in this post was removing a hypothetical Doctor Who spin-off about the life of the Doctor’s archenemy, Davros, which I dubbed The Davros Diaries. I replaced this with Roses Are (Presumed) Dead, not because I thought that was a cleverer idea (because it’s not), but because it allowed me to make my point better.

…perhaps as a tragedy following the events which led him to the insane creator of the Daleks he eventually became (kind of similar to the Star Wars prequels which followed the early life of Darth Vader).

* * *

You may also recall that in this post, I made reference to Wikipedia’s list of TV spin-offs. Well, I had originally included the following paragraph to clarify that my post only related to fiction related spin-offs, even though the list included non-fictional programs too. Really, this whole paragraph was superfluous; it doesn’t take a genius to figure out I never write about non-fiction anywhere on this website. The only reason I wanted to keep this paragraph in was because I was proud of my little Strictly Come Dancing quip but as we all know, even our little quips must be there for a reason. This one, however, clearly served no purpose whatsoever.

Now, if you’ve looked through the list (and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t; it’s a long and tedious read. Believe me, I’ve read it), you will notice that lots of the TV shows on there are actually reality TV, game shows, or other such non-fictional nonsense that we’re not interested in. Whatever I say here only applies to spin-offs of televised fiction so don’t shout at me if you think Strictly Come Dancing is the best darn spin-off you’ve ever seen.

Dead Darlings from ‘A Colourful Approach to Brainstorming‘ (03/12/16)

This post really started out life as a post about low-tech writing tools, and I had planned to write an introductory paragraph about some post-apocalyptic era where our technology will fail us and we will all return to a simpler, purer form of writing. Then I realised I was talking rubbish, and besides, I couldn’t think of more than one or two low-tech writing tools I really wanted to blog about so… these paragraphs became pretty darn useless.

But what about when there is a sudden and total blackout of all power across the entire world? When I finally take my place as rightful Ruler of the Post-Technological Kingdom of Penstrickopia, we won’t have any need for silly little things like the internet, electricity or mobile iThings. No sirree, it will just be you, the great outdoors, your story idea and a bunch of other things, most of which either made of paper or else apply pigment to paper.

* * *

This paragraph was just long winded.

As I’m sure you’re aware, there are millions of fancy apps out there these days that you can get for planning, drafting and editing your novel, your play, your recipe collection or whatever else you feel like writing. They’re brilliant. I love them. In fact, I often blog about a few of my favourites (here, here, here, here and here, for instance). But the tool from my writer’s arsenal which I’m going to talk to you about today isn’t an app for your PC or tablet. It’s a very humble little item which you’re probably already quite familiar with. I know I’ve always had one, though only recently have I come to appreciate the sheer usefulness of it to us writers – particularly when it comes to trying to brainstorm story ideas.

Dead Darlings from ‘On Titles‘ (10/12/16)

You may recall that in this post, I made reference to the ‘Confession of a [optional adjective] [noun]’ style of title that I despise. Well, this was originally going to be a much longer rant. Here’s the excess rant that I was forced to delete (truth be known, I could have probably deleted the whole point but my hatred for this style of title got the better of me):

However, somebody out there clearly disagrees with me. When I searched for ‘Confessions of a’ on the website of a well known chain of book shops, it gave me no less than 113 results, so somebody must think it works as a title: Confessions of a Wild Child, Confessions of a Conjurer, Confessions of a Sociopath, Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man, Confessions of a Tinderella, Confessions of a Teenage Hollywood Star, Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary, Confessions of a Murder Suspect, Confessions of a Sinner, Confessions of a Working Girl, Confessions of a Barrister, Confessions of a Heretic, Confessions of a School Nurse, Confessions of… you get the idea.

* * *

This paragraph was just plain vague. Even I’m not sure exactly where I was going with it. I just liked my quip about Porkies but that is not a good enough reason to keep this otherwise useless paragraph.

One more point on single-world titles: make it a strong word. Something the reader can’t fail to understand. Avoid euphemisms and similar such soft language. Deception is a much better title than Porkies would have been because it’s such an offensive and accusatory word. Porkies, on the other hand, implies telling small, unimportant lies.

Dead Darlings from ‘My Dead Darlings’ (18/12/16)

Get me, I’m so knowledgeable. Goodbye irrelevant William Faulkner reference.

…Stephen King (paraphrasing William Faulkner, it should be noted) famously quipped…

* * *

Feels like I’m repeating myself a bit in this paragraph, doesn’t it?

So I thought, for your enjoyment, I would put a few of my dead darlings on display for you here. Most of these (though not all of them) were written for specific Penstricken posts but ultimately, served no purpose. They had to go. However, I’ve preserved a few of them from the last couple of posts here in the hopes that I might also encourage you, dear writer, of the importance of killing your darlings without mercy. Your story will thank you for it, believe me.

* * *

Alliteration can be used to great effect in writing, but if you’ve already made it clear what you’re planning to do, there’s no need to add in superfluous sentences just to show off your grasp of this relatively simple technique. That’s why this sentence had to go:

Call it a cyber cemetery of dead darlings.

* * *

And yes, I really did commit the very sin I was in the middle of preaching against… 

Alliteration is amazing. It can be used to great effect…