All scenes must further character or plot
“In writing, you must kill your darlings.” - William Faulkner
One of the first entries in a Google search for this quote is a blog post by writer Wendy Palmer. The shorter version: the quote is misdirected because an author shouldn’t delete writing just because she likes it.
The quote’s not misdirected. The analysis is.
In fiction, every scene must further develop plot or character. If it doesn’t, no matter how good the writing is, it needs to be excised.
I know how difficult this can be. Trust me. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t gone back and started rewriting my first novel. The whole middle section needs to be cut out, examined, and maybe pieces of it can be fit back into the whole. Though not likely. A tough decision? You bet. There’s a scene in a parking garage that’s some of the best writing I’ve ever done. Still, it does little in its current form to further plot. It does help some with characterization, but not enough to make it count. So it’ll have to go, or I’ll have to write it over from scratch.
That’s what it means to kill your darlings. If you’ve worked at all on the craft of writing, you can probably string some words together and make them sound good. You’ve probably developed an idea about language’s rhythm and riff well, sentence to sentence. So even if you’re blindly flinging words on the page, you’re bound to luck out from time to time and make something really excellent. The big question? Whether or not you care enough about the craft to send those bits to the recycle bin.
