Kill Your Darlings !!link!! -

For those unfamiliar with the phrase, "kill your darlings" is a piece of advice famously attributed to William Faulkner and later popularized by Stephen King. It means that, as creatives, we must be willing to let go of the parts of our work that we're most attached to, even if they're not working. It means being ruthless, objective, and honest with ourselves about what's truly serving the story, the art, or the message.

The writer who never kills darlings produces a cabinet of curiosities—lovely, intricate, and ultimately useless for the task of moving a reader from page one to page end. The writer who kills indiscriminately produces cold, sterile prose. The master walks the line, sparing a darling only when it serves the whole, and slaughtering it without mercy when it serves only itself. Kill Your Darlings