The 99th cut is the deepest
By Kathleen Bolton | March 9, 2009 |
So. Much. Blood.
It gushed from my mouse as it Ctrl X’ed through whole pages. It ran from my fingers over the keyboard. My mechanical pencil hacked through line after line with no mercy and added to the body-count. My heart wept a bit of the precious fluid, too.
Okay, so it was virtual blood, but the point is, this week my workspace was littered with bodies. The dead, oh my lamented little darlings. I gaveth you life, and now I’ve taken it away.
You’d think after all this time, cutting scenes and characters and the odd bits of offal that make it onto the page would be easier. But no. Five books later, it’s every bit as hard as it was when I wrote my first novel, and couldn’t even contemplate cutting anything, let alone a supporting character who popped up to deliver one line of dialogue, never to be heard of again.
The only thing that has gotten easier is making the decision. If you’ve done a mass blood-letting on your little darlings before, you know what I’m talking about. Cut the tumor so that the body might live.
Perhaps you know you need to commit murder soon. But you’re talking yourself out of it. You’re pondering ways to keep that scene full of atmosphere or a really cool passage of dialogue, the one that makes you laugh every time you read it. But you can’t pull the trigger.
Here’s how I become a hitman:
1. Be ruthless. It may be as small as a line of description or an entire chapter, but on an intellectual level, I know it must go. Once the decision is made, I kill quickly. Here’s the thing I learned: the longer you linger over it, trying to make it work, or maybe even writing an entire new scene just to keep the darling alive, you become even more attached to it. You’ve slaved over it; you love it even more now. Make the cut, then tell yourself you’ll sleep on it. It might live again somewhere else. Maybe it’ll be perfect for that next project. Whatever lies you have to tell yourself to get you through it. Chances are, you’ll never use that darling again.
2. Be complete. Again, lesson learned the hard way. In my forthcoming CONFESSIONS OF A FIRST DAUGHTER, the editor wanted to dump a scene for a total re-write. But I really loved that particular scene. The dialogue was hilarious and I seeded a crucial character-building moment in it. But hey, a deadline loomed, so out it went — except for the funny dialogue and the character tag.
The revision notes came back with an “um, this dialogue doesn’t seem to fit and why is the character doing that now?” So I had to cut it all anyway, and I wasted everyone’s time, just to save a darling that should have died long ago.
3. Let it rest. After the deed is done, you’re going to feel wretched. Worse than wretched — panicky that you’ve ruined your entire book.
This is a normal feeling. After all, care and effort were spent in creating the darling in the first place. It’s only right that you should feel bad killing your creative offspring.
I don’t think that I’ve ever gone back digging through my old drafts to resurrect a dead darling once I’ve buried it. In fact, I’ve found that I’ve usually come up with something better to replace the old darling. And after a week, I’ve basically forgotten about the angst because I’m moving on.
There you have it. My tips for committing murder.
Have you ever killed your little darlings? How do you cope with the emotions? What are your tips for making the cut? Have you ever regretted it?
Image by Nichi.
Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She writes under a variety of pseudonyms, including Ani Bolton.
She has written two novels as Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter–both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President’s teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins, and Tamara Blake, for the novel Slumber.
The only cut I’ve ever regretted was the one that I replaced with a LONGER scene. Ugh. And by cut, I cut, as in not to be found again. Lesson learned. Great article. Thanks.
I’ve not only murdered darlings, I once committed mass darling genocide by killing an entire 400-page script and starting over from page one.
Painful. Necessary.
Thanks for the post, Kath!
I’ve never had difficulty in killing off characters/random scenes/etc., etc.. I guess I’m lucky!
I’ve made the same mistake, GV, and I guess you only make it once!
Oh, you lessen my pain with this post! I’ve been going through a major rewrite on a MS and know some chopping is ahead of me to get the word count right. I’m already cringing at the thought. It’s not that I haven’t done it before, I’m just more vested in this particular MS right now. Already certain scenes and moments of dialogue are being tossed around as potential murder victims. Thanks for the reassurance that everything will be alright. Now if there was only a way to numb a writer’s emotions when it came time to do the deed.
Great post! Thank you.
Personally, I find it easier to kill my darlings by first removing them to another file… where they still get live, just not in the sunlight. ; )
I tell myself that I’m just looking at the scene without them, and I can always put them back if I need to…
I also might keep a primary edition of the m/s (or the chapter or the scene)somewhere else, and then play -slice, dice, murder and otherwise attempt to improve – the section in front of me.
It’s worth noting that I very rarely ever go back to the original. I can’t say I ever have even re-used the amputated text, but it is certainly easier to get ruthless knowing I have the option to knit it back together.
You are so ruthless, Kathleen! But you’re so right. It must be done.
It’s the nature of the business and we’re all subjected to it during their literary career. Whether it is to meet a specific word count or to remove segments that might drag the story down, it’s best to do it quickly than try to rework it.
I tend to do what Vic does. If there is a segment that must be cut, I’ll copy and paste to another folder. My memory is so bad, I know I’ll never remember what it was about that piece that appealed to me. This way, I might find another home for it later and it usually ends up revised and improved.
I always tell aspiring authors that writing the story is easy. Editing is the hard part! Thank you for sharing!
I, too, have what I call a “fragment file” where I dump the corpses. It certainly is easier to butcher knowing you may call them down from their purgatory at some point. But I’m like you all, my memory is so bad I forget about them.
Whatever it takes to do the dirty deed!
Make the cut, then tell yourself you’ll sleep on it. It might live again somewhere else. Maybe it’ll be perfect for that next project. Whatever lies you have to tell yourself to get you through it.
This is going on my monitor. :)