On Murdering 22,000 Darlings
By David Corbett | May 14, 2021 |
One learns a lot about one’s writing habits—and oneself—when cutting almost 19 percent of a manuscript, paring it from 119,000 words (476 pages) to 97,000 words (409 pages).
Mind you, this wasn’t a first draft—it had been reviewed twice by a Zoe Quinton, a developmental editor I very much respect and trust (and whom I interviewed here at Writer Unboxed). After our work together, she said:
“SO well done. I’m blown away by the amount of work you did, and how well you integrated all the pieces together to form a truly stunning, gripping whole. I loved every minute of it, and nearly cried at the end, even knowing what the basic setup would be. You’ve got a hell of a book here, one of the best I’ve ever worked on. Bravo.”
Once I began submitting to agents, however, with the exception of two agents I’ll discuss shortly, I either heard nothing back or got the seldom helpful, “Not for me, good luck with it elsewhere.” The two agents who provided some feedback said two very different but very helpful things. (It’s currently under submission with two other agents, one of who seems particularly receptive.)
The first of the two agents who provided notes complimented my writing but remarked that my use of a gay, bi-racial (Cambodian/African American) woman main character made the book virtually impossible to sell in today’s cultural environment given the #mystory movement.
The second agent, despite liking a great deal about the book, comparing it at one point to American Gods, felt a lack of “narrative urgency” in the writing.
In discussing all this with Zoe, she responded that my female character’s sexuality and race had raised no reds flags for her, and she is sensitive to such things. She also found comparing the book to American Gods then bemoaning a lack of narrative urgency puzzling, as Neil Gaiman’s novel is hardly a full-throttle page turner, but shares some of the philosophical, mythical, and historical texture of my book.
Let me be clear: I in no way fault Zoe for the extensive post-edit rewrite I ended up conducting. Her job was to read the book, note its shortfalls as she saw them, help me correct them, while at the same time being conscientious of what she saw as my voice, my style, and the type of book I seemed to want to be writing—a big, sprawling, dystopian journey covering a great deal of the American landscape with a mythical backdrop.
But given my respect for the two agents who gave me notes, I felt obliged to pay attention to what they were telling me.
On reflection, making my female main character Irish-American and heterosexual not only didn’t present an overwhelming obstacle, it actually made better sense. The story concerns how a book she slaved over—a class project for a professor who was also her lover—got stolen from her when she went into an emotional tailspin after the professor cruelly broke things off. The book she created concerned Irish myth—which makes a heck of a lot more sense with someone of Irish heritage.
I wrote the character as originally conceived because the story takes place during a race war here in the U.S., and she represents exactly the multicultural/multi-racial component to our country that I want to champion and defend. But I realized I simply had to find other ways to make that point.
So that part of the rewrite seemed straightforward. Once I began reworking that aspect of the story, however, I began to realize that the other agent was also correct.
There was simply far too much needless description, excessive commentary, and just plain clutter, along with unnecessary or dramatically flat scenes—all of which I had slaved over, but which I now saw as in need of serious rewriting or just the old heave-ho.
And the more I cut, the more I comfortable I got with the paring. And the more comfortable I got with trimming, the more alert I became to what qualified for removal.
In his writing guide Best Words, Best Order, the poet and novelist Stephen Dobyns talks about honesty in the context of recognizing what is necessary and what is unnecessary in a piece of writing. He describes how, when several of his early mysteries were reissued and he had a chance to revisit them, he became dismayed at how much excess writing they contained, and was happy to have the chance to cut some of that away. He’d tried very hard to make the originals as lean as possible, and at the time believed he’d done so, but clearly he’d also allowed himself some puffery he now recognized as self-indulgent.
He concluded that he had not been entirely honest with himself about what really needed to be there, and instead gave in to the impulse to allow himself some “fine writing” that, on rereading, stuck out like a sore thumb.
It’s sometimes said that writing problems are personal problems—i.e., whatever mistakes you make in your writing often reflect personal faults you may or may not be aware of.
As I worked through this last rewrite, I came to realize that I too had not been honest enough. I habitually overwrite, and it should be something I recognize and correct before submission. But I had been impatient, impulsive, self-indulgent, and more willing to listen to the praise of others than my own nagging doubts.
Overwriting is hardly an uncommon problem. When writing our initial drafts, we’re discovering the story for ourselves, fleshing out the logical contingencies that make the story plausible, describing places and people in great detail to make sure we’re not overlooking something. Often, in the days after writing a scene, we’ll realize we’ve missed something—a nuance, a subtlety, a contradiction—and will go back and fill it in.
When returning to the text for a rewrite, however, much of that exploration proves to be excessive, and determining how little is necessary to convey what we intend—succinctly, powerfully, dramatically—is one of the key focus points of competent revision.
I don’t believe editors, certainly not developmental editors, can reliably perform this work for us. One reason for that is their desire not to undermine what they believe is the writer’s voice. (To paraphrase Hemingway, they confuse our mistakes for our style.)
We are the ones who truly know—or should know—what the story is about and what’s necessary to pull it off. And we need to be brutally honest about that.
Now, when revising what’s been overwritten, it’s also important not to overcorrect. The dictum “Less is more,” deserves the adjunct, “unless it’s not enough.” On one or two occasions—but no more than that—I ended up reinserting something I thought I could cut, only to realize upon re-reading that the trimmed-down result was unclear.
The final edit of a story or novel requires an unflinching devotion to walking that fine line between just enough to avoid confusion and more than necessary to create the desired effect. There are also some simple, tactical matters that need to be faced squarely in the need of economy, simplicity, and clarity, especially in the realm of dialogue, speech tags, transitions, descriptions, and chapter endings.
The point is reader engagement, and excess writing not only tests readers’ patience by forcing them to wallow through needless verbiage, it also all too often overexplains, making too explicit what they want to infer for themselves.
It’s important to realize that often it’s by not saying something that we allow subtext to make the point for us, and the inference of meaning from subtext is one of the great joys of reading.
I had hoped to give examples of what I cut and why, but this post is already long enough. (How sadly apropos it would be to overwrite a post on overwriting.) I will save those examples for next month’s post.
Is your principle difficulty with writing overwriting or underwriting. If the former, how comfortable are you with murdering your darlings? If the latter, what do you look for to flesh the story out further.
To what extent would you say your writing problems reflect personal problems?
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
Hi David! There’s so much that is valuable and relatable in this post, which brings to mind another fine line the previously published must walk: the line between original intention and what can get published. Our stories spring from a deeply personal place, yet if we are seeking traditional publication in a difficult market (hello, 2021), we also have to be willing to meet its current demands (grip my throat and don’t let go!). Doing so may or may not make it a better book, but at least you’ll have a book. What are we willing to forsake? When do “improvements” start impinging on its essential nature?
Like you, I think of submission as a learning process. If changing the ethnic background of the protagonist was a simple swap, her ethnicity wasn’t all that integral to the story, so good call. But at some point we have to face what every commercial artist in history has faced: when does your edgy ballad become a jingle? When does your statement about color become something that matches the couch pillows? When does your thought-provoking novel become so fast-paced it will be consumed in one sitting and forgotten tomorrow?
Over the six years I’ve been out of print, topped off by a pandemic that’s asked us to adapt beyond the extent of normal flexibility, this is the deeply personal problem that’s become my writing problem: how much of me can I give away and still feel like me?
Hi Kathryn:
Talk about a lot to unpack — your comment alone could launch a comment thread all its own.
I don’t think Georgie (my female main character) being mixed race and gay was mere decoration. As I said, she represents the multi-ethnic non-hetero woman currently the target of a great deal of hatred in this country, and her being that target created no small amount of tension in the story.
My editor, Zoe, also resisted the change because she felt making her white and straight removed one of the strong suits of the novel, her contrast to my male protagonist, Shane.
But when you hit a brick wall, continuing to bang away just gets you bloody. And though I think something is lost, something is gained not just in the novel being more publishable. The logic of her obsession with the old Celtic tales certainly seems more natural. So I just dug in there — deciding to go under the wall rather than keep trying to plow through it (to torture the original metaphor).
As for when does our edgy ballad become a jingle (great phrase, btw): I think the end result truly was stronger. I’ll show some of what I cut next month–some of it sadly excellent (maybe I can use it elsewhere, he jokes). But what remains is still pretty powerful IMHO.
We shall see, said the blind man (then he put down his hammer and saw).
Last, regarding the current publishing marketplace: I recently read somewhere that things are speeding up at an exponential, not linear rate, to the point there are now services that provide summaries of book summaries. People watch TV at 1.5 speed instead of 1.0, the intended “natural” speed. We seem to have reached a point where the idea or the impression of something is good enough, the something itself is needlessly time-consuming. I have no answer for that. But one of the other things I do when I revise is not just cut words but cut paragraphs into smaller bites, precisely for the sake of pacing (and increasing the amount of white space on the page). We live in an ADD world. Adapt or die.
Thanks for the great comment.
Slightly off topic, David, but inspired by your remark about how things are speeding up.
I watched Grey’s Anatomy during its early seasons, then lost interest when most characters left and were replaced, the hospitals merged, and the story lines changed. After a few years of avoiding the show. I tuned in out of curiosity and was startled by how much the dialogue and action had accelerated. Top speed, frenetic mood, shorter scenes, quicker cuts back and forth.
The application to our writing can’t be avoided. As you point out, adapt or die (I say this as one with a firm diagnosis of ADD who loves long leisurely novels and biographies; is mine a dying tribe?).
I just wrote a lengthy response to your marvelous comment, Kathryn, and it seems to have vanished. I’m typing this as a test to see if it also disappears. Hang with me.
Exactly, Kathryn and more,
Since when does the term *Killing your darlings* mean changing your protagonist from gay/bi woman of color to straight white woman?
Okay, my bad for using the same phrase to describe two completely different and unrelated editing tasks. But the one led to the other, i.e., the focus required for the change of protagonist prompted a much closer reading of everything else, and it was only then the benificent slaughter began.
As a white lesbian, I was relieved you changed your protagonist to better match your own experience (white and heterosexual). If she had been a minor character, your original characterization would have been fine, but I think there are some leaps in protagonist characterizations that are too vast to be successful. I know this gets us into a gray area of how far from one’s own experience a writer can leap. It has been my experience that lesbians are not well understood in the mainstream. When the movie Carol came out, many people were thrilled that a gay man was chosen to direct the film. It made no sense to me. And the result was a movie that emphasized the hallmarks of the era–the clothes, the cars, the habits like smoking–instead of delving deeply into the main characters’ conflicts and desires. Believe me, when Cate Blanchett is in a sex scene and I am bored, you know something has gone terribly wrong. LOL. I appreciated how open you were to changing something that seemed huge to you at the time. Good luck with your book. By the way, I enjoyed your seminar at the WU conference and always enjoy your posts.
HI, Sheree:
In the end I’m glad I changed my main character as well, but the most comfortable aspect about her for me personally was her being gay.
My brother, John, was gay, and grew up in Columbus, Ohio when being gay was incredibly painful. He died of AIDS in 1989 at age 39, and I miss him profoundly.
I have a personal dictum: I do not portray a class of people which doesn’t include people I love — not just know, love.
I wrote of African Americans because of clients my late wife had who became family during a very difficult time in their lives.
I fell in love with a Salvadoran woman which prompted me to write both Blood of Paradise and Do They Know I’m Running?
My late wife’s best friend is gay, and she was not only my most reliable ally as my wife was dying but my best friend in the aftermath.
I get that it’s easy to make terrible misjudgments about such matters even with the best of intentions and close personal acquaintance. But I also believe that if we cannot depict characters based on people we love, what can we write about?
I understand the power dynamics, and white men need to take a step back and brutally examine their own often unconscious sense of privilege to do and say whatever they want. I don’t believe I was doing that, but I get that the question is legitimate.
In the end, it was the mixed race issue that convinced me to change. Although I had spoken with a woman who works with Cambodian refugees and their children — who face very different problems — I lacked that personal, intense connection that normally would have justified my portrayal.
I violated my own code in service to a theme — the targeting of POC and LGBTQ+ people in the current culture war. As legitimate as that theme is, it still requires the kind of personal commitment to emotional truth I’ve tried to observe in those earlier books. As I said, my editor not only approved but encouraged me to stick with Georgie as originally conceived. But I recognized the need for the change, and acted accordingly.
Who knows if it will make the book more marketable. I’ve never written a book so hard to get right. We shall see.
You wrote: “I have a personal dictum: I do not portray a class of people which doesn’t include people I love — not just know, love.”
In theory, I would agree with you. If you know someone well, you should be able to represent their experiences well. In practice, I think it is not easily done. I loved the book American Dirt, but it was panned by Mexican women for relying on stereotypes and not digging deeper into the real psyche of what it meant to be a Mexican mother and her son on the run. As a White American, I had no idea this was NOT an accurate depiction of a Mexican mother and her son. So too with The Help. It is still one of my favorite books of all time, but Black women don’t agree. Viola Davis said making the movie was one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She felt it didn’t begin to accurately depict the lives of Black maids in the south in the sixties. And to your point, the author lived with and loved such a maid for all of her young life. It seemed to this white woman (me), the author knew her material well.
The bottom line for me in this discussion of depicting someone outside one’s lived experience, is that it is not up to the writer to say if she/he can write about a group outside of his/her lived experience; it is up to the group that is being written about. They will know if it rings true or not.
Stephen King resents all this talk of whether we can write from other points of view, and asks what do we have imaginations for if not to depict people other than ourselves? A good point, but he does not understand what it is like to be written about inaccurately or off-point. I can feel like appropriation.
David, this post is so timely for me. I am struggling with a short story (fantasy fairy tale) in the final stages of the revisions after about 7 beta readers and a content editor. Things that I cut originally I’ve now put back in for clarity, characterization, motivation, etc. This kind of back and forth feels like madness sometimes. I tend to underwrite in early drafts as the story keeps emerging during endless revisions. Your point about subtext is important. I never know if the subtext reaches the readers adequately, mostly because readers (beta readers, editors, even agents) read at different levels of subtext. What one beta read gets, the content editor missed entirely. Do you let the subtext evolve organically from the characters and story, or do you create the subtext deliberately? Your thoughts on this?
How much subtext is enough? Boy, there’s a head-scratcher. The fact one of your readers (I personally hate the term “beta” readers — diminishes them — and who the heck is an alpha reader?) got what you were implynig but not saying means you conveyed it. The fact your content editor didn’t confirms my suspicion that some people simply shouldn’t be in publishing.
And yeah, the back and forth can be maddening. And it’s not as though ultimately deciding what to do renders us sane. Sometimes too many cooks really do spoil the broth.
As for how to “insert” subtext: since I overwrite, it’s usually already there. I just need to excise all the explanatory blather that renders it overly obvious. The subtext is usually based in the hidden or unstated motivations and justifications of the characters for what they’re saying and doing, but either they don’t know it themselves are don’t what to express it openly (or both).
Please don’t go mad. You would be missed. Soldier on.
David, how refreshing to read that even veteran novelists like yourself struggle with writing. I’m on novel #2 and it is hard. I use words economically–call it training from writing picture books and for magazines so during revisions I have to add more flesh to the bones. This tendency also reflects in real life. I assume people ought to know things that they don’t.
How fascinating what Dobyn has observed “It’s sometimes said that writing problems are personal problems—i.e., whatever mistakes you make in your writing often reflect personal faults you may or may not be aware of.” I just might have to pick up his books to improve both my character and writing. Thank you.
I am very comfortable cutting. I’ve cut picture books in half and they’re better for it. I might have an attachment to a phrase or word but it must serve the story. As to putting flesh on bones–what’s lacking is often interiority and description.
Thanks Vijaya:
I believe it was Richard Price who said writing never gets easier because each book presents unique problems all its own.
The fact you recognize what you do well and what’s often missing is such a crucial step for a writer. I often tell my students that the most important lesson they will ever learn is how they themselves work.
BTW: Dobyns isn’t the person who says writing problems are personal problems. I forget where I first heard that. But he does address the issue of honesty in the writing guide I mentioned.
Thanks as always for commenting.
Overwriting? Guilty. Cutting? For me It’s not painful like surgery but like surgery I feel better afterwards. I think of it not as cutting but as finding clarity.
Is overwriting reflective of my personal flaws? No, I don’t think so. Saying more with fewer words is a skill that takes practice. Athletes practice. Actors rehearse. It’s normal to need time to see what I am trying to say. When I do, usually it can be said more simply.
The challenge is knowing what I want to say in the first place. Writing a story is not like carving a block of marble to reveal the David (Corbett?) who was there inside, perfectly formed, already. Writing a story is a process of discovery. Of gaining clarity.
Part of the process is not hammering out words but listening to others. That is what you are describing today. Some may see frustrating feedback proving that the whole industry is personal and subjective. I don’t see that. I see a pro engaging in the process of gaining clarity. Bravo indeed.
That’s a great way of looking at the whole thing, Benjamin. One of my favorite quotes about writing came from Kate Atkinson. She was asked how she develops her characters. Her response: “With my fingertips.”
This book was a sprawling mess from the start, and was a whole new endeavor for me on several levels — multiple time lines, first person narrator, journey tale, mythic backdrop, dystopian near-future foreground. (Boy, you want to set up a problem for yourself? Try writing about the near future when you can barely keep up with the present.)
But I also think that what is often needed to revise well is distance — time, in particular. When you’ve just emerged from the deep is not the time to dive back down. Time is required to enable you to return to the text more like a reader than the writer.
I think it was Junot Diaz who said we can never experience one of our books the way a reader who comes to it fresh will. We see all the ghosts. But as much as possible, that kind of freshness is required to revise well.
The other thing required, as you point out, is to finally have a clear idea of what you’re after. That may have been utterly undiscovered while you were “still under,” but once you have that clear in your mind and heart, the clutter reveals itself as such more more obviously.
Great comment. Thanks.
Just murdered a bunch of darlings, appropriately in a scene set on the day of the Holy Innocents – and which discusses that in the sense of medieval customs and beliefs.
It is the bottom of the pit, the lowest point in the trilogy.
There isn’t another word that could be cut: I tried.
There’s something significant in that it ended up at exactly a thousand words (with no cheating). I think.
My hands are bloody.
It took ten days.
I’m feeling quite satisfied with myself. I’ve been afraid of this one for over twenty years, and it had to be just right.
Congratulations, Alicia. You’ve earned the right to feel satisfied.
David – thanks for such a candid look behind the curtain of your novel’s development. This kind of insight is SO helpful!
I’m curious about the significant reductions you made: How much of that would you say was text that was simply deleted, and how much was text that was shortened, or perhaps rewritten far more succinctly?
Thanks again, you darling-killer, you.
Hey, Keitherino.
Honestly? I have no idea the proportions of the various categories you’ve described. I just hacked away as I moved forward. It’s also hard to know the difference between text that was shortened vs. text that was deleted. Often they proved to be the same thing.
I’ll get into a lot of the nitty gritty with next month’s posting.
And yeah, some of the rewriting was to be more succinct, but it was often also directed toward making it more dramatic. I found the expository impulse was given far too much leeway in places, and I needed to keep in mind: who wants what, why, what will happen if they don’t get it, why now, and how can I end the scene with a defeat, a reassessment of the way forward, or a surprise.
Thank you David for this honest post. And the responses are helpful too. I just reread a critique of my “forever novel” which I wanted to toss, but on the rereading, saw that the editor did some admirable work and that YES, I have made many of the changes that she suggested. It’s amazing to me how some stories find their way into your every day life. You live with them. They are constantly whispering: what if she said this; what if you used this image. My goal: to send this baby out again, fingers crossed. For in the NEWER world of fiction and publishing, the irony might be that all my changes are now the wrong ones! Ah the writing life.
Hi, Beth:
Good luck with the rewrite. Yes, I can’t tell you how many times I discovered something that needed fixing while lying awake with insomnia between 2 and 5 AM. We live with our stories, indeed. And suffer them.
Changing your main protagonist from Cambodian/Afro American LGBTQ woman to a straight white Irish /American woman on an agent’s advice for a book to sell? It seems to be the problem goes way deeper in the publishing industry than killing a few darlings.
Hi Bernadette:
Yes, but that’s a topic for a much different post. I have to admit, the more deeply I thought about it, the more the change seemed justifiable, not merely from a PC/#myownvoice standpoint. It made logical sense.
That said, I’ve written across racial, cultural and ethnic lines my whole career, and wrote an essay about it that I shared here on WU some time back. I’ve also been mistaken for being both African American and Latino by readers who didn’t look at my author pic first. But we’re in a different cultural moment, one that I actually think is trending in the right direction. Regardless, we don’t get to choose what time we live in.
David: This is so timely for me. A friend and I were just discussing this week how editors can often help you create the best version of the book you gave them, but not necessarily a version that will sell.
I have the opposite problem from you, in that I tend to under-write. Then, I have to go back and layer in the different senses and POV-specific setting, ground the reader in the scene/chapter, and make sure the character motivations are strong and clear and make sense. Best of luck with the new manuscript!
Thanks, Gwen. Yes, editors are helpmates, not saviors. They’re not infallible. But I’d go back to Zoe in a heartbeat.
I sometimes underwrite, and have to go back and infill what’s missing. However many angles you have to take to get the monster up and moving, the point is knowing when it’s ready — or not quite.
My problem is overwriting, compounded with not yet having the skill the tell the difference between ‘darlings’ and essential elements.
The skill set comes with the work, Ellan. Trust that. Sometimes reading out loud helps. The ear is wiser than the eye. Sometimes thinking of the words as someone else’s can help–you’re not as devoted to them. Often there’s no way to know how much is too much until you’ve finished and become intimately acquainted with the work front to back, so you have a better sense of, “Wait, I said that better elsewhere — this can go.”
Thanks, David, this is spot on for me! Defiantly camp overwrite, I am afraid. My problem is that part of my overwriting comes from world building. I am struggling how much I can cut and still give enough information to the readers to understand the world and the characters that are moving around in it. Also I don’t want to boil it down to plain information (aka info dump), but try to incorporate it into the characters’s lives. And up the word count goes …
HI J:
I had that same problem with this manuscript. The dystopia had to feel natural and “lived in,” which meant I had to get it right. I only had a gfood handle on what could go when I’d finished it and read through it a few timesa, so I had an organic sense of where things were best placed, how often I’d brought them up, and what was now unnecessary.
If I may impose a differing opinion, ss more a reader and dabbling writer? I discover that my desire to write rose because I can not find the depth in stories that novels used to hold for me. They seem so..? Succinct and precise. As a reader who gets into a place and the characters and the happening and then who learns the author tossed handfuls of ‘Darlings”, oh how I long for that missing texture.
Sure some genre need short crisp writing. Cut the crap and doldrums, Darlings though? As a reader this sounds like the director’s cut of a good movie, the one the fan’s strive to find in black market back alleys. Or at the end of the Blue Ray version where the director explains all the nuances you missed in the action sequence that flashed by in 3 second bits.
Some times I believe the authors have their reader’s in mind while writing the first draft and the publisher in mind there after.
Think about it.
I usually underwrite because in my personal life I tend to by cryptic and stoic. But the last book hit 116,000 words. Was feeling chatty, I guess.