In My Experience: Murdering Your Darlings

As someone who had been on the whole writing bandwagon for some time now, I'm more than familiar with some of the popular terms and phrases that float around the writing community. I've always wanted to do a series of posts on how some of these terms apply to me and what my experience is with them. So from now on, I'm going to call them the "In My Experience" posts, or IME.

 

Today I really want to talk about the phrase "murder your darlings". In short, it means cutting away the words, scenes, chapters, or even whole plots and characters that you love but that may not serve the purpose of advancing or deepening the novel. "Advancing" and "deepening" are obviously fluid words that can be subjectively defined. There are many posts out there that do the task of delineating exactly what is considered a "darling" and how you might "murder" them, and I encourage you to find them if you are still curious, because I won't be going into much more depth.

The selection of this particular phrase is inspired by the fact that I was lucky enough to have the wonderful Mara select me as her mentee for this year's PitchWars. Because of this, I'm a part of the 2015 PitchWars mentee Faceook group, where talented and awesome writers encourage each other and commiserate together. The term "murder your darlings" has popped up in the stream of FB posts quite frequently because the abundance of darlings is a common problem that writers face. Now their wise mentors are encouraging them to take up the knife and cut away.

So IME, how have I dealt with murdering the darlings?

I haven't, and here is why.

If you've read some other posts of mine, you probably know that when I first got into writing, it was through the medium of fanfiction. And if you have ever read or written some fanfiction, you know the prevalence of "fluff" scenes. Fluffy scenes are basically the darlings. It makes sense that the darlings and fluff thrive in fanfiction. Readers and writers already adore the original work or canon that inspires the fanfic. They aren't necessarily reading or writing the next best classic or looking for something "deep". I've been in a place where all I wanted to read about was two characters, whose relationship was never really explored in the cannon, just talking and doing cutesy things together. 

In my own fanfiction, I've written more than my fair share of fluff. My ability to write drool-worthy fluff was praised by my readers (who are the most supportive readers a writer could have), and this in turn bolstered my confidence in my general ability to write. Why not, I began to think, write a novel?

So I did. The end-result was a plotless thing that was entirely fluff. 

(Thinking back, this novel sort of got all the fluff out of my system. Nowadays, I rarely feel the burning desire to write fluff.)

I open it sometimes and reread some of the chapters. I still love it. But after finishing that MS and sending out like...one query, I shelved it because I realized that I had approached the novel as fanfiction, simply with my original characters rather than someone else's. 

Ever since, I've turned my plentiful experience as a fanfiction writer into a ruler, against which I measure how "fluffy" something might be while I'm drafting. This is how my fluff litmus test goes down:

Am I writing this scene/character interaction/character/chapter/(insert unit of writing here):

1. Primarily for romance?

• This one is pretty self-explanatory because I think it's the main cause of too many darlings. From the perspective of a YA writer, I can see why I'd want to sweep the reader off his/her feet with that gorgeous romance. But it's all too easy for the writer to also get swept off his/her feet, and that's when we have scenes that are just there for the romance and don't do much else.

2. Because I really just want X thing to happen because I know that I can write it well? 

• Example: A writer who is also a cook who likes to write random food scenes into the novel. This is not to say that you can't have scenes or an entire book built on top of cooking and food. You can if the food is central to the plot. IME, I do, however, have a tendency want to write what I know best or what comes easiest to me, which isn't always best for the story.

3. Solely to make myself, the writer, happy? 

• This question sounds pretty bad. No, I'm not saying that your writing should make you unhappy. I assure you that I love writing, but I've realized that some of my best scenes are the products of some struggle and complex planning in my head. Contrast this to the ease of writing fanfiction--the fluff just pours out and can put this grin on your face and you soak it up yourself. It's probably why my most popular fanfic ended up at 140k words, a pretty big no-no for conventional YA novels).

I'll subconsciously run through these questions when I'm drafting if I suspect that something is becoming a little too indulgent in the novel. If I answer "yes" to one or more, I'll take a step back and examine if I really need/want this scene. Most of the times, the answer is no. If the answer is "yes", I'll try to weave in something else so that the scene can multitask. 

There are downsides to being really strict on the fluff during the drafting stage, of course. For example, I more often than not underwrite instead of overwrite. I might have to go back to develop things more. The romantic arcs of my novels tend to take a backseat to the plot, so sometimes I do have to go back and insert more romance, or fluff. But I find inserting fluff more easier than cutting it away. Maybe it's simply because I'm a pessimist, but it feels better for me to grit my teeth and get the bare-bones, essential parts (and often harder to write parts) of the novel down before I indulge. 

Lastly, I am all for darlings. After all, while fanfiction and novels are beasts of different sorts, they often both have the same goal: bringing joy to the reader. And so of course there is a place for darlings, just in moderation. 

Hopefully, through reading about my experience with those beloved and dreaded darlings, you might gain some insights on how you treat them yourself! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the phrase! And good luck and much chocolate to everyone who is revising like I am for PitchWars!

3 tips on juggling writing and school

Sorry about the hiatus from the blog. As some of you might know, I was torturing teaching high school students on how to score the best that they possibly can on the dreaded SAT's. Unfortunately, I had to brush up on allll my math skills and read some painfully dry critical reading passages, but FORTUNATELY I loved my job. It was so rewarding to see everyone improve. And I've added more words (that I didn't memorize the first time around before my own SAT's) to my vocabulary. That's always a good thing. I just didn't have that much time to myself, and when I did, it was to work on my WIP. But now I'm back!

This post is inspired my friend Julia's post on how to balance school and writing. I really enjoy reading posts like this because I am a student myself (sophomore at UPenn), and while I know that a lot of adult writers have to juggle work and writing, juggling school and writing is just as hard! I would hesitantly assert that sometimes it's harder--I'm biased, obviously. It's just that a lot of the grown-ups I know don't have to stay up until 4AM in the library to do homework or prep for an exam that accounts for 50% of their grade. Meanwhile, the 4AMer in the library is a common sight at my college, and these aren't even people who procrastinate like me and cram.

This is not a how-to write and do school because if there's one thing I've learned from my years in academia, it's that everyone has to put in a different amount of time to do well in school. I don't want to tell anyone that this is the best way to get the most writing time out of your student years because there is no best way. These are simply my tips that I wanted to share with you. They work for me, sort of. Sometimes, I do get in over my head a bit even with these tips in mind. But that's life.

Here are the 3 tips:

1. Procrastinate wisely. 

If I'm going to procrastinate, I'm going to procrastinate because I mean, there are still XXX days until the paper/exam/assignment and I simply cannot muster the will to be like my roommates, who do all their homework for the week on Saturday. When I do procrastinate, however, I use that time to write. I could be watching random things on YouTube, or looking at pictures of food and cats and all the other random junk I like looking at. But I write. Strangely enough, I kind of like the sensation of having something schoolwork-related hanging over my head while I write. It doesn't bother me to the point where I can't put out words, but it's just enough discomfort that it is almost like writing on a deadline. And I'm so much more efficient that way.

2. Get into the mode by doing the little things.

This is mainly a trick to make you motivated for and committed to your writing time, because writing time is precious in school. If you prep before going to the gym (such as hydrating, putting on your favorite work-out outfit, tying your hair back, and packing your post-workout stuff), why not prep before you go to write? Whoever said that writing wasn't sport? It is, and you should treat it that way. Simply going through the motions of getting the little things together can really ease your mental state into one that is ready to be productive.

The little things for me are the beverage, the outfit, the hair, and the bag. Here's how it breaks down.

Beverage: If I know I'm hauling butt to the bookstore or the coffee shop to write for more than a few hours--this is usually on the weekends--I'll treat myself to a coffee. Nothing fancy, just an iced coffee, since it's still summer, will sharpen me up and get my mind going. If you don't have something that you particularly like to drink or eat, at least bring water. It's incredibly easy to get dehydrated when writing.

Outfit: I'll usually wear something soft and cotton and easy to wash on the top, such as a plain T-shirt, and then jeans for the bottoms. Also, dark colors are great. Less worry about chocolate stains. I affectionately call my writing day outfits my "ugly" outfits. The whole idea is that I want to wear something so plain that I won't be thinking if my camisole is bunching up or if my shirt is getting wrinkled. All the focus should be on the writing. Obviously, if dressing sharp is going to get you in the right mindset, then by all means do that. Once again this is just me, and although I love my fashion and looking put together, I am quite lazy with clothes when I want to be.

Hair: Out of sight, out of mind. I'll braid it tight, pin it up into a bun, and then put on a headband JUST IN CASE some flyways escape. I can't write with my hair in my face.

Bag: If I'm leaving my dorm to write, which I often do, I'll pack sure to pack everything that I need in my messenger--pen, notebook, earbuds for music, laptop (most important item!), and water.

3. Think of classes as research.

My last tip on how to juggle school and writing is about the times when you are NOT writing, AKA when you are in class. Unless you can subliminally learn your class material through the process of osmosis, you should probably not be writing in class. However, there is a way to actually use your classes to further yourself as a writer. I'm not talking about just the creative writing classes or english classes--of course those will help you as a writer.

A well-informed writer has more tools in her arsenal than someone who closes herself up in her room 24/7. You may never know what sort of research you need to do for your next novel, or what genre you're going to delve into next. Who knows when that information that you learned in Astronomy is going to come in handy when you decide to tackle a space opera? Or maybe some concept in Economics 101 is going serve as a major inspiration in your novel. If you do well in your classes and actually learn the material, not just get the grade, you'll save yourself time in the future when you are writing because you'll understand some things without having to research them. And that means more time to write. See? There are so many ways you can make time to write.

Hope this was somewhat helpful! I'd love to learn what are the things you do to maximize your writing time while still fulfilling all the other obligations you have (doesn't have to be school).