"Kill your darlings" is common advice that people who don't write give to writers. What does this expression mean...and should you be following it?
There's a lot of different advice out there for writers. Apparently, just about everybody knows how you should be writing your novels. "Kill your darlings" is one extremely common expression that's told to writers all the time. Basically, it means that you should kill off your favorite characters.
Killing Characters
The philosophy behind it is that the plot will make a bigger impact on readers when you kill off your favorites, because your favorite characters will be the audience's favorites, too.
It's true that the death of a character should create a visceral reaction in readers. You want them to feel it. You even want them to cry...at least a little. But when it comes to writing, nothing is ever as easy as a cute little motto or a pat piece of advice.
Killing Them Softly
Because "kill your darlings" can be done badly, too. And the trouble is, by now everyone's heard this advice. Even non-writers have heard this incredibly common expression and they know what it means. Readers are savvy to all the tricks that writers attempt to pull off. If you work too hard to make a character likable, you might as well just name the character Hi I'm Going to Die.
You never want readers to sense the plot that's coming. You want to keep them guessing, shake them up, twist them and shock them. And if you create some super-lovable character that they're patently supposed to like, it's pretty guaranteed that they won't like that character. When the clear "darling" dies, readers will turn the page with hardly even a sigh.
Die, Die My Darling
There are some "right" ways to kill your darlings without spoiling your own plot. With an audience of sophisticated readers who won't fall for a simple trope like "kill your darlings," you're going to need to be a bit more clever.
- You can always make a character so darling to readers, they think you'd never kill them off. Don't just make them like the character. Make them adore the character. Once the audience thinks that person is definitely safe, drop the hammer...so to speak.
- Make them darling later. Turn the idea upside-down by making readers like a character only after death. This way, the death will continue to resonate with readers as they learn how likable an already-deceased character truly was. When they read the book a second time, the death will be even more powerful than it was to them on the first read.
- Kill someone who seems really important. Killing a character who feels like a main character can be shocking and devastating when it's handled the right way. Your main character's love interest or best friend, for example, can become a shocking death on the page. Kill a character that seems like a solid, integral part of the story.
It's every writer's task to find a way to twist plots and take old tropes and turn them into something new. You can follow the standard advice of killing your darlings...but try to do it in a way they won't see coming, or it won't have the effect you want.
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