Thursday, April 24, 2008

Killing my Darlings

The big changes--fixing the POV, adding pages more of description...that was easy. Then I got to the part in my story, The Red Thread, where Heath kills the dragon and "a rainbow of black blood pours over him."

And everyone--everyone--in my critique group hated it.

I can see why. I wrote "rainbow" as an arc, but everyone read it as colors. It doesn't make sense. But it still feels so beautiful, so poetic to me.

But I cut it.

I finally understand that old quote about killing your darlings. I slashed away phrase, hacked off whole paragraphs, massacred pages...but this paper-cut of an adjective hurts worse than any of the rest!

*sigh* I haven't got the heart to edit any more tonight!

1 comment:

PJ Hoover said...

I so get this! And it's so much easier over time. I'm revising something after not having looked at it for a year, and those darlings don't look nearly as good now!