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The writing teacher at my library workshop said 'kill your darlings' and I did it on the spot
So I go to this free writing workshop at the Columbus library every other Tuesday, mostly for the prompts, not the advice. Last month our teacher, this older guy named Harold who used to write for a soap opera, hands us a prompt that just says 'write someone out of your life.' We all get 15 minutes. I crank out this flowery paragraph about my ex, all purple and dramatic, big metaphors about storms and rivers, the kind of stuff I thought was good. Harold walks by, reads it over my shoulder, and says 'kill your darlings' and just stands there waiting. So I crossed out my favorite line right in front of him, the one I was most proud of. He nodded and said 'again' and I crossed out another. Ended up with like four sentences left and they were way better than the 300 words I started with. Now I'm wondering if he was messing with me or if that's how everyone writes. Has anyone else had a line they loved and cut, and did the piece get better or did it just feel worse?
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evanfox1d ago
Guess Harold skipped the part where you're supposed to cry about it first.
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