Whee! There goes another darling

Kill your darlings. We’ve all heard this common piece of writing advice. Until quite recently, I used to save the bits I cut from my work in files called Cut from and labelled with the date. Then, as I edited my novel recently — again — I decided saving cuttings was too cumbersome to bother with. For one thing, I’d never looked back at any of the cut bits. Besides, I had previous versions of the novel on my computer, so if I really did want to find something I’d cut, I could look there.

As well as being a time saver, I found the new practice liberating. Instead of moving chunks of text from the draft to another file, I started used the cutting tool to delete them, or, if they were short, ran over them with the Backspace key. That was even more fun.

Some say the knack of ruthless cutting is a sign you’re a real writer. According to novelist Bianca Marais, other milestones are finding beta readers to critique your drafts, and critiquing the work of others. Reading other people’s unpublished manuscripts can reveal their uncut darlings, which inspires me to find and cut my own. When I do, it’s liberating.

Whee! There goes another one.