learning from the reblogs of that post that there's a lot of people out there under the impression that "kill your darlings" means "kill your characters" and that's the funniest possible interpretation of that phrase
this is true and funny but kitty i need you to look me in the eye and tell me with 100% confidence you're sure that sir "more than 40k words is literal trash" knows what "kill your darlings" means
i feel EXTREMELY confident that i actually know this type of guy and what they think it means is "take out any particularly witty or poetic turns of phrase because those are actually purple prose and also padding, you only think those are good because you're being precious about it"
For those who don’t know, “kill your darlings” means “be willing to cut things out of your story even if you love them. Even if that line is objectively hilarious, even if you adore that character, even if that scene was the best thing you ever wrote - sometimes what the story needs is for it to go.”
It doesn’t mean “you have to kill of characters” and (referencing the bad writing advice post) it doesn’t mean “you always have to cut out anything fun or interesting that doesn’t serve the plot”. You do not HAVE to kill your darlings every single time. You just have to be willing to do it if that’s what the story needs.
Sometimes you write a heartfelt conversation between two people absolutely nails their relationship, and you end up taking it out because it’s just not right for this story or this part of the story. And sometimes you write an extremely silly extended gag about bananas that you end up keeping because weirdly enough it’s exactly what is needed to fit in there.
