Fiction Writer’s Toolshed · Practical Tools for Authors
You love a scene, a joke, a passage, or a piece of lore. It might be your favorite part of the story. But does it belong?
“Kill your darlings” leaves us with a question: which ones, and how do we decide? In this episode, I share three questions I use to test what a loved piece does to the reader’s experience. The answer might be to cut it, change it, move it -- or build the story around it.
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Fiction Writer’s Toolshed
Kill Your Darlings: How to Know What to Cut From Your Story | ep 028
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What this episode covers
- Why a beautifully written piece can still feel out of place.
- Two ways to notice that something you love might need another look.
- Three questions to help you decide what to cut, change, move, or keep.
- What happens when the darling is the part worth building around.
A good ingredient can be wrong for the meal
My mom once made a chili we loved and added protein powder. The recipe allowed flavorless powder. What went into the pot was vanilla.
The vanilla wasn’t a bad flavor. But it changed that particular chili in a way we couldn’t enjoy. A scene can work like that: you might love the writing and still need to ask what it does to the whole story. Quality and fit are two different questions.
How to notice a possible mismatch
Two things help me notice that a piece might need another look:
- Feedback. Someone reading the story feels confused, questions a choice, or says a part they like seems out of place. That gives me something to investigate.
- Understanding the project better. As I work, I learn more about the experience I want to create. Something I explored early may no longer fit the story it’s becoming.
You can choose an experience early, or discover it through drafting. Discovery writers can work toward a feeling without planning every plot point. As that feeling becomes clearer, you have something to compare your choices against.
Three questions before you cut a darling
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What experience is this story trying to create?
Get more specific than a genre label. “Horror” gives you less to work with than “I want the reader to feel that the place these characters trusted is now unsafe.”
What do you want it to feel like to read this story?
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What experience does this ingredient actually cause?
Reread the piece. What does it make you feel? What are you wondering about? Are you confused? Is it still doing something you want this story to do?
What you intended and what happens on the page can differ. Rereading and feedback help you see that difference.
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What happens if I remove it?
Try the story without the piece and compare the experience. What do you lose? Does the story feel leaner, faster, more wondrous, or closer to what you want?
You might find that it needs shortening, a different position, or a clearer version. Test what changes before deciding what to do.
This is my current best approach. I’ve started using the reader’s experience deliberately to make these decisions. The questions give me something to examine when I’m attached to a piece and finding it hard to judge.
Example: a joke in a horror story
Suppose you’re writing about two siblings trapped in a house. You’ve written a funny exchange that reveals their childhood, their connection, and something vulnerable about them. You love it. Now look at where it happens.
| Where the exchange happens | What it does to the experience |
|---|---|
| In a quiet moment, the siblings share a ridiculous childhood memory. Then the lights go out. | The warmth lets the reader relax and care about their relationship. When danger arrives, there’s a connection we don’t want to lose. |
| One sibling is pulled into a dark room. The door slams, the lights go out, and the other sibling cracks the joke. | The danger is already happening. The joke arrives inside that threat and gives the moment a different feeling. |
The same ingredient does different work in different places. Reader experience is a mixture of feelings: warmth can contribute to horror by giving us something to fear losing. Ask what the exchange does where you’ve put it.
What if the darling is the point?
Maybe that sibling connection is the experience you most want the reader to have. You want them to care about these two people, then feel the horror of that connection being in jeopardy. If that’s the part you want to build around, look at what the rest of the story needs to do to support it.
Start with the moment, passage, piece of lore, or subplot you love. Ask what experience it creates. Could you build a story around that? Could it belong in a different project?
At the very least, save it. A piece that doesn’t fit here might be the start of something else. Loving it is a reason to understand it -- and then decide what you want to make.
Test one piece of your story
Choose a part you love but feel unsure about. Name the experience you’re trying to create, look at what the piece actually does, and try the story without it. Compare what changes. Then decide whether to cut, shorten, move, clarify, keep, or build around it.
Fiction Writer’s Toolshed: Practical Tools for Authors is a Make Exist podcast hosted by Tim Kearney. It offers hands-on training for fiction writers to diagnose writing problems, build their skills, and finish more work.