Murder Your Darlings: How to Say More by Saying Less

Have you ever used an axe?

We heat our house with firewood, so we spend a lot of time chopping wood. It doesn’t take long for the axes to get dull.

That’s where the grinder comes in. Red-hot flecks spray from the grinder as metal is shaved off the edge. By the time the axe is sharpened, there’s less of the axe, but what remains is far more impactful.

Our words are like an axe. We need to shave off as many words as we can, so the words that remain are sharp.

The phrase “murder your darlings” comes from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, a writer from over a hundred years ago. It means to sharpen the axe by shaving off unneeded words—even those that are darling to us. That way, the words we say or write have a greater impact.

Here are three ways to murder your darlings.

Cut complicated wording.

“A series of certain events which has transpired of late will effect an unprecedented alteration in the automotive industry’s trajectory.”

Sorry. I meant to say:

“Recent events will affect the future of the car industry.”

Both sentences mean the same thing. But one is clear and the other isn’t.

I’m a sucker for big words. It’s tempting to use big words—and lots of them—to sound smarter. But they don’t help communicate the message. The message, not the words themselves, are the main event. The words are just a vehicle to transmit the message.

If your message is strong enough, it can stand on its own two feet. Still, it takes effort to murder the complicated, darling words and replace them with simple ones.

If our goal is to communicate a message, we should write as simply as we can.

Stay on topic. Cut anything that isn’t.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this wrong.

In college, I was supposed to write an informative paper about how something had affected me. I chose horseback riding as my subject. In outlining the paper, I wrote out my three favorite things about horseback riding and prepared to write the paper.

Then it hit me. I wasn’t supposed to write about my favorite things. I was supposed to write about how it affected me. I had to scrap the outline and start over.

Oh, it hurts so bad.

I once had to chop 20,000 words from my novel-in-progress, The Shattering. I’m about to chop a large piece out again. Simply because what I wrote didn’t fit with the rest of the story.

The best way to deal with rabbit trails is to avoid them in the first place.

Here are two questions that help me stay on-topic.

1 – If I’m writing non-fiction (like emails, college papers, or business writing), I ask, “Does this sentence fit with the title of the project?” If what you’re writing doesn’t feel like it belongs under the header of the email or title of the paper, it likely is a darling to murder.

2 – If writing fiction, I ask, “Does this scene affect the climax?” If not, it probably doesn’t need to stay. A friend once told me to write from the end of the story backward.

That advice has stuck with me. Last week I spent a couple of hours brainstorming the general plot of the next few books in my series. Theoretically, knowing the end from the beginning will help all the books feel like a consistent, ON-TOPIC, story.

Note: Occasionally, I leave things that don’t contribute to plot if they’re short, funny, or especially interesting. But they can quickly become a drag on the momentum, so I try to use them sparingly.

If we use on-topic, focused words, those who read or listen to us will better understand and appreciate it.

Give the reader credit—be subtle.

This applies to stories, whether fiction or nonfiction, more than informative writing.

I love it in movies or books when more is going on than meets the eye. When just enough is said to get me thinking.

The first Avengers movie has a great scene, where the Avengers have caught Loki and need to know his plan. So Black Widow comes to speak with him. Loki tries to manipulate her by bringing up the bad things she did in the past. She acts like his words are really hurting her. So Loki gets cockier and more hurtful. He starts leaking bits of his plan without meaning to, spinning the story as though the Avengers are at fault.

Black Widow then turns around, smiles, and says, “Thank you for your cooperation.” She walks away and tells the good guys Loki’s plan, as Loki looks on in astonishment.

I had to watch the scene several times to see how Black Widow had done it. How she played along to weasel the information out of Loki.

I love that. I love that whoever wrote that scene took the time and effort to make it so clever. A lot happened in just a few words.

I’m amazed how much shorter something can be written, while being more interesting because I have to engage my mind to understand.

Ernest Hemingway said, “I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.”

Give the reader an opportunity to think. Say less. Be subtle.

Everyone will enjoy it.

Nothing left to take away.

Through using simple words, staying on topic, and being subtle, we have a much better chance at writing or speaking impactfully.

As Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

As strange as it probably sounds, I find the phrase “murder your darlings” freeing. To me it means, “yep, it’s a good thing. But it can’t stay.” That helps me cut and paste the passage or concept into my “deleted scenes” folder (which is very full!). Then, maybe in a future book, I can repurpose it.

So don’t be afraid to take an axe-grinder to the words you love.

The words aren’t gone.

Just murdered.

How do you murder your darlings? Let me know in the comments!