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Murder Your Darlings: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it -- whole-heartedly -- and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. [[Trope Namer|'''Murder your darlings.''']]"''
|[[wikipedia:Arthur Quiller-Couch|Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch]]|''On the Art of Writing'' (1916), [http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/murderquiller.htm Chapter 12]}}
'''Murder Your Darlings''' (or sometimes '''Kill Your Darlings''') is a phrase used in editing—particularly self-editing. The idea is that a writer may have some aspect of a story, typically a scene, that she is irrationally attached to. The editing process needs to be merciless though—if a scene does not work to serve the greater story, no matter how awesome it is it needs to be cut. A good writer has the ability to murder her darlings.
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