The Art of Letting Go: Killing My Darlings to Rebirth a Story

I need help. Years ago, I wrote a short story I’m considering turning into a screenplay and novel. The story was dark and funny about a one-hit-wonder writer slated to be the next great American novelist who has a terrible case of writer’s block and accidentally discovers his cure is to kill his unsuspecting wife—obviously, not a Romance, but a little bit like “Throw Momma from the Train” and “War of the Roses.”

The story was a phantom, one of those developments for what a muse was invented. It was what all authors hope and wait for — a tiny speck of pixie dust that lands, plants and grows with little writer’s intervention.

I’ve had this experience before — not an entire story, but concepts that develop into a tale later.

My particular pixie dust particles come as a character’s voice penetrating my dreams. Sometimes, it’s a loudmouth little girl, a demur, a timid older man…etc. In general, I hear a one-sided, partial conversation in the voice of an unrealized character in a story not yet discerned.

I hesitate to admit that the life force of my originality is a voice I hear in my head, even though among fiction writers, this is not a big deal, it’s normal even, but still…the vision of being strapped to a shock treatment table looms in the background whenever I admit it.

However, this story was a unicorn, fleshed out, obstacles aligned, and characters fully formed. It felt unique, rare, and essential. So why not take the short and expand it?

Whenever I give the premise to other writers (screenwriters in particular), there’s a sense of unease—they pick up on an uncomfortable and unequal power dynamic that makes my peers almost wince. Most hate that the wife seems passive and ignorant of her husband’s schemes. However, any twenty- to fifty-year-old woman in the United States who listens to True Crime, like me, knows this isn’t the case. The wife isn’t passive or ignorant. She’s blindsided.

Why don’t I leave it as is, a short, and write something else? Well, lately, I’ve been haunted by it. It slides into my subconscious and taps into daily thoughts, except for some reason, it’s changed.

I’m unsure if the story’s evolution is dying to grow and expand or if its social consciousness is demanding a reboot. It reminds me of the saying, “Kill your darlings.”

There is a sharp term in fiction writing that everyone throws around, even though defining what it means remains blunted — “kill your darlings.”

I’ve heard all sorts of interpretations of this term. Some use it to audit their work. To them, it means removing overly decorative writing that slows down the narrative’s momentum.

Some use it as a guide in their writing to determine whether anything the writer loves should be eliminated to avoid overindulgence and audience alienation, or something like that.

I read the term from the King of Killing himself, Stephen King, in his memoir and how-to nonfiction, “On Writing.” The quote goes, “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

In this case, the meaning has two purposes: remove any character, scene, piece of prose, or favorite rung of dialogue, no matter how much you, the writer, love it, if it doesn’t serve the overall needs of the narrative.

My concern is, am I holding onto the original so tight because how it came to me was so rare that the thought of expounding on it, exploring it, and taking it in a new direction feels like sacrilege?

I have heard a voice, not a new one, but a new way an old character presents herself. In the original, she was the antagonist and victim of her narcissistic novelist husband, who was determined to kill her and break his writer’s block. But now?

Now, she’s the protagonist, the angsty author with crippling writer’s block, burdened with Imposter’s Syndrome, who is desperate for a new book, and the only way to fight through it is to kill her successful spouse. The premise is almost identical to the original, so why am I drawn to rewrite it?

I’m still determining.

Is it a muse’s prompting, or am I trying to fulfill some social commentary?

A writer aims to constantly evolve, make waves, entertain, and connect. Is this what I’m doing? I think about letting something go because empty hands are the only way to grasp onto something better, but I have no idea if rewriting this story is what I’d be doing.

I would love to get opinions on this! Writers have an emotional bond with every story. I would love to know how these play into your decision-making process. Leave your thoughts in the comments below!