How to Save Your Darlings, Not Kill Them

Everyone who has taken a writing workshop has, at some point, heard the advice, “Kill your darlings.” A lot of very confident writers have said or supposedly said it: Hemingway, Faulkner and Welty are just a few. Through repetition, the maxim has acquired the solidity of one thing that young writers often desire most: a rule to follow. Sometimes it’s even true. But even more often, you pick up a book you love and see example after example of lines that must have been precious to the author.

–Read the entire essay—with exercises based on work by F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Gibson, and J. D. Salinger—at the Austin American Statesman.

You can pre-order The Writer’s Field Guide to the Craft of Fiction here.

Tags: Austin American Statesman, creative writing exercises, creative writing prompts, F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger, The Writer's Field Guide to the Craft of Fiction, William Gibson