It's Writing Pancake Day!
It's Writing Pancake Day!
This Week In Writing, written by Justin Cox, shares writing tips, links, and updates about The Writing Cooperative by Write Together, Inc. We hope you enjoy this week's newsletter!
This Week In Writing, we celebrate Fat Tuesday by cleaning out our pantry of darlings. What are you letting go of?
Today is Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. It’s a day of celebration before the religious season of Lent begins. Some traditions also call today Pancake Day because people would make pancakes covered in all the sweet treats from the pantry before getting rid of them for Lent.
Since today is an odd mixture of celebrating and throwing things out, it got me thinking about the writing equivalent. There’s the adage to kill your darlings — throw out the things you worked hard on that may detract from your overall story. While we often love parts of our writing, sometimes we need to let them go, like Rose dropping Jack into the Atlantic.
Regardless of what you’re writing right now, take today to kill a few of your darlings. They might be characters, plot lines, sentence structure, overused words — a darling can be anything you can get rid of to make your writing better. But, since today is also about celebrating, let’s celebrate these things you’re letting go of!
Find a way to honor the time, work, and creativity involved with your darlings. Whether you kill them completely or pull them for future ideas, celebrate the time you invested into these darlings.
This Week's Discussion
What are you celebrating today? Are you killing these darlings off completely, or might they return in the future? Hit reply and let me know. I try to respond to every email I receive and may use some of your comments for a future newsletter!
This Week's Featured Links
What It Really Means to Kill Your Darlings | by Lynda Dietz — writingcooperative.com What if what's best for your manuscript is removing the part you love most? Killing your darlings is a tough call, but worth the sacrifice for a better book.
Why You Must Murder Your Darlings | by Nihan Kucukural — writingcooperative.com
I wrote a scene for our TV show, and it was lovely. I built it on a brilliant idea. It ran smoothly and had perfect pacing. And it ended with a genius, heartfelt dialog.
How the Five Stages of Grief Help Me Kill My Darlings — writingcooperative.com
I read and re-read a scene I’ve written. It’s bursting with meaning, powerful dialog, and everything else I love. My heartless editorial voice says it has to go.
This Week's Featured Tweet
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