Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

For the A-Z challenge, I am posting writing and editing tips to help you improve and enhance your writing.

K is for Kill Your Darlings

This is the thing that, in my experience, writers find the hardest to do. ‘Killing’ the bits of your writing that you think are the best bits, taking them out, removing them, losing them, ditching them.

Yes, you read that right. To make your work the best it can be, you should cut all those bits you love the most. The sentences that you crafted so carefully, that took hours and hours. The paragraphs that contain those breathtaking metaphors and clever, clever similes that will show the world (and all those agents and publishers) what an absolute genius you are. Those single words that you deliberated over, taking them out, putting them back in, reading and re-reading over and over again. Kill them.

I can…