I’m back with another blog post, one that talks about the dreaded subject: killing your darlings.
You know what the term “kill your darlings” is, so I won’t get into that. But the main question is, though, should you kill your darlings?
Well, I always assumed that a darling is a character that you love so much, you can’t bear to see anything bad happening to them, so you give then a crapload of plot armor and superpowers to keep them alive and give then the happy ending that you think they deserve. the trouble with that is your character becomes too powerful to fail and doesn’t grow up and change. (I’m looking at you, J.K. Rowling!)
And you say you can break all the rules of writing.
But what can you do if you created a character that is too powerful, especially if he’s the main hero? Word of advice: kill that overpowerful character and give the job to someone more deserving. It may be hard now, but it’ll get easier as the story goes on. (Same goes for the orphan protagonist, the comic relief, and that annoying character that everyone hates. It doesn’t matter if you like then; just get rid of them Your readers will thank you.)
I’ll be back with more, so stay where you are!
The Claire Violet Thorpe Express 
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Reblogged this on MorgEn Bailey – Creative Writing Guru and commented:
Food for thought. What have you had to chop from your stories?
My understanding of the phrase “kill your darlings” is that it does not refer to characters, but to scenes. I believe that the phrase was coined by Stephen King, who was talking about an author having to cut those scenes that are the most clever and enjoyable to write because they distract from the story moving forward.
For what it’s worth, I disagree with that sentiment.