Please, don't kill your darlings

How many times have you heard the expression "Kill your darlings"?. It has become an almost universally accepted cliché applied to any kind of problematic element of a script. How many stop to examine the wisdom of the expression? Or what it really means?

Oh, Darling? Who are you?

A real darling is an element, which the creator has a somewhat passionate and irrational relationship to. The creator cannot offer a reasonable explanation to why it should be in the script and how it relates to the other elements. There's good reason to single out such elements, as they can disrupt an otherwise well-functioning script. And if the darling is crucial to the premise of a script, it can sour the whole affair. So the advice of killing off darlings could seem quite rational.

It is most certainly more easy, than to examine if there's a deeper rationale behind the darling. Especially for producers and script consultants. But it is more like treating a symptom, than the disease. Or like aborting a passionate love affair, even before it has begun, because its not practical.

Your mystery lover

Obeying to the dramatic principle of mystery, we should instead engage the mysterious darling. It could be the hidden river, the deep well, the source from where the underlying mystery of a great drama springs. Imagine your were Ted Tally in the early stages of adapting the book for "The SIlence of the Lambs". You are having problems incorporating the idea of Clarice Starling's childhood experience with the screaming lambs. It has become a darling for you, but it doesn't really make sense. The script consultant, the producer, everybody tells you it slows down the action, that the flashback to her childhood are clumsy and irrelevant. They tell you the film is about a young female detective trying to save another woman in a man's world, not about lambs and childhood. Under the pressure you are ready to abandon, or kill your darling. But there's just something about this image, a girl, all alone in the world, listening to the screaming of the lambs, wanting to save just one of them, that you are immensely attracted to. Then it strikes you - its about loneliness. Clarice Starling's struggle is not really about being a hero and saving others, but about escaping her own loneliness. It not about being a woman in a man's world - that's only a circumstance, an aspect of her loneliness. Its a heroic, tragic struggle, but one ultimately doomed to fail, as we are always alone. That's the deeper mystery of your drama - so even if she succeeds in saving the woman from the serial killer, she is still alone. Suddenly all the pieces begin to fall into place, you see how loneliness is present in the material; the conversations with Hannibal Lecter, who's also an immensely lonely figure, the single touch between them, the final line from him: "Tell me, Clarice, has the lambs stopped screaming" - and her lack of answer.

It could have been you, so please, stop killing your darlings. Or other people's darlings. Engage the mystery lover.

Spank your darlings

The real wisdom of Kill Your Darlings lies in the cynical treatment of something which can be sentimental or even sacrosanct to the creator. The darling might need a rough hand, before the true love can be revealed. And if it is true love, then it should be able to endure some spanking and rough questions.

When I work as either creator or consultant on dramatic scripts, I'll be the first top defend even the most absurd darlings against the meddling of producers, but also the first to ask the really difficult questions, but questions aimed at revealing the darling's real nature. Questions about how it could relate to other elements, what it reminds us of (principle of unity). Or about what kind of conflict it does or could involves (principle of conflict). How it's tonality sounds, is it comedic, tragic, and how (principle of tonality). Overall seeking an underlying theme, truth or what have we; the mystery. In this process you might very well discover that your darling doesn't really belong in the present script, but at least you will know a bit more about why, and perhaps have a strong idea for new script.

So please, spank your darlings, but don't kill them.