Caffeinated Otter on cohost

@Caley-Cales

A li'l Lapra

she/they

A gotey goober

@Caley-Cales1/1/2024, 7:35 AM

Miserable Pile Of Words @MiserablePileOfWords

Caffeinated Otter @caffeinatedOtter12/31/2023, 2:41 PM

There are definitely things to be said about cost-benefit analysis acting as a Great Filter for interesting art, but the real reason "kill your darlings", as advice, should fucking go is:

quick, what does it actually mean
no, like, specifically
what actionable thing is it telling you to do

It's a neat-sounding phrase, isn't it? Clever. I bet someone was really pleased with themself for it, and as advice it's bad because it sounds like it's telling you to do something, but the second you ask what that is you're on your own. It's beautiful and actively bad at its job

making it, ironically, a darling that should have been killed

Caffeinated Otter @caffeinatedOtter12/31/2023, 2:54 PM

"Kill your darlings" is the kind of vacuously evocative slogan you'd get if you hired an ad agency to promote "editing"

You must log in to comment.

in reply to @caffeinatedOtter's post:

Melinoë 🩸@melinoe12/31/2023, 2:56 PM

i try phrase it to myself as "you can't pick all your goods, just your best." as like a way to force myself when im deciding how to write something and am stuck with incompatible ideas.

Caffeinated Otter @caffeinatedOtter12/31/2023, 3:10 PM

Yeah, it's not the underlying point that's bad, it's just a bad phrase for conveying any understanding of that point

JessalynCrimson @JesTheRed12/31/2023, 3:36 PM

Maybe I’m that inexperienced a writer, but this is the first time I’ve heard that phrase and u thought it was legit referring to ones favorite characters. <.<

Caffeinated Otter @caffeinatedOtter12/31/2023, 3:47 PM

It's the idea that sometimes you're going to produce some sentence or turn of phrase that you love so much that you don't want to edit it — with the dubious implication that if you love it that much you should be scrutinising it more than the rest of the text, not less