Every writer knows that tight writing comes from ruthless editing.
Every writer knows that tight writing requires ruthless editing.
Every writer knows tight writing requires ruthless editing.
Writers know tight writing requires ruthless editing.
Writers know tight writing requires ruthless edits.
Tight writing requires ruthless edits.
Easier said than done.
Besides the play of word and mark, like above, the hardest edit is killing your darlings.
You know, a clever turn of phrase. An ingenious hook. A nifty piece of creative.
We fall in love with these darlings. Which makes it painful when, for various reasons, we have to take them out.
It’s a special kind of cold heart that looks your innocent little ideas in the face and smokes ‘em with a keystroke.
Brutal.
Don’t have an icebox in your chest?
That’s ok. You might not need to kill your darlings after all.
The next time you’ve written an idea that needs to go, don’t scrap it. Save it. Literally.
Paste all your to-be-dead darlings in a cut file. Here they can happily live with a second lease on life. This does two things.
One, should you ever find need or home for them, you’ll still have them. Which you wouldn’t have, had you been too quick on the delete key.
Two, you’ll edit even more ruthlessly because you’re not deleting ideas. You’re just rehoming them.
And with more aggressive edits your writing will be tighter and hit harder.
– Zac Smith, VC
