Kill Your Darlings
I made a blog post a bit ago about various writing advice, and recently found an applicable way to review my thoughts on one particular piece of writing advice: kill your darlings. A “darling” could be several things like a sentence, paragraph, chapter, or even something more broad-reaching like a character that the writer is particularly fond of; and “kill” would mean to essentially remove, in case that wasn’t clear. The thing that inspired my thoughts on this piece of advice was the 2025 movie Superman.
Superman Synopsis (spoilers ahead)
Superman follows the titular character after getting beaten by an unknown antagonist; he recuperates with the help of Krypto the Superdog and some robots at the Fortress of Solitude (his crystal home in the Arctic) before returning to Metropolis to fight the antagonist again; the antagonist, secretly working with Lex Luthor, wins again and flies off, leaving Superman’s reputation in question; Superman returns to his Clark Kent persona for his journalistic work at the Daily Planet before meeting with Lois at her place to have some spicy dialogue about his (i.e., Superman’s) questionable actions involving international conflict between Boravia and Jarhanpur (fictional countries in which the former is attacking the latter); meanwhile Lex Luthor finds the Fortress of Solitude, kidnaps Krypto, and takes and broadcasts a message left by Superman’s biological parents Jor-el and Lara that advises Superman to go to Earth to essentially subjugate humans; Superman’s reputation is further damaged, and after some other mishaps clandestinely caused by Lex that Superman and the “Justice Gang” (i.e., Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific) take care of, Superman winds up imprisoned in a pocket dimension Lex Luthor created alongside Metamorpho who can change his body to any material, even kryptonite; they ultimately escape with Krypto, then Lex decides to use the pocket dimension running amok as a catastrophe to distract Superman while he enacts Boravia’s invasion of Jarhanpur; in the finale, Superman and Mr. Terrific address the formation of a black hole as well as take out the mysterious antagonist who turns out to be a clone of Superman created by Lex, the others in the Justice Gang address Boravia’s invasion, and Lois breaks the story that Lex Luthor was behind the international conflict which ultimately indicts him.
My overall thoughts on the movie were that it was entertaining but cluttered. The clutter is what brought about my thoughts on the idea of “kill your darlings.” There is a lot going on, which means whatever happens is served with greater importance to the plot than a less busy story—that is, the pieces need to justify their placement in the overall story to a more significant degree. A seemingly inconsequential scene occurs when Superman saves a squirrel in the midst of one of Lex Luthor’s created mishaps in Metropolis. Director James Gunn made comments on test audience’s opinions of parts of the movie, including the squirrel scene, and his overall decision to keep it in the movie. This scene, in my opinion, would qualify as what could be considered a “darling.” In evaluating whether such darlings (or any other elements of a story) should be “killed,” I weigh how much the thing adds to vs. detracts from the story. To steelman the reasons for keeping the squirrel scene, it highlights Superman’s care for all living creatures big and small while providing a moment of levity in a broader chaotic scene. While I think the nobility of Superman’s character is important, this element of his character is already conveyed in other scenes and thus the purpose of this scene is rendered redundant (i.e., it adds nothing). Superman’s care for all life is already conveyed in the far more important plots including saving Krypto, saving Metamorpho’s baby, and trying to help the Boravia-Jarhanpur conflict. What the scene detracts is focus in the broader battle between the Justice Gang and Lex’s monster running amok. Although the scene is seemingly inconsequential, it, again, is all the more important to have it justify itself in an already busy story. In other words, I agree with the test audiences that favored it being cut from the movie.
Another related “darling” is during the spicy dialogue between Lois and Superman about the Boravia-Jarhanpur conflict. Complicated points are brought up in Lois’s questioning, including Superman’s actions of essentially torturing Boravia’s leader by pinning his body against a cactus. While the Boravia-Jarhanpur conflict is overall portrayed as a simplistic, pretty much black-and-white thing where Boravia is evil, this is the sole scene that makes the conflict compelling due to it questioning what the moral choice is in such matters. The “darling” in particular is Superman’s response to the serious implications of torturing a world leader—he plays it off dismissively and lightly. I think his response added comedy, however it detracted from the seriousness of the dialogue while also debasing his own character; here we have a guy who is inspiring, pretty much the epitome of noble, who is supposed to be conveyed as someone who values all life, and he makes a dismissive remark about torturing a person. This directly contradicts all his other actions that show he values life.
Another '“darling” is during yet another scene between Lois and Superman in which they’re talking while some fight is going on between the Justice Gang and a random creature. I suppose this added the idea that Superman can trust others to get a job done, though it also detracts significantly from the scene because it’s meant to be a dialogue scene and I can’t for the life of me tell you what was discussed in that scene. The fight going on in the background was just that distracting.
Stepping away from just the example of Superman (2025), I’d say the writing advice “kill your darlings” should be considered when you notice certain things about a story. “Clutter” is my term for such things, though they may not be apparent immediately. You may sooner notice more general things like a movie’s runtime being pretty long, uncertainty about a character’s motivation or purpose, or forgetfulness about plot points. It’s definitely tricky (particularly as the writer) to pinpoint what exact thing is unnecessary, distracting, or bogging down a story. I think another good example to apply this advice to is Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy.
Many recognize the three Hobbit movies to be… disappointing, to say the least. On one hand, the events of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit are immense even though it’s a children’s book (a product of his world being so fully realized). On the other hand, The Hobbit is a children’s book and adapting such a story to the scale of The Lord of the Rings would naturally never be a 1:1 translation. In my opinion, they should have (at most) been just two movies. So, with more or less what could be an entire movie’s worth of clutter in this trilogy, what constitutes clutter?
The romance. There is no romance in The Hobbit (book) because that’s not what the story is about. In the three movies there is an ongoing “thing” between an elf (Tauriel) and one of the dwarves (Kili) and it added nothing of consequence to the story. Tauriel’s character also isn’t a character in Tolkien’s world, making her whole character “clutter.”
The politics. This is a more controversial opinion, but the depth or backstory behind several characters Bilbo Baggins and his crew meet are not necessary. It’s pretty straightforward what motives each faction (elves, dwarves, men, and goblins) had, and there didn’t need to be much if anything more going on beyond greed and territory disputes. Much of the subplots involving the Master of Lake-town and his servant Alfrid Lickspittle is 100% clutter, as is the elf king’s (Thranduil) relationship with Legolas. Notice how both this servant character and Legolas also weren’t in the original book; both characters are “clutter.”
The hobbit and dwarves vs. Smaug. This whole climax scene in the second movie does not happen in the book. Though it provides a climax, that’s all it adds: action. It ultimately detracts from the simple ingenuity of Bilbo’s role in the book, where he tricks Smaug into revealing a weakness while burgling a golden cup; it detracts from Smaug’s arrogance and greed, as he is not enraged due to being fooled by Bilbo and losing a measly cup but rather due to being attacked; and it detracts from the believability of the story, because what the heck was that plan to melt gold over the dragon?
The barrel-riding scene. Uh… yeah, its action also doesn’t happen in the book, it adds just about the same as the aforementioned fight scene, and it also detracts from the overall story (namely the nature of the dwarves’ arrival to Lake-town) and pacing.
I wanted to focus mainly on the particular writing advice, though there is another matter worthy of expounding on in the way of creative liberties. But, I’ll save that for another time. I’ll leave off here with some thoughts on when this writing advice should be discarded: there is probably a very good reason a writer considers something a “darling” and doing away with it just because the writer likes it so much would be a shame. There can very well be a way to keep or incorporate a “darling” in a story so that it is a net positive, and I’d argue this is more often the case than not. These “darlings” also often are the lifeblood of the story that serve as the reason the story was written in the first place, if not there to keep things interesting. An example of this is that one scene from the story of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.
