The Edit, Part Two: Massacre of the Darlings
"We looked for a sea where Death was not master"
I've been weighing a big decision with my novel over the last few months and I have now decided.
At the moment, the novel is four connected stories. I think there's something rich about having four very different stories with their own meditations on death. However, that's pretty complicated, and probably easy to fail to pull off. What's worse, one story, which we can call "Story A", dominates the others:
When people ask for my pitch for the book, I give the pitch for Story A.
Story A's wordcount is the same as the other three combined.
I've been thinking about Story A for four years, and the others for a year or two.
I've jotted more notes for Story A than for the other three combined (almost double!).
So my problem has been: Should I kill my darlings and just make Story A rich and full and as good as can be? I've talked to my wonderful partner1 about it, talked to writer friends, delayed editing, wrote two practice query letters to see which I preferred, and above all, agonized over how to still incorporate the other stories into Story A in a smaller way.
You can probably guess where this is headed -- I've made my decision. Story A is now the entirety of the story!
I intend to throw myself at making it the best it can be, still with plenty of internal stories (humans like telling stories!). I reserve the right to find that this doesn't work, it does need the grandiosity of nesting -- but not until I try to make it so strong it doesn't. It's a little terrifying, because it's the most dramatic cutting I've ever done. 60,000 words are off to purgatory, and I’m off to really, truly start editing!
Fiancée as of last month!