Tonight I'm working on an essay that has been through two rounds of intense editing from the very highest echelon of professional editors.
They keep cutting things I wrote. Like whole sentences. A paragraph, even.
Like WTF?
@ct_bergstrom I remember some professional writer talking about how you have to look at your favorite sentences in particular. Often these have odd phrasing, don't fit into the flow of the whole thing, or really aren't as cool as you think, but you have grown really attached them. I kept an eye on this phenomenon and I do it and my colleagues do it in their writing. When doing edits it's usually the first thing to go and still people try to bring it back ;-)
@betschart @ct_bergstrom I've heard that phrased as "Kill your darlings." Some people save their murdered darlings in special files that they go to for inspiration later on. Useful if the text snippet is going on a tangent. Later on you can develop it into a full-fledged feature if it holds up.
@mjausson @ct_bergstrom I like the spirit of "Kill your darlings". It's hard, but it really works well.
