No. 12 “Kill your darlings.”

cut it, even if you love it.

Sometimes your favorite idea is the thing in the way. Gorgeous, clever, took all week.

If it doesn’t help people, it goes. Save it in a folder if that helps.

Ask: would anyone miss it but me?

In lectures at Cambridge in 1914, Arthur Quiller-Couch told writers to delete their fanciest lines: “Murder your darlings.”

It got softened to “kill” & pinned on Faulkner, Hemingway & others.

Designers borrowed it for the same reason writers needed it.

• Arthur Quiller-Couch, On the Art of Writing (lectures, 1913 to 1914; book, 1916)
• Poynter, “Murder your darlings” (2007)

Save this for the next time you can’t let go of a gorgeous idea.