There’s an adage on writing that says you must ‘kill your darlings.’ What it means it that you must be ruthless in your editing. That scene, that sub-plot, that turn of phrase that you can’t believe you wrote, that you love to read and admire, if it doesn’t belong, if it leads the reader astray, if the spoils the pacing, then it must be excised out.

While I have had a brushing encounter with this concept, I can’t say it has ever really hit me hard emotionally.

My novel Vulcan’s Forge was adapted from a novella version of the story. (A novella was far too short for what I wanted hence the book that is now out in the wild.) The novella ended on a particular line, a turn of phrase I thought perfectly summed up the character’s emotional arc. ‘I still dream of Pamela.’ But when I was doing the edit on the novel about half a page from that final line the story ended.

Yes, I really liked that line it was the point and objective of the novella but it no longer fit. That last half page vanished from the manuscript and I did not hesitate or look back.

The entire post credit scene thing that Marvel Movies love to do came about from a similar situation. The Original Iron Man was supposed to end with Star going home and have that encounter with Fury but in the editing the filmmakers instinctively understood that ‘I Am Iron Man’ was the end of the story. Under normal condition that extra scene would have been discarded much like the deleted scenes of Lewis in hopsital that would have ended the film Robocop but Marvel Studios need to promise and tease The Avengersand so the post credit scene tradition was born. Before that these scenes often called buttons did occasionally exist but held no plot meaning but were mere bits of fun such as the ‘cursed monkey’ after the credits of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

The real lesson of kill your darlings is understand your story, know what fits, what is essential and what is not.