“Kill your darlings” is a widespread piece of writing advice given by editors, almost without actually looking at a given manuscript. And it’s always justified. Writers have a tendency to be overly wordy and a complemental tendency to fall in love with every sentence they write, and editors have the tough job of cutting acceptable manuscripts down to manageable length.

So far, I’ve mostly been lucky enough to escape the cruel red slashing pencils of editors, by a combination of compact writing and sheer luck. But this weekend, ‘What happened while Don was watching the game’ was rejected by ASIM, with a note that the editor liked the idea and the solid (sic!) writing, and would be happy to read it again after I cut it down to half its length.

I’d love to sell this story to ASIM, so of course I’m going to try and comply with the editor’s request. Which means I have to lose a little over 2,500 words. I’ve just deleted two passages I already suspected were just padding, and that leaves me with only 2,200 more words (about 9 pages) to delete from the story. The rest of the story is chock-full of darlings.

Wish me luck on my first mass-murder.