“Kill Your Darlings: What Writers Don’t Talk About Enough”

Kill Your Darlings

Some time ago, I came across a craft book with a title along the lines of Kill Your Darlings. I dismissed the idea at first. It felt flippant, almost cruel — the kind of advice tossed around in writing circles without much thought. But as I kept drafting, reading, and watching stories unfold on screen, that phrase settled somewhere in the back of my mind. Apparently, I’d dropped it into an idea barrel and let it ferment.

Then, while re-watching John Wick, I found myself paying attention not to the protagonist, but to the characters around him — the ones you’d expect to stay, the ones you want to keep. And yet the story took them anyway. Not for shock. For purpose.

That’s when the question finally surfaced for me:

How do authors decide which characters must die?

For me, the process was never about who to kill. It was always about why. I weighed the pros and cons of a short list of characters who had reached a crossroads in the narrative — characters whose survival or death would reshape the emotional architecture of the story. Eventually, I narrowed the field to a trio of possibilities.

It’s easy enough to know what to do with an antagonist. Their fate is almost predetermined by the story’s moral gravity. But what about the love interest? The side kick? The character readers have followed for multiple volumes? Do you spare the familiar faces and sacrifice only the minor ones? Or do you let the story choose, even when it hurts?

I won’t share who’s on the block. That part stays behind the curtain.

But I will say this: sometimes a story whispers a truth you don’t want to hear — not a name, just the realization that the world you’ve built might demand a cost.

In the end, the choice wasn’t about shock or spectacle. It was about honesty. Stories with real stakes demand real consequences, and sometimes that means letting go of a character you love. I still won’t say who’s on the block — that part belongs to the story itself — but I will say this: when a narrative asks for a sacrifice, the hardest thing an author can do is listen.