Killing Your Darlings — The Two Times I Cut Characters

As writers, we often hear the phrase, “kill your darlings.” But, that phrase is often in the context of cutting out writing or scenes that don’t work, slow down a piece, or are utterly unnecessary.

Recently though, I’ve found myself taking it another way. I’m one of those people who work on multiple projects at once, and two of the things I’m working on had a similar thing happen. I cut an entire character from both.

This can be more painful than cutting scenes or entire plot points. In both screenplays and…