Oh the love of pet ideas… is the source of pain for so many frustrated ‘artists.’ I find it amazing that you can argue with other creative people about ideas that simply don’t fit within the themes of their project, or that you can argue about just plain bad or nonsensical ideas, period.

Why do creative people embrace silly things? It’s the love of pet ideas. It’s a hardcore obsession with darlings.

We’d all be better off as writers, readers, media-consumers, etc… if you just please, please, please KILL YOUR DARLINGS.

Just do it. You either have to make it work within the context of your project, or you have to throw it away or save it for later. But you have to make a decision. Your work will be worse off if you don’t, and your work will be better off if you do.

Cast subjectivity aside for a moment. That idea that’s just languishing in your novel, not really going anywhere? Get tough. Get selective. Get mean with yourself.

And then I won’t have to argue with you about why your project isn’t primed for success. If you don’t skewer your own ideas, your audience will. Or I will. Maybe I should an editor?

One thing I don’t understand is why being self-critical, editing yourself, adopting structure, or killing your darlings, are considered compromises of artistic integrity.

You want your work to improve, right? Adaptation is good. A lack of adaptation is… literally, maladaptive. For some reason creative people associate unchanging, die-hard attitudes about their work with artistic integrity. I’m not sure why.

To me that’s the stodgy way of the dinosaurs. It’s also inviting mediocrity. I don’t see how artistic integrity can be keeping everything the same, forever. I don’t see how artistic integrity is defined in that kind of conservative, protective way.

The willingness to hold your work up to the flame is artistic integrity.

The willingness to understand the difference between the wants of your ego and the need of your story is artistic integrity.

We all love to color outside the lines of the coloring book. We allow those kinds of indulgences for children. As adults and professionals, there is nobody waiting to congratulate us for the horrible screw-ups and mediocrity. Nobody will shower us with praise and kisses for creating a blob and calling it art. The real world is willing to love you, but it’s a conditional love. Nobody cares that you had fun coloring outside the lines. The world demands a thesis, a point–they want something that provides meaning or interpretation to their lives.

There is no unconditional love. The world only knows a shrewd, tough love. The way a lionness bites her cubs, or carries them rough by the scruff of the neck. There is very little gentleness out there in the jungle or the savannah. So why do the people of our advanced cultures expect it when unleashing their ‘art’ upon the world? There is no free pass. There is no hiding behind the label of art. There is no hiding behind subjectivity, or relativity. People will judge your work, at some point. If you’ve written a draft, it might as well be you. Be the first, not the last.

You have to earn it. Your novel has to earn it. There is no artistic integrity in refusing to change.

Kill your darlings. Kill your darlings now.