Last night my husband and I watched the first episode of the excellent Ken Burns documentary on Ernest Hemingway. It reminded me of two things. First, my tour of the Hemingway House in Key West some years ago where I visited the six-toed descendants of his six-toed cats. Secondly, Hemingway’s talent for brevity of language. Oddly, the two are connected.
What does a six-toed cat have to do with the brevity of language? Flowery descriptions and pages of narrative where a paragraph or two would suffice are like a sixth toe—you don’t need it. The same is true of similes and metaphors when they’re over-used or used indiscriminately, which can become laughable in some cases. A student of mine in the writing course I taught in my younger years once turned in a short story he’d written in which a character was described as having “eyes glazed like doughnuts.” He was shocked when he read his story aloud in class and the aforementioned passage elicited chuckles from his audience. I gently explained to him why it wasn’t a good idea to describe facial expressions or facial features using food references. (I, too, was guilty of such excesses in my early years as a writer, though hopefully none that were laughable!).
Hemingway is known for his taut writing. His stories read like the articles he wrote when he was a newspaper reporter. Short sentences. Short paragraphs. And man, do they pack a punch. He gets the job done by suggesting with a line of narrative or dialogue what a character looks like or what they might have meant when they spoke, or how the action might have unfolded. Our imagination paints a picture in the spaces between the words and lines that might have been edited out.
It takes discipline to “kill the darlings.” I strive and have not entirely succeeded in this discipline despite my more than three decades as a working writer and author of 20 published novels. I’ve gotten better about it, though. I’m fairly ruthless with my red pencil. What I miss or can’t bear to kill is usually flagged by my editor. This is why we need editors.
What are my six-toed cats? I confess I’m a sucker for an elegant metaphor. I give myself wide latitude in my first drafts. When I’m revising a draft I refer to my guidelines, otherwise known as The Three Questions.
• Is this a “darling”?
• Does it enhance the scene or descriptive passage or detract from it?
• Am I telling a story here or trying to impress the reader with my nifty turns of phrase?
If the answer to the first two questions is no, the line, paragraph, or metaphor needs to go. If the answer to the third question is yes, kill the darling. Telling a story that hooks the reader from the opening pages and doesn’t let go is always more important than impressing the reader with one’s “literary genius.” At the risk of indulging in a metaphor, I liken it to a fast ride in a car. It’s about the thrill of the ride, not enjoying the scenery.
So the next time you’re writing, whether it’s an article, essay, or a business letter, keep an eye out for the six-toed cats. If you don’t kill them, they might kill your piece.
