We’ve all heard from writing classes and craft books that we need to murder our darlings. In today’s episode, the guys discuss the darlings they’ve murdered both for themselves and for each other.

Have you ever tried touching up the paint on a wall to cover a scuff, then notice that the newly painted part stands out even more than the scuff because that paint is brand new and the rest of the wall was last painted 5 years ago? This is Johnny’s point about throwing out the whole draft or the whole book and just starting over when things get too hard. Sometimes it is easier to start over completely rather than try to pick things apart and patch them up in rewriting.

Writing with collaborators can really help with the process of murdering your darlings because sometimes your writing partners can murder them for you!

Listen in to learn more about how the guys go about cutting, editing, and sometimes scrapping and entirely rewriting their books.