--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > 11. Violate any of these rules if you're a good enough -- or funny > enough -- writer to get away with it. > > I mention this rule because I've finally got the time to finish reading > Christopher Moore's "Sacre Bleu" and my sides ache from laughing. If > some editor who'd never written a publishable word in his or her life > but who considered himself/herself an expert anyway had convinced him to > "kill his darlings," the book would be one-third the length it is, and > one-twentieth as funny.
A good editor, of course, wouldn't tell a writer to murder any of his or her darlings that made the book better; and a good writer would never go along with a bad editor's telling him or her to do so. BTW, an editor can be an "expert" on writing without being a writer him- or herself. It's really only hack writers with excessively inflated egos who don't understand this. > Chris definitely knows the truth of "If you're > not having fun [writing], you're doing it wrong." Sure are a lot of first-class writers doing it wrong, then.
