Taylor Swift Needs to Kill Her Darlings

As do we all

Hello everyone,

I know last week I said I’d write about the first story I sold — and I’ll get there I promise! — but because I’ve been consumed by my ever-changing feelings over The Tortured Poets Department and how all roads lead back to journalism, I’m making a little detour.

Like most of us, my first thought about this album was “meh.” I had the same gripes as everyone else: the songs sound similar, the narrative wasn’t cohesive, the lyrics not as sharp. (For the record I now love this album after many, many listens, but I will forever be a Fearless/Speak Now girlie because those two got me through college.)

Mostly though, I kept thinking that Taylor needed to kill her darlings. Many people reading this will understand that phrase, but for the uninitiated it’s the concept of cutting something — a sentence, section, word, phrase, paragraph, song— that you love but isn’t working. This is not to be confused with Marie Kondo’s idea of tossing what doesn’t spark joy because darlings spark a lot of joy. I consider killing darlings to be a specific and emotionally difficult type of editing, but we all have to do it at some point. In my experience darlings are most often killed when they drag a story. And there’s nothing worse than a story that drags.

Still laughing at this. Please note number two.

So let me tell you about a darling I once killed.

In 2019 I flew to Reno to attend a horse show called the Wild Spayed Filly Futurity which featured young female wild horses purchased from the Bureau of Land Management that were then spayed and trained (all of this was very controversial, as I wrote about in the piece, for The Washington Post magazine). There was a banquet the night before with a silent auction and a sit-down dinner that I also attended. Last week I mentioned that I study the works of magazine and longform writers who I admire, including Jen Percy. She had written a story for The New York Times Magazine the year prior about sentiments in eastern Oregon following the Malheur Refuge occupation and standoff. This will always be a “I wish I had written that” story for me. I love the entire piece, but one paragraph still remains ~free rent livin’ in my mind~:

“After the meeting ended, the patriots drove to McDonald’s, as they did every Thursday night, because it was the only restaurant open past 9 p.m. They pushed tables together and ate soft-serve ice cream. Everyone ordered vanilla.”

I just love the whole graf. The last sentence, the rhythm, the smallest details that tell the reader so much about these lives.

Anyway, (is my story dragging yet?) as I sat at one of the banquet tables at the casino in Reno, I noticed that all the attendees were served the same meal: a green salad, steak, mashed potatoes and a mini cheesecake. There were gravy boats full of dressing on the table and no one touched the Italian but the Ranch ran out before everyone could get to it. I so badly wanted to include these details in the story — probably with Jen Percy’s line about soft-serve vanilla still in my head.

The banquet and auction in Reno, a scene later killed.

I sent the draft to my editor and he said I couldn’t have the two scenes together, the evening banquet and the horse show. I’d have to pick one. Well of course I had gone to Reno to attend the horse show, not the banquet, so the dinner was the obvious cut. I said goodbye to my darling detail about the salad dressing and the story is much better for it.

I like to think that killing darlings isn’t relegated to the world of writing. There are things I’ve loved that I’ve had to let go because they no longer work for whatever reason — old clothes, relationships, my iTunes subscription. I hate parting with things I adore, even if it is the right choice.

So what do we think? Does Taylor Swift need to kill her darlings?

Thanks for being here <3

Britta Lokting

Endnote: I’ve realized that it’s going to be very hard for me to pick just one thing a week to share with you all. It’s a sickness, really, how many tabs I have open and magazines sitting on my table. But I think I can do it!

The NYT Magazine published a great Modern Love issue last weekend. The story about the 20-person polycule has been floating around on social media, but I also really liked this essay about dating after 50 and the freedom it affords people when they don’t feel the need to date in order to get married or have kids. There’s a lot to critique about dating apps, but this story also explored the ways in which online dating opened people up to the idea of a partner, say living in another state, who they may never have met otherwise.