Being a rewriter more than anything else, I’d become used to applying the advice “Kill your darlings.” In fact, while writing Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings, my debut novel for young readers, Delete, Cut, and Trash had been my chairside friends for ten (count them TEN) years.
My attempts to get this story right, one revised page atop another, could likely reach the Space Station! So you can imagine, I was in no mood to murder any more darlings once Margaret Ferguson Books offered to acquire it. And yet, there I was, a contract before me with the caveat: You're willing to revise, yes?
And so there I sat with the Revision Guillotine above my words yet again. And the first beloved darling on the chopping block was the story’s setting of 1941 on the South Side of Chicago (after my main character’s move from Harlem).
My attempts to get this story right, one revised page atop another, could likely reach the Space Station! So you can imagine, I was in no mood to murder any more darlings once Margaret Ferguson Books offered to acquire it. And yet, there I was, a contract before me with the caveat: You're willing to revise, yes?
And so there I sat with the Revision Guillotine above my words yet again. And the first beloved darling on the chopping block was the story’s setting of 1941 on the South Side of Chicago (after my main character’s move from Harlem).
My setting was precious because I was born on the South Side, and it's where my parents grew up. My opening scene is even based on a South Side recollection of my mother's, and I had scattered other scenes based on stories my parents had shared with me about growing up on the South Side throughout my yarn. The setting also gave me an excuse to research Chicago's African American history, which I really enjoyed. It brought me great satisfaction resurrecting the glitz and glamour that once was 47th Street—the business heartbeat of the South Side.
S niff-sniff… rest in peace 1941 Chicago—see you in another manuscript.
Though murdering my setting caused me a great deal of mourning, I was able to keep its essence by replacing it with another thriving African American community, albeit a smaller, Southern one located within Charlottesville, Virginia, called Vinegar Hill. The year 1941 became 1935, but only because I wanted to keep a scene involving a kid “flipping” a streetcar (AKA—riding on the back by hanging onto the outside rails), and Charlottesville’s streetcar service stopped in 1935.
And you know what? Despite the labor pain of having to research a new cityscape of the past, I came to love my new setting even more than my old one! I loved the small-town Southern city feel. I loved learning about the real people who lived in Vinegar Hill and who persevered despite the times for the love and sake of its children. I loved that I could walk down some of the same streets my character would have walked. Vinegar Hill absolutely suited my storyline which follows a ten-year-old on a quest to find her mama a husband with a Man-for-Mama plan in one hand and a jar of chicken and dumplings in the other. And by not having my main character move from one city to another, her conflict with her NOT-friend Gwen could be moved up in the plotline.
True, there was a domino-plot-effect with my setting change. It required the reconstruction of nearly the entire novel! Truth told, the work it took to get it done left me pulling at my afro, and yelling at my computer. But now that my rewrite of my rewrite of my rewrite times more rewrites has finally been written and published, I am glad I listened to the sage advice to kill my darlings. Because what remains, I hope, is a story rich with emotional depth, a plot that is logical, and a main character that kids will love. Isn’t that’s what being a writer, er, rewriter is all about?
We murder our darlings for the sake of the story.
Though murdering my setting caused me a great deal of mourning, I was able to keep its essence by replacing it with another thriving African American community, albeit a smaller, Southern one located within Charlottesville, Virginia, called Vinegar Hill. The year 1941 became 1935, but only because I wanted to keep a scene involving a kid “flipping” a streetcar (AKA—riding on the back by hanging onto the outside rails), and Charlottesville’s streetcar service stopped in 1935.
And you know what? Despite the labor pain of having to research a new cityscape of the past, I came to love my new setting even more than my old one! I loved the small-town Southern city feel. I loved learning about the real people who lived in Vinegar Hill and who persevered despite the times for the love and sake of its children. I loved that I could walk down some of the same streets my character would have walked. Vinegar Hill absolutely suited my storyline which follows a ten-year-old on a quest to find her mama a husband with a Man-for-Mama plan in one hand and a jar of chicken and dumplings in the other. And by not having my main character move from one city to another, her conflict with her NOT-friend Gwen could be moved up in the plotline.
True, there was a domino-plot-effect with my setting change. It required the reconstruction of nearly the entire novel! Truth told, the work it took to get it done left me pulling at my afro, and yelling at my computer. But now that my rewrite of my rewrite of my rewrite times more rewrites has finally been written and published, I am glad I listened to the sage advice to kill my darlings. Because what remains, I hope, is a story rich with emotional depth, a plot that is logical, and a main character that kids will love. Isn’t that’s what being a writer, er, rewriter is all about?
We murder our darlings for the sake of the story.
All photos are from 1941 Chicago found in the American Memory digital archive curated by he Library of Congress. The photographer was Edwin Rosskam who worked for the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information .
