On the importance of killing your darlings

“Murder your darlings”, goes the saying. A phrase born in literature, but one that belongs just as much to branding and business. The greatest brands, like the greatest books, aren’t defined by what they include. They are defined by what they have the courage to leave out.

The phrase, often attributed to William Faulkner, origins back to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who, in a lecture on writing in 1913, implored his students to cut the sentences they most adored. Not because those sentences were inherently bad, but because they distracted from the whole. The phrase has since been distorted, misapplied to any ruthless act of creative destruction, as though great work emerges from indiscriminate cutting. But this was never the point. Killing your darlings is not an exercise in brutality. It is an exercise in clarity.

And yet, in marketing, branding, and entrepreneurship, this lesson is rarely learned.

The modern entrepreneur- particularly in this age of personal branding – is taught to hold tightly to their ideas, their messaging, their vision, as though every word and every product is sacrosanct. But what if the opposite were true? What if success in marketing doesn’t come from adding more, but from letting go?

The businesses that thrive are not those that cling to every idea. They are those that edit themselves mercilessly. The greatest brands are not defined by what they say, but by what they choose not to say.

This is an essay about marketing as subtraction, storytelling as refinement, and the boldness of knowing what to leave behind.

The entrepreneurial misinterpretation (and why it’s necessary)

A writer kills their darlings for clarity. An entrepreneur kills their darlings for connection.

There is a fundamental misinterpretation of what it means to “kill your darlings” in business. It’s assumed that it means discarding what is ineffective. That is the easy version. The truth is far harder. It means discarding what is beloved but unnecessary.

In marketing, this is where most businesses falter. They fall in love with their own stories, their own clever branding, their own intricate product features. They assume that if they love an idea, their audience will, too. But the audience does not see the work that went into it. The audience does not care how long it took to develop. The audience only cares whether it matters to them.

And so, we entrepreneurs hold on to:

• A product we’ve spent years developing, even when the market doesn’t want it.
• A brand story centered on our own experience, even when it alienates our clients.
• A long, detailed sales page filled with features, even when a single powerful sentence would do.

The most difficult truth in marketing is this: It is not about you.

To build a brand that resonates, we must be willing to remove everything that does not serve our clients. Often, what must be removed is what we cherish the most.

Marketing is subtraction, not addition

There is a natural instinct in marketing. I call it “the myth of more”:

• More features.
• More content.
• More complexity in messaging.
• More platforms, more campaigns, more offers.

The impulse stems from fear – the fear that without excess, there will not be enough. That if a message is too simple, it will be overlooked.

But the opposite is true. Clarity is what commands attention. The businesses that master marketing do not pile on more. They edit, refine, strip away until only the essential remains.

Consider:

• Apple. When Steve Jobs returned in 1997, Apple had more than 40 product lines. He reduced them to four. He understood that simplicity creates power.
• Twitter (before X). It launched with 140 characters, forcing users to distill ideas to their essence.
• Airbnb. It began as a platform for air mattresses and couch-surfing, but the founders realized the real value wasn’t cheap lodging. It was belonging and unique travel experiences.

None of these brands succeeded by adding more. They succeeded by removing everything that diluted their core message.

Marketing is not about expansion. It is about refinement.

The Virginia Woolf approach to marketing (and other lessons in ruthless refinement)

Virginia Woolf rewrote To the Lighthouse obsessively, removing pages of passages she loved to create a narrative that flowed effortlessly.

There is something surgical about the way great writers refine their work. Woolf’s process was not about removing the weak parts of her novel. It was about removing even the brilliant parts that did not serve the whole. She understood that every sentence, every paragraph, every image must earn its place in the structure.

This is at the heart of great marketing, too. The best brand messaging is not simply a collection of strong ideas; it is a cohesive narrative, free of anything that muddies the message.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in The Little Prince, captured this sentiment perfectly, as have so many artists as well: “Perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.”

Even in physical spaces, we see this principle at work. Marie Kondo built an empire on a simple philosophy. If it does not spark joy, discard it.

The same is true in branding. If a message does not spark connection, clarity, or action, it must be removed. The brands that survive are the ones that edit themselves relentlessly, removing what distracts, dilutes, or confuses.

Killing your darlings in brand storytelling: it’s not about you

The most dangerous mistake in brand messaging is believing the story is about you.

It is not.

And yet, this is the hardest thing to accept. We tell our stories because we want to be seen. We want the world to understand why we created, how we struggled. But your audience is not listening for your victory. They are the heroines (and heroes) of their own lives. They are the protagonists. Hence, they are listening for their reflection in your story. They are looking for stories in which they see themselves.

This is where we entrepreneurs go wrong. We assume that because we love our own story, our audience will love it too. But self-indulgent storytelling is the enemy of connection. Great brand storytelling does not center the entrepreneur. It centers the client’s transformation.

Instead of: “Here’s why I started my business…”
Try: “Here’s how this can change your life.”

Instead of: “I built this product because I love it…”
Try: “Here’s why this matters to you.”

The greatest brands make their customers feel like the heroine of the story, not a spectator to someone else’s success. If your brand story is written with you as the main character, you have already lost your audience.

The boldness of letting go

Killing your darlings is not an act of destruction. It is an act of devotion to what matters most. The best entrepreneurs, marketers, and storytellers do not succeed by holding onto everything, they succeed by knowing what must be sacrificed for their message to truly land.

So, what must be cut? What is taking space that should be cleared?

What is diluting the strength of our brands, simply because we love it too much to let go?

What could you remove today? Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s not essential?

Success in storytelling – and in marketing – belongs to those who have the courage to remove what no longer serves.

That is the real art of killing your darlings.