Know Which Darlings to Kill

I follow @smoulderingsea on Twitter, and every once in a while he tosses out some sharp, smart #editortips. A recent one went something like "if it doesn't have anything to do with your story, it doesn't matter how you love it. Take it out." My response to this has traditionally been a whine of "it all has to do with my story! If it happens to my character, it's my story!"

This is not a constructive response, so generally I go on and try to follow this most excellent advice. That's where it...