Killing our darlings

Back in January, Steph and I were sure we’d figured out the opening to our film about menopause, The Body Is Not a Thing. It was punchy and shocking and outrageous. We were convinced that it was, in a word, perfect.

As we waded toward the middle, when everything started to sag and we couldn’t see an arc, we would revisit the beginning and admire it all over again. When we felt like the film wasn’t working, it was comforting to return to that opening scene, to this little gem that we were proud of. 

At some point, though, we had to admit that we were stuck. Things weren’t clicking, and we couldn’t see how the pieces we’d assembled would come together as a film. We started to unravel the threads we’d woven together, and we weren’t even sure what we wanted the story to be anymore or what the film was ultimately about. 

So we took a break. We focused on other projects and left our hard drive to collect dust, the blue construction paper with our selects rolled up and tucked away.

Photo: Jacqueline Yen

This week, we took it out again. Thankfully, our process felt different this time. Rather than trying to fit the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, or rather force them to fit, we decided to hold everything loosely. We asked big, hard, expansive questions about what had drawn us to this topic in the first place and why we were making this film, what had captivated us while researching and shooting, and what we truly wanted to explore in this project. 

Asking these questions and answering them honestly meant that we had to be prepared for our film to change shape. And it has. 

This week, we turned a corner, and we’re approaching a true vision for our project, one that feels right. But it means that we’re losing some incredible characters, whose stories and insights we hope to share with you in other ways. It means we’re cutting that perfect opening, which we still adore and are mourning. It means that we’ll have some new characters and whole new scenes to shoot. But we’re no longer stuck, just overwhelmed and excited and ready to keep moving forward.

I’ve had to tell myself more than once that all that work, all that energy was not wasted. And I know it wasn’t. I know that walking down the wrong path, that realizing what the film wasn’t was part of the process. On first pass, I tend to have a kitchen sink approach to creative projects. I want to throw everything that fascinates me into it, and then I invariably have to chop and whittle and sometimes hack off whole sections. It can be painful. 

I’m reminded of a trope that’s often repeated in writing workshops: kill your darlings. It’s a reminder to not hold any scene or sentence as precious, to be willing to revise or cut your favorite parts in service of the larger story. This week, we killed some darlings. Or at least, we set them aside…because you never know, maybe they’ll have another life.

-Monica