Kill Your Darlings: Cutting, Compression, and Structural Revision with Aimee Seiff Christian

Begins Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET

Now Enrolling! Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.

Instructor Bio

Instructor Aimee Seiff Christian writes memoir and creative nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. She teaches memoir and personal essay, leading workshops on voice, structure, revision, and the architecture of book-length nonfiction projects. In addition to teaching, she works as a developmental editor and writing coach, helping writers strengthen individual essays and assemble them into larger, cohesive manuscripts. She has also served as a reader for Hippocampus. She lives in Massachusetts.

Who is this class for?

This online writing workshop is for writers at all levels who have a draft or substantial partial draft and know their work needs to be cut, sharpened, or restructured — but aren't sure what to remove or how to do it without flattening the piece. If you've ever sensed a draft is carrying too much but couldn't name the excess, this nonfiction revision workshop will give you a precise framework for doing exactly that.

What to expect:

Writers often know a draft needs cutting long before they know exactly what to cut, why, or how to do it without damaging what is alive in the work. This creative writing workshop is designed for writers who want to revise by subtraction — cutting what is repetitive, overexplained, self-protective, structurally unnecessary, or simply no longer serving the piece. Over six weeks, you'll work on revision at multiple levels of a draft, studying compression at the sentence and paragraph level, identifying redundancy and overwritten passages, examining how cutting can sharpen voice and increase narrative momentum, and considering larger structural questions about scenes, sections, transitions, and arrangement.

Aimee's approach treats cutting as a generative act rather than a punitive one. Instead of offering vague advice to "tighten" or "trim," she helps writers identify specific kinds of excess — overexplanation, repetition, self-protection, misplaced attachment, and structural drift — and revise with greater precision and intention. Rather than trimming for brevity alone, you'll learn to see what excess may be obscuring, whether that excess takes the form of explanation, attachment, repetition, or fear. The goal is not simply to make a draft shorter, but to make it clearer, stranger, sharper, and more fully itself.

Each week pairs close reading and craft discussion with targeted exercises and focused feedback. Through guided revision of your own pages, a dedicated workshop session, and writing feedback that stays practical and revision-centered, you'll leave with a clear sense of what is essential in your work and a plan for getting there.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will produce a revised packet of up to 10–15 pages, along with a marked and annotated draft showing multiple levels of cutting and compression, a list of recurring excesses or problem patterns in their work, and a concrete revision plan for further cutting, restructuring, and expansion where needed. Each student may submit up to 10–15 pages total over the six weeks and will receive targeted instructor feedback focused on cutting, compression, structural necessity, and revision priorities — delivered through a combination of written comments on submitted pages and in-class discussion, with an emphasis on big-picture revision rather than line editing.

Readings

Readings may include excerpts from Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing; Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir; Melissa Febos, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative; Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water; and Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: What Is Excess? Cutting with Purpose — Identify the kinds of excess that commonly accumulate in drafts, including overexplanation, repetition, throat-clearing, self-protection, and unnecessary context, and explore the difference between cutting for brevity and cutting for force, clarity, and shape. Main activity: analyze a section of your own draft to identify what feels essential, what feels overworked, and where the energy of the piece is being diluted. Texts: selected excerpts that demonstrate the power of omission, restraint, and precise revision.

Week 2: Compression at the Sentence and Paragraph Level — Study how writers compress language without losing texture or voice, and how tightening can sharpen rhythm, emphasis, and emotional force. Main activity: revise a short passage from your own work with attention to compression, redundancy, and sentence-level excess. Texts: selected excerpts that model concision, compression, and sentence-level control.

Week 3: Finding the Heat — Overexplanation, Repetition, and Self-Protection — Examine the ways writers explain too much, repeat what the work has already made clear, or overstate a point out of anxiety or self-protection, and discuss how trust in the reader can strengthen a piece. Main activity: identify one section of your draft that overexplains or repeats itself and revise it for greater trust, tension, and precision. Texts: selected excerpts that rely on implication, restraint, and readerly inference.

Week 4: Structural Cutting — Scenes, Sections, and Digressions — Move to larger-scale revision: how to identify scenes, paragraphs, or sections that may be beautifully written but structurally unnecessary, and how to recognize digressions that weaken momentum. Main activity: map a portion of your draft and consider what can be cut, condensed, moved, or combined at the structural level. Texts: selected excerpts that demonstrate strong structural economy and purposeful omission.

Week 5: Revision Workshop — What to Cut, What to Keep — Receive focused feedback on selected pages, with particular attention to where a draft is carrying too much and where cutting might sharpen the work's truest shape. Main activity: guided workshop centered on student pages, with discussion focused on compression, structural necessity, and revision priorities rather than line editing alone. Texts: brief model excerpts revisited as needed.

Week 6: Revision by Subtraction — Building the Next Draft — Synthesize what you've learned and create a practical plan for continuing to revise by subtraction, distinguishing productive cutting from flattening the work. Main activity: assemble a revision roadmap that identifies the most important cuts still to make, the larger structural changes needed, and any places where expansion is now possible. Texts: brief excerpts revisited from earlier weeks as models for revision and structural clarity.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• A revised packet of up to 10–15 pages of your own work
• A marked and annotated draft showing multiple levels of cutting and compression
• A personalized list of recurring excesses and problem patterns in your writing
• A concrete revision plan for further cutting, restructuring, and expansion
• A rigorous, craft-focused framework for deciding what to cut at the sentence, paragraph, and structural level
• The ability to revise by subtraction with intention — making your work clearer, sharper, and more fully itself

TESTIMONIALS:

"Aimee is a beautiful teacher and mentor. Her style is nourishing for the soul. My writing improves through her teaching and the way she organizes a literary community. We are all her chicks in the nest learning to fly with patient, focused assistance. Expect to be pushed and seen throughout the experience." — Lara Stone, Memoirist, Advanced Personal Writing Workshop

"I've gotten so much out of working with Aimee. She's a smart, caring creative who brings out great things in her students and helps us create new writing and polish our existing work." — Elaine Hays, Memoirist, Advanced Personal Writing Workshop

"If you are ready to advance your craft and workshopping skills, take this course! Aimee has opened the world of memoir writing for me. The classes are well-organized with craft lessons and workshopping throughout." — Former Student

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $445 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Aimee Seiff Christian
• Begins Wednesday, October 14, 2026
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET
• Tuition is $445 USD.