You’ve written a short story, and now you want to polish it. What are the strategies writers use to edit their stories? As you continue writing, you’ll develop your own editing process, but here are ten important steps for writers to use when revising fiction.
1. Take Time Away
It’s not possible to edit a story right after you write it. You’ll edit more effectively after taking some time off, so you can be properly distanced from the text. It doesn’t have to be long – a day or so is probably enough – but make sure to give yourself some time away.
2. Consider Changing the Beginning
The beginning of a short story is arguably its most important part. Consider starting your story in medias res, or in the middle. Start with an engaging scene that immediately introduces the characters, conflict, and ideas of the story.
3. Perfect the First Sentence
Your first sentence should immediately grab the reader’s attention. Spend time making sure the first sentence is perfect.
4. Rearrange Action
Often writers write story drafts in chronological order. However, it can be interesting to read stories that start in the middle, or at the end, and then go back and retell all the action that preceded the beginning scene. Open a new document, copy paste your story into it, and then copy paste it into different orders.
5. Read Dialogue Aloud
Dialogue can be tricky to get right. Reading your dialogue aloud can help you determine whether your dialogue sounds realistic and effective.
6. Print It Out
Your story may look perfect on your computer screen, but it can often be helpful to print out your story and edit a hard copy of it. Seeing it on paper is often a very different experience.
7. Sympathetic Characters
Make sure your characters are sympathetic. They don’t have to be perfect – in fact, they shouldn’t be, or they’ll probably seem unrealistic – but they should be minimally likeable, or at the least, understandable. Do their motives make sense? Are their personalities consistent throughout the story? Are all of their actions in character?
8. Point of View Consistency
There’s nothing more jolting than a story that suddenly switches into a different point of view. Make sure your story is written in the same point of view throughout, and examine your reasons for using that point of view. It can be an interesting exercise to rewrite stories, or even just scenes, in different points of view to see how they are changed.
9. Check Every Scene
In a short story, every sentence, every word matters. Is every scene absolutely and necessary to your story? Are there any tangents or unnecessary moments? It can be difficult to delete things you’ve written, but condensing your story can make it much more powerful and effective.
10. Choose a Great Title
A title can lure readers and confer additional meaning upon the story. Spend time choosing a unique and interesting title.
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Rebekah Richards - Rebekah Richards has published fiction and nonfiction in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Brandeis Law Journal, Where the Children Play, ...
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