History That Never Was

I had the idea to write a post about my revision process, but it occurred to me that it’s different depending on the length of the piece I’m revising. When I’m writing novella or novel length pieces, my revision wall is my go to method. But the revision wall is way too much when I’m writing drabbles, microfiction, or flash fiction. So here’s how I revise each of those.

For drabbles, I pretty much write and revise simultaneously. Since I’m aiming for an exact word count (100 words), I have to sketch out the basics when I’m writing, while keeping an eye on the word count. When it starts creeping up too quickly, I look at what I’ve written and find bits I can cut. If I finish writing up the basics and still have some word count left, I can fill those in, then trim words if I need to. Then I might let it sit for a day, at most, to see if a second reading suggests any places I can improve the wording or the impact.

For microfiction, I’m typically shooting for more than 100 words but fewer than 250 words. This length is a place where I can let myself draft the story as it needs to be (still small, but not as constrained as drabbles) and then figure out if it needs more fleshing out or some cutting. I do a little bit of revising to make sure it’s under 250 words, but then I let it sit for a day or two, then do some light revisions, again to improve the wording and impact.

For flash fiction, I’m typically trying for 500 to 1,000 words. That’s a LOT more wiggle room, so I can draft something, see where it winds up, and then let it sit for a day or two before attacking it with the virtual red pen. For this length, I’m more likely to rewrite more than just a few words here and there. I also make sure I’m not using extraneous words, and I’m also looking at wording and impact like I do for shorter lengths. But depending on the length of the draft, I might add in a paragraph or two, flesh out some dialogue, or add description, since I often leave that out of my early drafts.

Next week, I’ll talk about revising short stories, which is a different process than either very short stuff or novellas/novels!

 

 

Tags: drabbles, flash fiction, microfiction, revisions, writing

This entry was posted by dawn.vogel on Monday, July 15th, 2024 at 6:00 am and is filed under Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.