Revision Process: Short Fiction
Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay
Last week, I talked about my revision process for very short pieces (drabbles, microfiction, and flash). This week, I’m talking about my revision process for short stories.
First, I always try to finish the first draft before tinkering with it. The struggle is real, because I’m an editor, so I’m always tempted to start revising as I write. I have to remind myself that at the drafting stage, I should just worry about getting the words out, because I can fix them later.
Once I’ve finished a short story (1,000 or more words), I try to let it sit for a couple of weeks while I work on something different. This lets me get enough distance from the story so I can see it more clearly when I come back to it. I also try to print out my short stories so I can do my first pass for revisions on paper, which also helps me see the story differently.
I’m a chronic under-writer, so one of the things I’m always looking for in revisions is places where I haven’t included enough description or action. This is partially because I visualize the story and characters as I’m writing, but I don’t always get those details that are in my mind’s eye into the story itself. So I have to watch for “white room” syndrome, in which the reader can’t tell where the characters are. I don’t advocate for adding tons and tons of detail, but just a few choice bits of description can help ground the story in a place.
Once I’ve got details sorted out, I’ll look again for things I can cut or reword. This might be excessive dialogue tags, having the characters shrug or shake their head frequently. This can also be stronger verbs, fewer adverbs, and some of my “crutch” words.
Then, once I’ve gotten my wording stronger, I do searches for my “crutch” words as well, to make sure I’ve caught all the ones that are extraneous. (Sometimes, you do need “that” in a sentence, but at least 50% of the time, I overuse it.)
And then, finally, I give it another read. I might have my computer read it aloud to me so I can catch anywhere the language doesn’t flow quite right, word repetition, and the like. And then it’s ready to go out on submissions!
There are instances where the process has more steps, particularly if I’m trying to hit a minimum word count or need to stay under a maximum word count (typically if I’m writing a story for a specific call for submissions). I also occasionally send my stories to some other writers with whom I exchange stories for an extra set of eyes, but as I’ve gotten more experience with and feel confident in my writing, I find I look for those extra eyes less frequently.
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