History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Revision Process: Short Fiction

| July 22, 2024

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 […]

Revision Process: Very Short Pieces

| July 15, 2024

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 […]

Learning to Write Concisely

| June 3, 2024

Some authors write long pieces, and when they get to the end, they realize they could benefit from learning to write more concisely. Other authors (like me) write very sparsely to begin with (and wind up having to flesh some things out during revisions). If you’re more in the former camp than the latter, here […]

Writing Tool: Freeform (iOS)

| February 26, 2024

Not too long ago, an author friend of mine mentioned using Freeform, an iOS app, to organize his thoughts on a story he was working on. He added photos of his cast, notes on each of them, and a day by day outline for each of the major characters, along with what happened for each […]

Bogging Down in Revisions

| February 19, 2024

I’m currently in the midst of revising a novella, and I’ve definitely hit the mucky middle. I didn’t feel like it slowed down substantially when I was writing this part of the book, but now I’m second-guessing everything I’ve written, all the parts I’ve revised, and all the parts I haven’t revised. It’s sort of […]

My Revision Wall

| February 24, 2020

I’ve been working through revisions on a novel since the beginning of 2020, and I’m finally reaching the end of those. But I wanted to show off the tool that I’ve been using to help with those revisions–my Revision Wall. Some people use post-it notes to do something similar, but I needed a) more space […]

Question from the Audience: De-Trunking a Story

| November 18, 2019

I’m back today with another question from the audience! Do you have any advice on trying to “de-trunk” and resuscitate a story you really liked? Like, how do I know if it’s time? How do I find the good bits without holding onto the ones that just aren’t working? So remember how I talked about […]

January 2016 recap

| February 2, 2016

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 16 Acceptances received: 1 Rejections received: 13 Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 14 New Submissions: 1 Stories out at the end of the month: 18 Hard to believe that a month has already passed! I’m still putting 2015 on plenty of stuff, but I’m finally starting to remember what […]

April 2015 recap

| April 30, 2015

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 6 Acceptances received: 1 Rejections received: 3 Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 4 New Submissions: 0 Stories out at the end of the month: 6 The numbers this month seem a little low to me, but I think that’s mainly because I’ve got stories out at markets that have a longer […]

February 2015 recap

| February 28, 2015

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 5 Acceptances received: 0 Rejections received: 8 Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 11 New Submissions: 1 Stories out at the end of the month: 9 More good numbers for February! I finished up revisions on one story (code name: play) that I had written in […]