How to Perform Editing of Fiction

Writing a short story can be a fun, therapeutic and creative way to channel your intellectual ideas and interpretations. The key to writing effectively is re-writing. Self-editing your short fiction can help your work to improve in terms of style, form and function. Having a finished product that reflects your observations and interpretations and best efforts is rewarding but requires self-editing, which can be very difficult. This How To is a brief synopsis of many widely used and respected tools for self-editing.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• An original piece of Short Fiction
• A Printer
• A Red Pen

1. Print your story. It is nearly impossible to identify point-of-view and dialogue problems while reading your own work on a computer screen. Something about holding the tangible, physical piece in your hands helps to bring it to life. This step also causes you to write your own critiques physically on the piece, which is much more serviceable and interactive than using Word or Mac editing tools.
2. A major problem in most short fiction is character development. A character starts out to service the motif or plot in some way, but through the course of the story the character may run out of time to perform the action neccesary for their purpose. It helps to write a character sketch, which can often be only a few sentences, detailing a character’s physical appearance, philosophical position, sense of humor and other aspects of characterization like occupation, marital status, or whatever main trait you the author want that character to possess.
3. Identify point of view. The most common points of view in short fiction are first person and close third. The close third person is difficult but effective. Anytime in the course of the story where “I” becomes “he”--or “hers” morphs into “mine”--there is a point of view discrepancy. These are common mistakes and can be easily fixed. Using your hard copy of the story underline every pronoun and ensure the consistency of the usage. First person points of view are widely used and the important thing to remember is keeping the narrative within the scope of the point of view. A character called “I” couldn’t really know what was going on in another character’s mind. First person and omniscience are mutually exclusive.
4. One of the most difficult aspects of self-editing short fiction is maintaining tense consistency. An example: “He lies there on the track until a student notices him and calls for help. That was the last time his feet ever touched the ground outside of the hospital.” The action takes place in the present throughout the first sentence, but adopts the past tense throughout the second. These problems are also very common, but are harder to identify than point of view. Self-editing helps to eliminate these discrepancies, which are often simply careless mistakes or typos.
5. We fall in love with words all the time. As writers we hear a word used in conversation or in media and we like the way it sounds. We naturally want to use it in our own work. We want to show off our perspicacity, as it were. If this happens, and a word gets used in your fiction, make sure you know a precise meaning. There is nothing worse—with the exception of the writer’s kiss of death, the cliché—than a misused big word. If you’re not sure of usage or grammar, use an outside source to clarify.
6. The way to identify all these problems is to read aloud. Reading your own work to yourself will help you to notice tense and point of view problems much more efficiently than silently reading the piece. Inevitably, you will stumble over a phrase or piece of dialogue. These stumbling blocks should be circled on your copy and checked over for the problems of point of view, tense and grammar. This is the most important aspect of self-editing. There is no greater tool to edit your work than your own voice.
7. Once you’ve identified your problems and read the story aloud, repeat the entire process. Sometimes a correction doesn’t look so good the third time around and you’ll want to revert back to the original. This is fine; it’s your work and if you like a phrase or a character idiosyncrasy that you hadn’t planned on it’s okay. The purpose of self-editing is not to mutilate your original vision; it is simply to strengthen it and fortify the language. The third time through, as you read aloud, look for the kiss of death. “She was nervous so she bit her nails” has got to go. There are other ways of showing that a character is nervous. The cliché’s appearance in fiction immediately diminishes the work; it’s as if the author is merely writing to regurgitate. The self-editing process is a painstaking and necessary step in crafting effective fiction, and there are many tutorials out there for the serious self-editor.

Tips & Warnings

• Self-Editing is necessary and invaluable, but so is sharing your work.
• Find a friend who also likes to write, or even is just an avid reader, and share your work.
• Don't take your reader's criticisms personally; your friend isn't attacking you, just commenting on your writing.