Part 4: Revising and Finalizing Your Story

1

Set your story aside for at least a day before revising it. It’s difficult to revise your story right away because you won’t be able to notice your errors and plot holes yet. Leave it alone for a day or longer so that you can look at it with fresh eyes.[15]

• Printing out your story may help you see it from a different perspective, so you might try that when you go back to revise it.

• Setting your work aside for a little while is a good move, but don't set it aside for so long that you lose interest in it.

2

Read your story aloud to listen for areas that need improvement. When you read your story aloud, you get a different perspective on it. This will help you identify passages that don’t flow well or sentences that sound choppy. Read your story to yourself and make notes where you need to revise it.[16]

• You can also read your story to other people and ask them for advice.

3

Get feedback from other writers or people who read often. When you’re ready, show your story to a fellow writer, instructor, classmate, or friend. If you can, take it to a writing critique or workshop. Ask your readers to provide their honest feedback so you can improve your story.[17]

• The people closest to you, like your parents or best friend, may not provide the best feedback because they care about your feelings too much. However, you may be able to find a writing critique group on Meetup.com or at your local library.

• For feedback to be helpful, you have to be receptive to it. If you think you've written the most perfect story in the world, then you won't actually hear a word anyone says.

• Make sure you're giving your story to the right readers. If you're writing science fiction but have handed your story to your writer friend who enjoys literary fiction, you may not get the best feedback.

EXPERT TIP

LUCY V. HAY
Professional Writer

If you're getting good feedback, consider submitting your story to a short story contest. Some short story contests have prizes, like being published in an anthology or having a chance meet an agent. Those types of things can be valuable to you later on. For instance, if you get published in several anthologies, you can utilize that when you're making submissions to agents. Some competitions, like the Bridport Prize and the Bath Short Story Award in the UK, are very prestigious—if you can win one of those, you'll actually be seen as a writer with some significant chops.

4

Eliminate anything that doesn’t reveal character details or advance the plot. This may mean cutting passages that you think are well-written. However, your reader is only interested in details that are important for the story. As you revise your work, make sure every sentence you save shows something about your character or pushes the plot forward. Cut any sentence that doesn’t.[18]

• For instance, let’s say there’s a passage where Esther sees a girl in the hospital who reminds her of her sister. While this detail might seem interesting, it doesn’t advance the plot or show something meaningful about Esther, so it’s best to cut it.