Putting forth your best piece

Story Editing
 The first Rule

• Leave the Grammar – Begin editing with Story Structure

• You have written your story. Read it through once or twice. It is time to
begin editing.
• Start with your story’s structure before you edit the grammar.
• How do you do it?
Check/Revise for plot

• Does your story have a beginning, a middle, and an end?

• Is there a lead, a body and a Kicker?
• How good are they?
• We learned about it when we discussed the parts of a story’s
structure.
Checking the story’s body

• Is there flow and continuity?

• Is there conflict in the middle of your story? 
• A story with no conflict is like a cake with no baking powder. The
cake won’t rise. The story will be flat.
• Does the ending resolve the conflict?
• Readers expect story resolution.
• If your hero has been taken captive by a herd of cats in the middle of
the story, readers will want to know what happened to him/her by
the end of the story.
Editing paragraph wise
• In revising for structure, go paragraph wise.
• Write in the margin what each paragraph does.
• Take out the paragraphs that don’t move the story forward, or
combine the paragraphs that are similar.
• Also check for conflict resolutions & others.
Revise for Clarity.

• Listen when you read your story.

• Is it clear who is talking in your dialogue?
• If there are places where you are confused, your readers will be
confused, too.
• Another way to find out whether your story is clear - ask your
readers to summarize the story for you.
• You can use the paragraph vice method here.
Revise the setting.

• Does the setting seem like a place you have been?

• Does it seem real?
• One way to make the setting more alive is to describe it using small
details, to describe the setting using your five senses, sight, taste,
smell, sound, and touch. (We discussed this in the beginning of the
module.)
Grammar and Punctuation

• Look for passive verbs.

• Verbs come in two types: active and passive. 
• Look for the passive voice and decide if the meaning of your
sentence would be clearer if it was written in the active voice or the
passive voice.
• When you use the active voice, the subject performs the action
expressed by the verb: 
The dog chased the cat. 
In the passive voice, the subject receives the action expressed by the
verb: 
A cat was chased by the dog.
Revise dialogue.

• The focus should be on what was said, and not on the verb used to
describe what he said. (There is a different slide on it).
• Show emotion with an action instead of with adjectives. For example:
• “I hate you,” she exclaimed she said, hurling her dzongkha book at
him. The corner struck him just under the eye. A bright red mark
began to rise on his skin.
Avoid these words.

• After you have revised your verbs, look for these swords which can
weaken your writing:
• one of,
• some, thing,
• very,
• adverbs that end in -ly,
• and leading words such as mostly and so.
Look for Clichés
• A cliché, is a trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase, usually
expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost
originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse.
• Examples of clichés are:
• Cold as ice
• At this moment in time
• Think outside the box
• Like a fish out of water
• The danger of using clichés in your writing is that your readers have
heard them already. In fact, they have heard them so many times that
they no longer hold meaning.
• In addition, different cultures may interpret the cliché differently based
on their cultural identity.
Look for “telling” instead of ”showing”.

• Telling in a story is when you tell the reader a detail about someone’s
character rather than allowing the reader to infer it for themselves. For
example:
• Karma was depressed.
• You are telling me what to think.
• Telling puts the reader as observer, separated from the story; when you
show, I feel like I am in the story.
• The secret to show and not tell is to be more specific.