A Writing Tip by Barbara Daniels
REVISE ONE STEP AT A TIME
Rewriting a story can be even more interesting and gratifying than writing a first draft. Adding a plot strand, changing the point of view, or quickening the pace motivates readers to stick with your story. Improving word choice and altering backstory, scenes, and summaries make your work more vivid and memorable. Try revising a step at a time, focusing on one strategy after another. The result should be a much improved work of fiction.
STEP 1: START REVISING YOUR STORY
Have you written a story you’d like to improve, but you’re not sure where to begin? Try some of the strategies listed below to get started improving your writing.
- Get a character into trouble in paragraph one or two.
- Does your story start with an alarm clock going off? Try beginning later in the day after the character is already in the middle of some activity that propels the story forward.
- Listen to your characters. Let them speak.
- Lie. Just because something happened in real life, that doesn’t necessarily make it credible in a story.
- Get to the body. How does it feel? Show your characters in action. Help readers hear and see them.
- Complicate your fiction. Is there another character you can add? Another plot twist? If you have three ideas for stories, try putting them all into one story.
- Have you remembered to show rather than tell? This means dramatizing what happens rather than just describing it.
- Surprise yourself. Allow things to happen and see where the story goes.
- Use first person narration (“I”) only if your narrator is interesting. If not, consider switching to close third person, using pronouns like “she,” “he,” and “they” and including details that show your speaker’s inner thoughts and feelings.
- Subvert formulas. What can you change so your characters and plot are less predictable?
- Don’t kill people to resolve your plot. If violence is necessary, show how it results from a character’s personal qualities or actions.
- Don’t end with “And then I woke up.”
Read your story out loud to yourself. This will bring it to life and help you locate possible changes to make.
For tips on revising later drafts, keep an eye out for Steps 2 and 3 in this series: A Second Look and Finishing Touches. Coming soon.
Barbara Daniels’ most recent book, Talk to the Lioness, was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Cider Press Review, One Art, The Lake, Packingtown Review, and The Shore. She has received four fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
Read more from Cleaver’s Writing Tips.
