Editing
Stories
We hope you’ll
work with us as we edit your story. Our goal is to bring out the
best story you have inside you, given our considerable time
constraints. On a tactical level, our goal, to paraphrase editorial
consultant Alan D. Williams, is to ensure that:
1. Every part of your
story says what you want it to say; and
2. You’re saying what you want to say as clearly and
consistently as possible.
We edit winning stories
because want to make sure…
•
…you
didn’t use a comma where a semicolon would be more
appropriate, or vice versa.
•
…you
didn’t write “John immediately jumped up out of his
chair,” when “John jumped out of his chair” is
both shorter and more effective.
•
…you
tweak a couple of sentences so the reader fully understands why
your main character turned down that job offer on page four, when
it sounded great to us.
•
…you
didn’t describe a character as very fat and then have that
character effortlessly run up five flights of stairs.
•
…you
really do feel it’s necessary to explain in detail what the
main character ate at the restaurant on page nine when the meal
seems to have no relevance to the story’s plot,
characterization, theme, or mood.
And so forth. Remember,
if your story has lots of problems, it probably won’t win.
But an excellent story with some subtle glitches might get a
prize…and some editing.
If you want to see our editing in action, Blanche Kapustin, the
guest writer for Issue #3, agreed to let us show you our edited
version of her initial draft of the story we eventually published.
The edited version can be downloaded as a PDF. And here is the
final, published version of her
story.
Note how she accepted some of our suggestions, but not all, and how
she often changed things in different ways than we suggested. Her
decisions were fine with us. We are here to help YOU tell YOUR
story better, not to turn you into clones of
ourselves.