Tips for Editing Creative Pieces
How to get from the shitty first draft to something meaningful
Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.
- Anne LaMott, “Bird by Bird”
Read your piece start to finish. Then ask yourself the following questions:
Now that I look back over this mess I’ve written, what is this piece really about?
What might be confusing to a reader who didn’t live this story?
Based on the answers to those questions, what details do I need to add?
What doesn’t add value and could be removed?
Think about structure.
If you told the story in chronological order in your first draft, ask yourself if that’s the most interesting way to tell the story. If not, could you start at the end and then flash back to the beginning? Could you start in the middle?
Is there more than one story going on/more than one perspective involved? Could you weave two stories together by shifting from one to the other?
Pay attention to transitions. Does the story flow in a logical way or do the paragraphs feel disconnected? Do you need to add some connections to bridge together gaps?
Be attentive to “Presence.”
Make sure your reader has a well-defined protagonist (often yourself in these types of pieces) that they can relate to and understand.
Avoid the “cipher”: You know yourself better than a reader ever could, so it can be easy to unfairly ask them to make impossible assumptions about who you are, what you were feeling, and your intentions.
Make it beautiful, make it interesting.
Avoid “throat clearing.” If your piece starts with a lot of scene setting and description, think about how you can hook the reader more effectively. Sometimes the addition of a single line can grab the reader’s attention and pull them along for the rest of the piece.
Show don’t tell. Use descriptive adjectives and interesting verbs to help your reader see and feel what was going on. e.g. Rather than, “The child was really happy” you could write, “The little girl grinned at me, unable to sit still because of her excitement.” (This is particularly important to remember when describing your own emotions—don’t tell the reader you were sad, make them feel it with you.)
Vary sentence structure and sentence length.
Cut unnecessary words.
Avoid repetition of words–unless you’re intentionally repeating something.
Cut the cliches. Come up with a more creative way to say what you want to express.
Sometimes it can be helpful to read your piece out loud as you’re working on this phase.
Get someone else’s perspective.
Utilize the SOPW member forum for feedback!
Ask a friend or colleague to read your piece.
Get away from the terminology of “is this good or bad?”. Instead ask, “what works for you and what doesn’t?”.
Have them answer similar questions to the ones you asked yourself in Step 1:
1. What do they see as the theme of the piece?
2. What is confusing or needs more explanation?
3. What details need to be added?
4. What could be cut?
5. Are there any typos/grammatical errors/repetitive words/cliches that should be fixed?
Don’t forget to copy edit!
Check for spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, missing punctuation, misspelled words, etc
Take a break.
Sometimes what we need is a little space from a piece. Set it aside for a few days or a few months, then come back to it and go back through the process outlined above.
Read the piece aloud to yourself.
Reading a piece out loud can help you catch awkward language that your brain will gloss over when you read internally.
If you’re looking for more writing help, here are some resources:
U of M Center for Writing: http://writing.umn.edu/sws/index.html
Check out their Revision Checklist and Editing & Proofreading Tips
The Writing Center at UW Madison’s Writer's Handbook
They have a great set of resources on improving your writing style
They also have helpful list of 12 Common Errors writers make