How to Revise & Edit a Short Story (Without Overdoing It)
Bella Rose Emmorey
book editor, rogue behaviorist, digital marketer, writer, brand builder, plant aunt, and cheese enthusiast.
We all know that $ revising$ and $ editing $ a novel is HARD. But it’s arguably harder to learn how to revise and edit a short story. Short stories are meant to be concise while still conveying a strong theme, tone, character development, and all the elements that make for a good story.
It’s easy to over-edit and run yourself into the problem of not knowing when enough is enough and your story is complete.
If you thought $ writing the short story$ was the hard part, welcome to editing it! Let’s get into the process of revising and editing a short story that makes it better, without encroaching on the intent of the piece.
Common Tips for Editing a Short Story
You’ll see obvious tips for editing a short story all over the internet. I’ll list them here, but keep reading for a few more insightful tips.
1. Take a break from it: Distancing yourself from your writing helps you come back to it with fresh eyes. You forget a little of what you wrote, and it brings you closer to being someone who’s reading it for the first time, which helps you pinpoint issues easier.
2. Read it out loud: It’s a classic editing tip that helps you find clunky or awkward wording. It also helps you hear the rhythm of your writing, specifically where it might become monotonous and boring.
3. Take notes: Don’t just read it through for kicks and gigs. Take some notes, but don’t change anything yet. This way, you can read it through as seamlessly as possible without stopping for an hour to tweak one sentence that was probably fine. Getting through it in one read helps you understand the flow and arc better.
4. Create stronger imagery: Almost always, imagery could use sharpening in a short story. Because we want to accomplish a lot in a smaller sample of writing, being descriptive while remaining concise is important. Concrete language that creates $ good imagery$ should be a high focus of editing your short story. Just remember to keep this varied, too. Visual imagery is great, but we don’t only want visuals. Think about all of the senses and drip those throughout.
5. Have someone else read the story: Friends or beta readers will work. The idea is to have someone other than you read the story and give you their thoughts. There’s a lot of benefit to this, but it can also make things harder if all your friends have very different thoughts about it. There’s a more helpful tip in the next section, so read on.
6. Clean up the arc: Both for your character/s and for the story itself. If your story lacks a character arc, you’ll want to make sure the story itself has an arc that makes it feel complete. You can definitely write a short story that feels incomplete if that’s the goal (more on that below), but there should be satisfaction in the way the story is told. If you get a lot of feedback that it feels lacking in completeness, and not in a good way, take a look at the arcs.
Our (Better) Tips for Editing a Short Story
You’ve likely already heard of the above tips to edit and revise a short story, so we’ve got a few more that’ll make your editing more purposeful. Take these into consideration and you might have an easier time determining when the story is done.
1. Determine your goal with the piece
I’m not talking about if you want to get it published or not. I’m talking about what it is you want people to walk away feeling, realizing, or knowing. Often, you wrote the short story for a reason. You pulled it from some reservoir of deep meaning in your life and there is definitely something to be taken from it.
While most writing is up to the interpretation of the reader, you can still edit your short story to guide them toward your intended purpose.
Here are some questions to ask to determine the purpose of your piece:
- What is it about if you strip away the setting and characters?
- What was the inspiration for writing it?
- What are your beta readers telling you they’ve gained from it (not always helpful, but you might see common themes if you’re not sure yourself)?
- What do you want the purpose to be?
2. Edit in waves
It’s hard to do all the editing in one swipe. You’ll want to edit in rounds and have a purpose for each one.
- 1. for copy
- 2. for tone and theme
- 3. for development (arcs)
Editing for Copy
In this round, you’re cleaning up the writing. Proof it, edit those typos, adjust your commas, and fix some word choice. Also read it for fluidity.
Do you get stuck in some places and have to reread the sentence? If so, your readers will too. Find a way to make clunky sections smoother even if it means rewriting a paragraph or two.
At this point, you want a smooth read through that’s not monotonous, so adjust your sentence structures and lengths to make sure your reader won’t grow bored before they reach the end.
Editing for Tone & Theme
After you know the goal of the piece, you can edit with an eye on the tone and if the elements are fulfilling your theme and helping the reader discover it. This means being aware of word choice, imagery, descriptions, and even how your character interacts with other elements in the story.
If your goal is to showcase the toxicity of capitalism, are there any elements that represent capitalism? Do you describe those elements in a way that suggests toxicity, or have you accidentally included language that supports them?
These are the details that can be harder to pinpoint and often require an outside eye (or two or three), which I’ll cover below.
Editing for Development
Once you have the above two done, it’ll be easier to edit it for development. Take a look at your character and story arcs. Is there a definitive beginning, build, and end? Again, you can write a story that feels unfinished, but only if that is your goal and it ties into the meaning of your piece.
Does the story feel complete and satisfying? If not, identify the area that’s weak so you can go back and beef it up in a way that fulfills your goal for the story.
3. Workshop it with other writers
Unlike beta readers and friends, other writers can offer insight into how you can fix certain areas of your story. Just keep in mind that all writers have their own takes on what they like to do to fix things, so you’ll have to figure out what’ll work for you.
That said, get a group of 3-5 writers together to read your piece and offer thoughts, feedback, observations, and potential solutions.
Dos:
- Include writers you trust and like the work of
- Provide the story in a format that allows for in-line comments and suggestions (like with Google Docs or $ NovelPad$ )
- Give writers time to review, absorb, and write feedback
Don’ts:
- Tell them what you want it to be about beforehand
- Explain away their feedback as they’re giving it
- Take every single piece of feedback and change your draft
For workshops, you want to give them the story and have them form their own opinions and feedback before you divulge what it is you’re trying to accomplish. You don’t want to alter the lens through which they see the short story by giving them something specific to look for.
After they have given their thoughts and feedback, if it doesn't help where you needed it, you can then ask them for specific ideas for how to accomplish what you’re going for.
4. Set a deadline
You will edit your story until you’re blue in the face if you don’t make a stopping point. It can be hard to determine when something is just done. When do you leave well enough alone?
By setting a deadline, you’re giving yourself a stopping point. Because you will end up making the story worse if you over-edit, which defeats the entire purpose.
In The Artist’s Way, the author quotes Paul Gardner when he said, "A painting is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places."
Part of what makes your story the unique piece of art is the stopping point you choose. It doesn’t need to be perfect to be a good piece of art. When you’ve accomplished your goal and edited the short story with the steps above, you’re done!
Call it good and $ submit for publication$ or add it to your $ short story collection$ . Happy writing!
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