Revision Checklist
It is rumored that James Joyce worked on one sentence in Finnegan’s
Wake for fourteen years. We don’t need to go that far,
but a polished story is the editor’s best friend and is more
likely to be published. First, set your story aside for a while
so it will be fresh to you when you pick it up again. Then, here
are some questions to ask yourself when you do your rewrite. Before
your final draft take it to your writers group, or another experienced
writer/editor, for feedback.
- Can you
sum up the story in one sentence?
- Have you
taken out every unnecessary word?
- Have you
used the features in your word processor such as find/replace,
spell check, and grammar check?
- Where does
the story begin?
- Does it
hook the reader?
- Where does
the story end?
- Does it
say what you want it to say, or does it take a sidetrack?
- Is there
any extraneous stuff at the beginning or end?
- Did the
characters achieve anything?
- Is the point
of view (first person, third person, omniscient) consistent?
- Is every
character important to the story?
- Do the characters
have an agenda—their own, not yours?
- Are the
characters revealed through the choices and actions they make
under pressure?
- Does the
dialogue have attitude, with each character having his own agenda?
- Is there
any “reader-feeder” where you are TELLING the reader
something you want them to know? If it’s important to the
story SHOW it, if not cut it.
- Is there
tension? Unanswered questions? Conflict such as two characters
with opposing agendas?
- Does each
scene have a beginning, middle, and end?
- Does each
scene have a emotion, force, drive?
- Does it
flow, build and have transitions?
- Do the readers
see wide-angle shots as well as being drawn in with close ups?
- Does each
scene play out an emotion that no other scene does?
- Is it of
interest to other people and will others understand it?
Here is a PDF version of this Revision
Checklist so you can print it out and keep it by your desk.
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