12 Tips for Editing Your Fiction and Making it Great

All writers want to be considered a good writer, and this requires editing. Just look back at an
email you dashed off in haste and you will likely wince at something. Editing encompasses many
levels of intensity from basic proofreading to substantial reworking and rewriting. To produce
professional and effective fiction, the editing of the manuscript will go far beyond merely
proofreading.

Whether a short story or novel is being submitted to a publisher or headed for self publishing, it
needs to be thoroughly edited and assessed from many angles. Of course, a manuscript needs to
be free of spelling errors and grammatical gaffes, but that is just basic, like a car needing tires.
Editing strives to create flow with smooth transitions, maintain clarity, cut out unnecessary
repetition, and includes a variety of tiny to huge adjustments that make the difference between a
block of stone and (hopefully) Michelangelo’s David.

Editing is commonly believed to best be done by a competent person other than the writer.
However, many writers do not have the luxury of an editor who is available to polish work for an
audience. For example, you may be trying to break into fiction markets with short stories and you
do not have an editor to help you submit your very best work to get noticed. This means you need
to do it yourself.

Although the critical eye of another is great, any writer should be able to switch gears and look at
his or her work from the editing perspective instead of the writing perspective. However, a writer
is often emotionally attached to a work and reluctant to approach the creation with the attitude of
an over demanding, never-satisfied father. Overcoming the protective impulse to cling to an
original draft as divinely-driven art will serve any writer well.

You should approach editing as another and enjoyable part of writing. You will enjoy making your
work better, sometimes much better. While editing, you will learn about how you write and you will
see what you are good at and what you need to fix.

For example, I often find when editing my initial drafts that I flopped through three sentences to
say one thing. Usually I can harvest the good bits from each sentence and then combine them
into one strong sentence. To do this, I weigh the nuances of each sentence and judge whether I
am actually giving out good details or repeating myself needlessly.

Having spent many years writing and editing my fiction, I have developed a checklist that keeps
me on track and trains me to be judgmental of my own work. I apply most or all of the questions
on this checklist to every chapter I write during the editing process.

Fiction Editing Checklist

1. Is it bad? Be honest. Do you like what you wrote? Can you imagine others liking it? You
really must be able to say yes to this fundamental question before being satisfied.

2. What is the lead like? Good, bad, indifferent? By lead, I mean how does the chapter or
short story start? Does it arouse interest or excitement? Don't let an otherwise great story
start like assembly instructions for an entertainment center.

3. What is the action like? With this question, I analyze what is happening in the story. First
of all, is anything happening? Do not let the narrative feel like being stuck in a traffic jam
(unless the action is being stuck in a traffic jam). This is a very subjective question for the
writer/editor. Basically, you need to decide if events are moving the story and
thereby maintaining the interest of the reader.
 4. Are you having a good mix of dialogue, narrative, and action? I use this question to avoid
stringing together 80 lines of dialogue. Too much he said and she said in a row does not
suit narrative fiction. Non-dialogue elements about the characters, setting, and action
need to be mixed with dialogue in order to build the word pictures necessary for fiction.

5. Are you moving the plot along or are you fooling around? It's easy as a writer to start
enjoying your characters and exploring tangents or minute details of their lives. Some of
this might be essential to story and character development, but do not let narrative
wanderings dilute a story until it is about as interesting as waiting for your number at the
DMV.

6. Do the actions of the characters make sense? Readers need to understand or at least
have some clues as to why a character does or says something. Characters are often like
chess pieces. They can only move in certain ways. Essentially, I am cautioning against
making a character do something just because the writer needs that thing done. It must
come down to would the character do that and, if so, under what circumstances?

7. Do you think the plot twists and turns are acceptable? Do they appear contrived? You
want a natural flow.

8. Are you appealing to the senses? Does imagery occur often enough to build a setting?

9. Are you watching for places in the story that drag? Can you think of a way to pick it up?
Does the dragging portion need to be cut? Or is a pause from the action necessary?

10. Is the dialogue necessary or should it be replaced with narrative? Sometimes you don’t
need to write out mundane conversation with quoted character dialogue. Sometimes it’s
much better and efficient to simply write narrative such as: Becky asked her dad when
her mom would be home. He said he didn’t know.

11. Does the dialogue match the character for language skills, vocabulary, intelligence,
emotion and knowledge? For example, if a character is an illiterate, the person will not
suddenly start speaking with the vocabulary of an English professor. The character may
have something incredibly wise to say, but the character must say it as the character
would say it.

12. Can the reader identify with the characters in any way? Does anything ring true?

After analyzing and editing your work with the above questions, you have surely improved your
writing. The last thing on my checklist is to tell yourself that you did a good job. Remember, the
goal is for you to be your toughest critic and for all other critics to love you.