Writing Help - Blog Posts

Hello, love. Do you have any advice on how to self-edit a short story after completing the first draft?

5 Tips for Editing a Short Story

1) Reconsider the First Paragraph

With short stories, it's even more important that the first paragraph starts off with a bang. You really don't want it to be exposition if you can avoid it. Instead, start when something is happening. In other words, start with action.

Exposition: The moon hung high in the star-speckled sky, turning the snow into a radiant white blanket.

Action: The girl crept out the door into the star-speckled night, leaving a trail of tiny footprints in the moonlit blanket of snow.

2) Consider Each Paragraph's Purpose

The limited length of short stories means it's all the more important for each paragraph to pull its weight. For each paragraph, ask yourself, "What is lost if I cut this paragraph? Will the reader still understand the story?" Get rid of paragraphs that don't need to be there.

3) Cut Unnecessary Details

In novels, we can take the time to add details that are only there to embellish the world or characters for the reader. In short stories, it's much more important for details to really matter.

4) Watch Out for Repetition

Make sure no details, ideas, actions, etc. are repeated unless they truly need to be. In a short story, you probably don't need to describe the main character's town as sleepy/charming/quiet more than once, for example.

5) Zap Some Adverbs and Adjectives

Adverbs and adjectives are one of those things we don't typically need...

With: The small girl crept quietly out the door into the cold, star-speckled night, carefully leaving a long trail of tiny footprints in the moonlit blanket of snow

Without: The girl crept out the door into the star-speckled night, leaving a trail of tiny footprints in the moonlit blanket of snow.

What I Zapped and Why:

Small - The reader will know she's small because her footsteps are later described as "tiny."

Quietly - The word "crept" already implies quiet.

Cold - She's walking in snow at night. It's obviously cold.

Carefully - Also implied by "crept."

Long - Not important, also somewhat implied by "trail." If she left a short trail that would be a noteworthy detail.

Best of luck with your editing!

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Outlining Resources

Nanowrimo Prep Workbook (outlining: session 3, page 19)

Choosing the Best Outlining Method for You

Outline Your Story Like a Subway Map

How to Build a Plot from an Idea

How to Build a Plot from Characters/Setting

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~Grand List of Writing Resources~

how can I make my writing more atmospheric?

How to Make Your Writing More Atmospheric

The key to making your writing more atmospheric is adding more description, and the key to good description is to create sensory descriptions by utilizing things that can be seen, heard, touched/felt, tasted, and smelled. For example, if your character is watching a building burn, you could describe the color of the flames, the sound of sirens or crackling fire, the smell of smoke, the taste of charred wood in the air, the heat emanating from the flames. You don't need to (and shouldn't) hit on all the senses in every description, but every time you need to describe something, consider it from your character's POV... what do they see, smell, hear, taste, etc., then choose a few that make the thing being described the most real to your reader. The following posts will also help:

How to Make Your Description More Vivid

Adding Description to Your Writing

Describing Character Appearance and Clothing

Horror by Darkness (general description advice)

Horror by Daylight (general description advice)

Adding Emotional Details to a Horror/Tragedy Scene

How do you find a balance between “show, don’t tell” and “readers might not catch/understand this subtle concept or showing it would be too convoluted or more open to interpretation than it needs to be”? It doesn’t help that everyone encourages more showing even if it swallowing little details that are supposed to stand out. Basically, I feel like I overthink my showing as being too tell-y even when it already has several layers of meaning and is already too dense for average readers.

“Show don’t tell” resources & advice...

I think people often mistake the advice of “show don’t tell” as being in the interest of making one’s writing more literary; more “high art” than candid prose typically is. The advice is intended to help one recognize when their prose is becoming dull or unengaging to the reader. Showing is supposed to promote an organically flowing reading experience, rather than turn the writing into a flowery, pretentious, and unintelligible mess. Finding a satisfying way to deliver information in the text that isn’t “I felt” or “I thought” is important. It should never dilute the information. Clarity comes first, and then one can configure the sentence to add as much richness to the reader’s ability to immerse themselves as possible. 

If the desire is to show that the character is sad, writing that “she looked down at the floor and wrapped her arms around her own waist” is not going to be any less indicative of that information than “she felt sad”. That is the point of this advice. It is not a way for one to convert information into a code that the reader must analyze in order to comprehend the basic idea of what the scenes are about. This isn’t 1597, and nobody is asking anyone to be Shakespeare. 

Density of a piece of writing does not give it inherent worth. Ease of comprehension doesn’t always have to be the number one priority, but it should be a considerable factor when one accounts for their audience and their subject matter. If one is writing a young adult fantasy trilogy, the density of the writing should be adherent to the demographic’s ability to comprehend certain writing styles. “Show, don’t tell” applies to all writing, but different writers interpret it differently, often based on who they’re writing for. If the concept you’re trying to convey to the reader in a subtle manner is not coming across without blurting it out in the text, perhaps the problem isn’t the way you’re describing it, but the concept is weak in its current state. 

Easily misinterpreted meanings or concepts are often not the victim of descriptive style, but being underdeveloped sub textually. No important concept can be described once within a dense text and expected to translate as intended into the reader’s understanding. If it’s important enough to the bones of your story and meaning, it shouldn’t rely on the manner of description to shine through. Sometimes the density of a text is a product of too much intentional symbolism or motif. It’s okay to allow some things to be meaningful purely in interpretation. It’s okay to acknowledge that you allowed something that obviously implies meaning to be prescribed its implications by the readers. 

Here are some of my other resources on the topic that you may find helpful:

Resources For Describing Characters

Resources For Describing Emotion

Conveying Emotions

All About Colors

A Writer’s Thesaurus

Showing VS Telling in First Person POV

Using Vocabulary

Balancing Detail & Development

+ When To Use “Felt”

Showing Vs Telling

How To Better Your Vocabulary & Description

Describing emotion through action

Improving Flow In Writing

How To “Show Don’t Tell” More

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A Quick Guide to Foreshadowing!

Foreshadowing - a warning or indication of a future event. In literature, it is when an author provides readers with hints or suggestions as to what will happen later in the story. 

Foreshadowing can be used to create tension and set expectations as to how the story will play out. Can inspire reader emotions–suspense, unease, curiosity,

Types of Foreshadowing

Chekhov’s Gun The author states something that they want you to be aware of for the future - in the eponymous example, a gun hanging on the wall in an early chapter will be used later.

Prophecy  A statement to character/ reader about what will happen in the future. Although sometimes unclear at first, they normally become true by the end.

Symbolism  A more abstract way of foreshadowing, often shown through things like objects, animals, images and weather. Often foreshadows change in mood, luck or behaviour.

Flashback/Flashforward When the author needs the reader to know something that happened that doesn’t fit with the current timeline. Often there will be hints/clues for things that the writer wants you to remember/pick up on later.

Red Herring  A type of foreshadowing that deliberately misleads the reader. False clues such as a character finding another suspicious, etc., may lead you to believe one thing when, in reality, they will have done nothing wrong

Tips and Tricks for Effective Foreshadowing!

Don’t foreshadow too obviously - signpost rather than state! Arouse suspicion, but keep them guessing! 

If you make a promise, keep it!

The bigger the twist, the earlier it should be foreshadowed! Foreshadowing too soon is essentially a spoiler 

Keep foreshadowing in moderation 

Use beta-readers - sometimes our foreshadowing feels so obvious to us but it may not to other people who aren’t as close! 

An aye-write guide to Showing vs. Telling

I’ll bet that if you’ve ever taken an English class or a creative writing class, you’ll have come across the phrase “Show, don’t tell.”  It’s pretty much a creative writing staple! Anton Chekov once said “ Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.” In other words, showing should help you to create mental pictures in a reader’s head.

Showing helps readers bond with the characters, helps them experience the emotions and action more vividly, and helps immerse them in the world you have created. So “show, not tell” is definitely not bad advice - in certain circumstances. But it has its place. More on that later. 

So How do I Show? 

Dialogue

Thoughts/Feelings

Actions

Visual Details

So instead, of telling me “He was angry”, show me how his face face flushes red, how his throat tightens, how he slams his fist, how he raises his voice, how his jaw clenches, how he feels hot and prickly, how his breathing gets rapid, how his thoughts turn to static, etc.

Instead of telling me “The cafeteria was in chaos”, you could show me  someone covered in food and slowly turning crimson, children rampaging under the feet of helpless adults, frenzied shouting, etc. 

Handy Hint! Try to avoid phrases like “I heard”, “I felt”, “I smelled”, etc. These are still “telling words” (also known as filters) and may weaken your prose, as your readers could be taken out of the experience and you may lose their attention.

Is Showing Always The Right Thing to Do? 

No! Absolutely not! Showing is not always right and telling is not always wrong! It’s important to develop the skill and instinct to know when to use showing and when to use telling, as both can be appropriate in certain occasions. 

So, “Show, don’t tell” becomes “Show versus tell”. 

What is Showing and Telling? 

Showing is “The grass caressed his feet and a smile softened his eyes. A hot puff of air brushed past his wrinkled cheek as the sky paled yellow, then crimson, and within a breath, electric indigo”

Telling is “The old man stood in the grass and relaxed as the sun went down.”

Both of these excerpts are perfectly acceptable to use in your writing! But both do different things, although their meanings are pretty much the same. The first example is immersive, sweeping, visual, engaging. The second example is much more pared back and functional. But both have their places in prose! 

Telling is functional. Think about when you tell people things. You tell your children dinner is ready. The news reporter tells you there’s a drop in crime rates. Your best friend tells you she’ll be late because her car broke down on the way to yours. These are brief and mundane moments in everyday life. 

So, do these deserve multiple paragraphs with sensory detail and action/feeling/thought for every little thing? Do you need to spend an entire paragraph agonising over a minor detail when there’s a sword dangling (physically or metaphorically) over your MC’s head? No. And I’ll explain why. 

When To Use Telling

As before, telling is functional. It’s brief. It’s efficient. It gives a gist of a situation without getting bogged down in detail.

Showing is slow, rich, expansive, and most certainly not efficient! 

Here’s an example of some telling: 

“Years passed, and I thought of Emily less and less. I confined her to some dark dusty corner of my brain. I had to elbow my memories of her to the side. I was too busy with other things. Finishing school, then university a year later. Life was full and enjoyable. But then, one dark cold September night…”

You can’t show this example, unless you wanted to waste page after page of your MC waking up, going through everyday life, to get to the point your actual story started. If you do that, you will likely kill off any interest a reader would have in your novel and likely, your book itself.

Summing Up 

Showing: 

Should be used for anything dramatic

Uses thoughts, feelings, dialogue, action, and visual detail 

Will likely be used more than telling

Telling: 

Can be used for 

Delivering factual information

Glossing over unnecessary details 

Connecting scenes

Showing the passage of time 

Adding backstory (not all at once!) 

If you were in the MHA universe, what would be your reason for becoming a hero"?

Please respond in the comments because I need other unbiased oppinions because most of the characters I write or make end up with the same past experiences and want to spice things up a bit. Much thanks! <3

Honor or avenge a loved one.

Push 'those types' of heroes out and expose them to the public.

Embrace the power your Quirk holds (If you have one).

Wish to preotect the innocent.

Enact your hate towards villains or injustice.

To get the fuel of the thrill and adrenaline (adrenaline junkie).

To pull yourself or a family member out of poverty.

Wanting to make a differece in the world of heroes and villains.

Seeking redemption (A past villain, criminal or vigilante).

To become the protector you needed but never got.

Searching for a form of purpose.

Simply can't stand on the sidelines any longer.

Wanting to prove your worth to someone or a series of people.

The simple view of being respected.

To continue the line of heroism in your families past and or bloodline.

To change how heroes and villains are viewed.

Wanting to give back to a community.

Beleiving the heroes in your place of residence aren't doing enough to protect the people they vowed to serve.

Wanting to feel in control of your own life and or control how some things may be controled (Lack of justice, help bring down villain rates, ect)

To up someone you have personal vendeta against.

To act on your strong morals and ethics.

Wishing to take down a certain group of villains/ criminals without getting into legal trouble for unlawful heroism.

If you guys have any other ideas to toss in, please do because i need them lol!

Sorry if some of these are repeats of a nother question lol, I'm just writing down what comes to mind :P

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