Editing Short Stories: Making Every Word Count
As usual, he makes an excellent point. When writing and editing short stories, you need to make every word count. Since short stories are more condensed than novels, mistakes are more obvious, and unpolished prose is quickly sent to the DNF pile.
Below, we deal with editing and polishing short prose—from before you even start your edits to the final proofreading stage—and provide a few helpful editing tips along the way.
Pre-Editing Prep: Understanding the Short Story’s Goal
Short stories are incredibly versatile and varied. Each story has a particular goal, a promise it’s trying to fulfil for the readers. So, before you strap on and dive into editing, you must understand the short story’s aim:
- Which genre does the short story fit into?
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- What is its theme?
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- Who is the target audience?
The author should fully brief you on this and related information, emphasising the importance of writer-editor communication. While it’s the editor’s job to fix mistakes and make the story readable, it’s the writer’s job to make it feel organic and relatable. This can sometimes clash. Let’s look at an example. Here’s a scene set in Regency England portraying the interaction between a coachman and a lady:
The young lady placed her portmanteau on the ground. The coachman, an ill-bred-looking fellow, said: “And are ye lookin’ for some transport, miss?”
The lady smiled. “Indeed, sir. Is it possible for you to convey me to Howard Grange?”
The coachman frowned. “Ain’t no way there. Flooded, the road has.”
“Are you certain?” said the lady, looking about her dry environs. “I’ve not noticed any heavy rain.”
Now, an editor will spot mistakes immediately. Firstly, the coachman’s dialogue is not grammatically accurate. Secondly, the language employs an archaic lexicon (What’s a portmanteau anyway?). But changing these elements is a mistake.
“Fixing” the coachman’s dialogue affects the historical context, and replacing words like portmanteau and environs affects the all-too-important realism that a historical piece promises. The distinction between editor and audience is a fine line to walk—certainly a balancing act—but it allows you to see the bigger picture from the tightrope stretched across the canyon.
Diving In: Getting the Big Picture
In many ways, readers are editors too. They often spot that pesky spelling mistake or continuity error that crawled through the short story’s hull like some cockroach-alien species that just didn’t want to die (even after hours and hours of cleaning and polishing).
That’s why good short story editing tips are first to read through the entire first draft and make notes as you go along. Just pretend that you’re one of those readers who make notes on every page—you know, the ones who have coloured page markers in most of the books they read and know exactly who Seneca is.
This gives you a first impression of the story as a whole and lets you know what types of editing the short story needs.
Breaking the Short Story Editing Process Down: 5 Essential Stages
Like the writing process, breaking the editing process into manageable parts is the easiest. Once you have the bigger picture in mind, you can get into the nitty-gritty of editing short stories.
1. Evaluate the Plot Structure
A short story’s structure can be divided into sections, namely:
- Introduction – Getting to know the setting and characters
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- Rising action – Conflict starts and builds up to the climax
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- Climax – The story reaches its breaking point (the do-or-die moment)
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- Falling action – Aftermath of the conflict
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- Resolution – Conflict is resolved and loose ends are tied up
Each of these sections has a specific purpose to fulfil, but as a whole, they all help the story to flow smoothly.
Let’s look at another example. If the writer mentions a way to resurrect a character in the story—say an object with a mysterious name, perhaps “The Veil of the Undead” or what have you—but the main character dies without anyone even so much as mentioning resurrection…that’s a plot hole. Readers will pick up on it. They’ll ask: Why didn’t Susan resurrect Lilly with the Veil? and you’ll have to spin some yarn.
2. Focus on Character Development and Dialogue
More often than not, the most successful stories contain characters who face hardships and are transformed. An editor’s job isn’t just on a linguistic level, as you’ve probably guessed. Ensuring a character’s story—their dialogue and depth—remains consistent throughout the narrative is also part of the editing process.
Let’s take a look at the following scene:
The flower writhed like a snake. That’s what Bobby thought, but nothing in his textbooks covered it. He backed away. He didn’t want anything to do with something like this.
“Where are you going?” asked Martin.
“Back to the boat. I don’t want to die here.”
“It’s a flower, Bobby. It’s not going to kill you.”
Bobby wasn’t so sure.
What if we told you that Bobby was a botanist? You’d be surprised, wouldn’t you? In your mind, a botanist is supposed to react a certain way to an unusual flower, but Bobby didn’t react how you expected him to. Does this align with the established character, or is this a development error?
If Bobby suddenly started speaking like the coachman in the scene from before, you’d hope there was a reason behind it—or else it wouldn’t make any sense. That’s what focusing on the character is all about: believability, consistency, and growth.
3. Polish Prose and Descriptions
Good prose and compelling descriptions effortlessly transport the reader to another world and make them feel the characters’ emotions. But remember: every word counts. That means you must help the writer paint a striking picture with minimal strokes.
Here are a few editing tips for balancing impact and wordcount when polishing short story prose and descriptions:
- Repetition and rhythm: Words that are repeated in a paragraph affect the rhythm of a story. This also applies to sentences that say the same things. Of course, it can be intentional, but it often isn’t. Ensure the short story’s rhythm keeps up—that it hits the right beats to the song being played—and that you remove all repetitive words and sentences (without a specific purpose).
- Showing and telling: You’ve heard it before, you’ll hear it again: Showing is not as effective as telling. A reader shouldn’t be told that a character is sad, the tears should run down a character’s face as they weep. Similarly, dialogue tags (Jamie said, Susan cried, Derick shouted) are also a form of telling. It’s best to convey how dialogue is received through the actual dialogue, not at the end.
- Active and passive voice: Again, a piece of advice spread here, there, and everywhere. Active voice is when the subject performs the action (Matt rode his bike), and passive voice is when the object becomes the subject (the bike was ridden by Matt). Each has its use, but a dominant passive voice makes a piece feel less smooth. That’s not something readers want, especially in fiction.
Let’s look at an example. Which of the following scenes is better?
The door opened with a creak. Judith’s ebony hair gleamed in the moonlight that shone through the window. It resembled the midnight ocean, wave after wave tumbling down her back and unto the floor. It trailed behind her as she walked.
There was a soft, low, groan coming from within the tower’s only room. A groan so pathetic that Judith felt the urge to turn and run. She didn’t listen to her feelings, however. Her emotions got the best of her.
She continued on and, just as the candle was extinguished from a breeze wafting through the same window that the moonlight had come through, she regretted her decision.
Or,
The door opened with a creak. Judith’s hair trailed on the floor, reflecting the moonlight.
A pathetic groan came from within the tower. Judith felt the urge to run, but her curiosity got the best of her.
She continued.
There was a sudden breeze, the candle flame flickered out, and she regretted her decision.
Certainly not prize-winning paragraphs, but they serve to get the point across. Less is often more and tightened prose heightens most emotions a reader experiences in a short story.
4. Tighten Up Language and Style
Consistency is key. It’s a short story editing tip that’s given almost as often as the “show, don’t tell” bit. Like plot holes, language and style inconsistencies are much easier to spot in this shorter format. Keep an eye out for:
- Language preferences: If the author chooses US vs UK English, ensure it’s applied throughout the story.
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- Word choice: Avoid jarring shifts in vocabulary. If the author establishes a primarily serious tone, they shouldn’t suddenly use slang or overly technical terms.
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- Figurative Language: Use figures of speech strategically. Don’t mix wildly different styles, like flowery metaphors with blunt colloquialisms. Ensure the figurative language complements the overall tone and voice of the story.
Consider this example:
The cobblestone streets, slick with the recent downpour, glistened like sapphires under the gaslight’s wan glow. Barnabas, his crimson cloak plastered to his back by the deluge, cursed under his breath, his leather boots squelching with each frustrated step. He pulled the brim of his fedora lower, its shadow swallowing the grim set of his jaw.
Barnabas, moments later:
“Listen up, ya mugs!” Barnabas bellowed, his voice a foghorn cutting through the smoky haze of the tavern. “I ain’t got all day for yer fancy riddles. Spit it out, who knows where she be?”
As you can see, there’s a jarring shift in language and style within just a few lines. The initial description evokes a sense of atmosphere and mystery with poetic language: “sapphires under the gaslight’s wan glow”, “crimson cloak”, “grim set of his jaw”. But then Barnabas’ dialogue abruptly switches to rough slang: “ya mugs”, “ain’t got all day”, “fancy riddles”, “spit it out”.
5. Do a Final Proofreading Check
The final editing step is proofreading the short story, which means fixing spelling, punctuation, and typo errors. It’s best to leave the piece for a little while before going on to this stage. After all, no one is as blind to mistakes as the person staring at them for several days.
This is where AI editing tools like Grammarly and Hemingway become very handy. They excel at catching US vs. UK English language usage, common spelling and grammar issues, typos, extra spaces, and even too many passive voice instances. Just make sure to double-check all of their suggestions. Don’t just “accept all”. These tools are trained on a dataset and don’t always understand the text context.
Communicating with Authors While Editing Short Stories
To editors, writing is a business. An editor is concerned with making a piece of writing good enough to buy. It’s important to remember that authors have the same goal. At the end of the day, their name will often go along with the reader’s opinion of the piece.
Don’t be patronising, condescending, or hurtful when providing feedback to an author. Civility goes a long way in establishing a good relationship with authors. Your feedback should be clear, to the point, and, where necessary, firm. After all, it’s a symbiotic relationship. Without authors, what would there be to edit?
Also, remember that it isn’t an editor’s place to force their preferences onto an author. While certain writing and editing best practices are concrete, many choices and devices are a matter of style—especially when it comes to creative mediums like short stories.
The Aftermath of Writing: Short Story Editing That Counts
Editing is a crucial step in the writing process. Short stories usually don’t spring up from nothingness perfectly formed. It takes a lot of work to polish them and fix their structures, as you’ve undoubtedly inferred from this post. From seeing the story’s bigger picture to the smaller, nitty-gritty details, editing is time-consuming.
Nevertheless, there are always extra bits of editing tips and tricks that you can employ when editing short stories. Technology is becoming all the more helpful in this regard, and its assistance to editors and writers alike has proven invaluable over the last few decades.
Blue Leaf Team
The Blue Leaf Editing team has over 10 years of combined editing, publishing, and book industry experience. We’re passionate about content and storytelling, and sharing our knowledge with others.
info@blueleafediting.com