The writing group to which I belong, the Hunter Story Creators presented a session at the 2016 Newcastle Writers Festival. The session was titled ‘How to Make Your Writing Pop’. My part of the presentation offered an approach to self-editing your work. My writing mentor, Karen Whitelaw cites someone who calls self-editing, Brushing Away the Sand. My approach to brushing away the sand includes eight (8) steps that I personally include in the self-editing process. I’m happy to share them in the hope that you may find them helpful.
I go through my story and look for the following:
- Changes in tense. It is easy to unwittingly change tense in a short story. For instance, you may be writing in present tense: She lifts the lid off the saucepan and stirs the soup. Bill comes into the kitchen and asks, ‘What’s for dinner?’ She wiped her sweaty brown and…
View original post 885 more words