Surviving Gravity:
A dark comedy short story exploring perspective, society, and the quest for survival.
(If you're a fan of Pratchett, Adams, and/or Gaiman, you'll probably enjoy this.)
Writer In Motion:
A collaborative effort with 24 writers and...
**A QUICK NOTE - THIS IS ALL DONE AFTER MY DRAFT IS COMPLETELY FINISHED!
This is how I check that my story is working. I am NOT suggesting you employ these methods to outline in advance - though some people do and find them helpful. I touch on this later in the chapter but wanted to say it up front as well.
If you find this type of analysis daunting and it freaks you out, that is 💯 fine. Feel free to skip on to the next part where you see the line edits.**
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This week (Week 4 of our scheduled posts) was the self-editing week.
This can be one of the most dreaded parts of the writing process, and for good reason - nobody wants to kill those darlings.
This isn't always the case. Some writers LOVE to edit, and you might be one of those. If you are - AWESOME! If you're not - that's ok too - you're in good company.
I personally don't mind editing, but I find editing longer works to be daunting. Editing something short, like my WIM draft, that's pretty fun - though time-consuming.
Either way - editing is where the magic happens. Every experienced writer will tell you this, and it's true. No first draft is 100% perfect, and most of them are dumpster fires. So at some point, if you want to get better, you need to become at least decent at self-editing.
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So how do you become good at self-editing?
The first step is becoming decent at STORY ANALYSIS. This chapter focuses on how to analyze your story to make sure that it's working on a basic story structure level.
The Perfect Story: A Book on Story Craft & Editing, has been my attempt to document my journey of understanding story structure, analyzing stories, and applying those techniques to my own stories as I draft and edit them. If you're interested in an in-depth look at story analysis and editing techniques, I suggest you check it out!
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For this draft, I used a variety of analysis tools to look at developmental edits before I did any line editing.
Analysis by 9-Grid Plot Plan; Story Grid Story Structure; Motivation-Reaction Units; Dan Harmon's Story Circle
