Top 3 Tips for Editing a Story

Did you know even professional writers go through the editing process? It can take many, many, MANY re-writes to perfect a story. No one gets it right the first time and it’s the editor’s job to help prepare a story for publishing.

At 100 Story Building we’re sharping up our editing skills in the lead up to the start of the Early Harvest 2020 workshops in term 3.

Here are our top 3 editing tips you can try at home on your own stories:

• TIP #1: Write down what you think makes a good story.
  

• TIP #2: Audience. Who is your audience? What do they like or dislike?

  If your audience are unicorns that don’t like eating vegetables, write them stories they can relate to. Maybe they contain unicorns, maybe not. Maybe they contain vegetables, maybe not. They might like to read about unicorns who are forced to eat vegetables, but maybe they might like to read about mud monsters who are forced to wear sun hats because they can relate to the experience.
  

• TIP #3: What do we want them to feel? What do we want the audience experience to be?

  Laugh, cry or laugh-cry? Maybe I want my story to start funny and end dramatically. If I know this maybe when I read my draft I can spot that the start is a bit heavy and the end has too many jokes. Maybe I’ll want to switch them around.

Early Harvest is a dynamic program for upper-primary students that gives them an in-depth experience of the publishing process. 100 Story Building brings together an editorial board of Year 5 and 6 students who publish an annual fiction publication written by their peers, to be published in November 2020. 

Read more about the Early Harvest program here: https://www.100storybuilding.org.au/early-harvest

Try it next time and share what happened with us at  info@100storybuilding.org.au.

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