In part one of this post, I began by writing about putting your own emotional attachment to a story aside in order to edit from the perspective of a stranger. There's something else to consider when revising your work for publication. You must make yourself a stranger, but you've also got to learn to put the story first.
Step Two: Putting the Story First
By evaluating your story as a stranger, you can make it smooth, polished, and competent. The problem with the readings that go on at literary magazines is, though, that the readers see and reject hundreds of merely competently-written stories every day. I know; I worked at one of the biggest literary magazines in the country, and had the job of reading and rejecting something like 60-100 stories every day. While some were laughably bad, most were competently written, but had nothing new, original, or startling to bring to the table.
After the jump: how to make your story stand out.
In order to make your story stand out, think of it as a whole thing when editing. How do you make a compelling story, one that will stay in the reader's mind? Try sketching out a few plot points just as notes. If you break your story down just into these points, are they still interesting? Do you have a grabby opening that is somehow echoed in your ending? Does your character grow or change in an interesting way over the course of the story? These are "macro" editing points to consider when revising your story, and they're often more crucial than merely smooth writing. If a story and characters are put together well, readers at magazines will often forgive plain writing.
So put aside the ego and attachment, and look at your story both holistically and critically. Does it have an exciting shape overall? Do you feel grabbed by the opening, held throughout, and moved by the ending? And will a stranger feel the same way?
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