Write It, Then Write It Again. Editing and Revising Your Work

         The best writers on the planet are often the ones who revise and edit the most, because no one, (not even Stephen King), writes a perfect story the first time out. Editing and revision are what turn a good story into a great story.

         Editing isn't a skill everyone has, often you must submit your work to someone else to read, because you just aren't able to be as objective about your work as you need to be. That's why editors exist. They can be objective about your writing when you can't, and they are trained to spot writing flaws and mistakes.

         However, just because you don't have an editor, that doesn't mean you can't learn to think like one and learn to edit your own work.

         Put your story away for a few days or weeks after you write it, then, when you go back to edit and revise it, it's far easier to catch all those little errors that creep into everyone's writing.

         A good editing tip is to read your story out loud, thus you'll find you can "hear" words or sentences that just don't sound right.

         Watch out for typos in your writing too. They tend to become invisible to the writer after awhile, at least in their own writing.

         It seems that many writers, myself included, have a few words or phrases that seem to creep into nearly every piece they write. If you discover a lot of similiar sentences in your stories, get ruthless, eliminate them from each story.

         Avoid cliches. Cliches suck. Cliches make your writing seem stale and trite. Put more thought into being original. Maybe it really was a dark and stormy night, but can you find a way to write, it was a dark and stormy night, that is different and unique to you?

         Watch for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. If you're not good at these elements of writing, find someone who is to read your story and help you with them. And then, if you're really serious about being a good writer, educate yourself. You can learn how to punctuate, how to spell, and all about grammar too. There are classes, books, and online sources to help you with any aspect of writing.

         Active nouns are better than adjectives, so go through any story you've written and replace those tired old adjectives with descriptive nouns. Your writing will sound and look much sharper and clearer if you do this.

         Beginning writers tend to write "about" the story, rather than starting right out in the middle of the action. Try throwing away your first page, and see if that helps your story.

         A good plot, strong characters, and a dramatic and surpring ending, are all important elements of a great horror story. Your editing should also work on any of these elements that aren't working. Sometimes whole characters need to be eliminated, or different elements of the story moved around. Watch out too, for pages of description that add nothing to the suspense of your story, but, instead bore your reader and maybe even make them stop reading. You can't afford that.

         Endings are vital. In horror fiction they are often surpring, or in some way NOT the typical happy ending of other writing genres. How does your ending stack up? Is it satisfying? Predictable? What? If it needs re-written to make it better, do it. Your story deserves a great ending to match that great beginning paragraph you wrote.

         Write your story. Don't edit your writing now, just let it come out the way it wants to, the way you want and need to tell your story. Put it away for a few days, then go back to it. Don't beat yourself up for all the mistakes or flaws you find, but do take the time to do a thorough editing job. You put a lot of time and effort into writing your story, and now it needs the finishing work. Polish it up, get it nice and shiny, and then pat yourself on the back for a job well done.