A step-by-step look at how a short story’s opening paragraph changed during revisions

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Writers talk a lot about revision. “Revision is where the magic happens.” “I’m going into the revision cave.” “I revised this 852 times before publication.” But to aspiring writers who are still hoping for their first chance to work with an editor, it all sounds equal parts mysterious and daunting. At least it did to me before I became a book coach and freelance editor and became the one sending the edit letters.

That’s why I’m going to give you a peek behind the curtain at the editorial process I went through with my recent short story, “The Wending Way.” Although I will talk in big-picture terms about the changes I made as the story went from idea to first draft to critique group to editorial, I’ll also show you how the first paragraph changed over three rounds of revision with my two editors. Ready?

The spark of an idea

I’ve written before about how the opportunity to contribute to Beyond the Latch and Lever came about. But the tl;dr is I was asked to fill a last-minute open spot and had a very tight deadline. I only had about twelve days to take it from the spark of an idea (a story about a goddess being called home after failing to save the human race) to a fully fleshed out story of around 4,000 words.

So it’s no surprise that although I kept the first line mostly intact, much of the rest of the story changed through several rounds of edits. One of my favorite parts of looking back at these edits was seeing how the story deepened as I made more passes through it. I added verse. I made the world building more robust. And I tweaked the final lines of the paragraph, which (spoiler alert) are repeated at the end of the story.

The editorial process

I’m fortunate to have a group of writing friends who knew about my deadline and took a couple of passes through this manuscript on very short notice during those twelve intense days. Thank you, Drakainas — you know who you are and what you mean to me. So that’s why the first two passes I’ve outlined here happened based on critique group feedback. If you do not have fellow writers that you trade work with on a regular basis, find some ASAP. Check out local community places like libraries and universities where writers gather, or professional organizations that cater to your chosen genre, age category, and style.

After those initial two passes, I turned the story over to the anthology’s editors. We did a first pass with developmental feedback, and two subsequent passes for line-level edits and copy edits. This is a fairly typical process, although sometimes more than one developmental pass — to look at story structure, characters, and other big-picture issues — might be required. Because the copy edit on the first paragraph involved removing a single comma, I have combined those two editorial passes into one in the image below, which is color-coded by editorial pass. (Pass one is reflected by the red underlines and blue strikethroughs in the image below. Pass two, still with my critique group, is in green. Turquoise highlights are changes from developmental edits with my editors, and yellow is the line and copy edit rounds combined).

Of course, beyond this initial paragraph, there were deeper changes. I significantly revised a four-stanza poem in the story for both content and meter. I added an image system that reflected the celestial nature of the main character due to some excellent feedback from the anthology’s two editors. And I front-loaded a lot of the world building that was originally later in the story because it originally went on the page as I figured it out rather than in any sort of logical story order.

Expect some back and forth

Just like you can’t count on making it through with only a single round of developmental edits, going through the remaining phases of edits is not just a matter of clicking “Accept All” in Track Changes. Stet (short for “let it stand” in editorial parlance) is a writer’s friend. Use it sparingly, but do use it. Editors aren’t perfect, and sometimes their suggestions will not resonate. There should definitely be some give and take in the process on both sides of the table.

While writers should definitely shoot for being easy to work with, you can still stick up for yourself and your work if you disagree with an edit. And besides, editors make mistakes or miss a small bit of nuance from time to time. Your name is what’s going to be on the eventual story, book, article, or poem, so make sure you’re happy with the result within the bounds of your deadlines and common courtesy.

A closer look at craft

There’s a lot to learn about writing just from this short paragraph, whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, for creative purposes or for a business audience. At the big-picture level, make sure you set the tone right from the first paragraph. My editors had me add “news that was bound to be bad” to establish that Aris was not expecting good news, which set an apocryphal tone that carries through the whole story. But also don’t try to say everything in that first paragraph. Even though Aris would be called home, and the move would be permanent, I didn’t need to put that in the first paragraph. It is something that becomes clear later in the story.

At the line level, check the mechanics. Replace indefinite articles like “it” with specifics where possible. Extraneous words like “now” (also just, but, then, so, and more!) can often be cut. Check that you’ve got commas in the right places. Make sure you don’t have pronoun confusion. Having both Maka and Aris in this paragraph meant that one instance of “her” was indefinite as well and needed to become Aris’s.

The line level and copy editing passes are often the most tedious part of this process. Placing commas just so. Adjusting use of proper noun vs. pronoun for maximum clarity. Reading the verse elements aloud ten times to make sure they flow just right. But the sum of each of these tiny changes is a stronger, tighter, more engaging story.

The result

After the frenzy of producing the story in only twelve days and blazing through five rounds of edits in less than a month, Beyond the Latch and Lever was released into the world in December 2020. And of course, I’m thrilled with the results. Here’s where that final paragraph ended up:

“Aristreal had felt the call coming for an age, like an ache in her bones that crept in slowly over time. She pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders and ventured out to check the boundaries of their land for news that was bound to be bad. First wars, then fires, plague, drought, and oppression — the list of transgressions humans wrought against the goddess Maka’s sacred lands went on and on. Now the earth shook at regular intervals as if to confirm all of Aris’s fears. When everything they’d done to try to Shift the mortals on Earth had failed, all the warnings falling on deaf ears, the Seers would leave. It was known. They’d be called and they would go. As it had been foretold.”
— J. S. Artz, “The Wending Way”

I hope this article has helped demystify the editorial process for you by giving you a detailed look at the first paragraph revisions for a published short story. And hopefully you also picked up some writing tips along the way. I’m happy to answer any additional questions in the comments below. Happy writing!