When editing your own work, it is often easy to miss or overlook minor problems. This is usually because you are so familiar with your own work that your mind automatically replaces the tiny typo with the correct word.
There are also times where your mind will completely overlook glaring holes in your plot line because you know what your story is supposed to look like.
Let's skip the simple editing problems, like typing errors, or grammatical errors, and take a look at some larger issues.
In order to edit your own work properly, you will need to go back through your story, reading it as a reader would.
Here are some things you should look for:
Plot
1. Is there a clear, believable main plot?
2. Is your plot clearly resolved, so that the reader understands the events which led to this resolution?
3. Do the subplots advance the story?
4 Writing a short story is far different than a novel. Squeezing six subplots into a short story simply does not work.
Pace
1. Does the plot move fast enough to grab the reader's attention?
2. Have you glossed over important details in your hurry to get to more interesting scenes?
3 Are action scenes written in a direct fashion, propelling the reader forward? Are more subtle scenes developed enough for the reader to catch the nuances?
Setting
1. Does the description of the setting transport your reader into your fictional world?
2. Do the descriptions drag on for pages or (much better) are they interspersed throughout the story?
Characters
1. Are the characters 'real’?
2. Do they hold the reader’s interest?
3. Are the characters consistent? Ok, let them surprise us but it has to sound like it could happen.
4. Is the character's background given in one large lump or small manageable pieces? Background needs to be unfolded, showing the reader different layers with each event.
John Dean
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