Developmental Editing: All in a Day’s Work

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Collaborations, Creative Process, Developmental Editing, Emmanuelle De Maupassant, Gothic Fiction, On Editing, women writing sex

People often ask me how developmental editing differs from standard, or line, editing. Sometimes, I’m surprised how many writers are either unfamiliar with the term, or have little idea what it entails. Then I remember – until I took a short editing course a few years ago, which focused on different types of editing, I too had never heard of developmental editing.

It’s also called “structural editing”, but I prefer the term “developmental editing”, because the root verb “develop” describes the process more accurately.  Evaluating the structural elements a of a fiction manuscript, through examining plot, use of prologues and epilogues, chapter division and chapter order is just one aspect of a much larger process.

 

When someone asks what I do as a developmental editor, I tell them that I workshop the theatre of the story on the page.

Halfway through my first developmental editing project, I started to see similarities between how this process worked with a narrative on the page, and how I used to work with narratives for the stage as a theatre director. I’d been struck by the fact that so much of what I was doing felt  “natural” to me. Then I realized I was using much of the skill-set I’d developed over decades in my theatre training and practice.

Sometimes, when someone asks what I do as a developmental editor, I tell them that I workshop the theatre of the story on the page. Or that I work with the author to enhance and develop their voice and style. Another developmental editor might describe their work differently, but both of these theatre-based metaphors speak to me, and to what I bring to the process.

I’ve always been an analytical thinker – theatre directing helped me strengthen my ability to think visually, so it’s easy for me to translate words on a page into a three-dimensional image of a scene and characters. I can then ask myself: “What’s working? What’s missing?”

I also see similarities in the way I’d work with actors in rehearsals as a director to the way I interact with authors as an editor. However, the author is the uber-actor – the embodiment of all the characters. A balance of encouraging, coaxing, inspiring and challenging seems required to foster both processes of creativity.

Alan Rinzler, a developmental editor who’s clearly been in the business a long time, describes the role elegantly and succinctly:

“Developmental editors offer specific suggestions about the core intentions and goals of the book, the underlying premise, the story, character development, use of dialogue and sensory description, the polish, narrative voice, pacing, style, language – the craft and literary art of the book.”

Having just completed a novella manuscript a few days ago with my long-term client and dear friend, Emmanuelle de Maupassant, I’ve been noticing how the story-world is still alive in my mind and imagination. The story of Italian Sonata, with all its layers of meaning and metaphor, its panoply of characters and their individual desires, the ancient castle within which much of the action takes place, are all still vibrating in my psyche, like an image on a screen affected by slight static. It’s as if I can’t quite let go of it yet, and with that realization, came another.

Fiction writing is for most writers, a solitary task. The importance of undistracted time, and the self-imposed isolation this often necessitates, is something many writers struggle with, at least some of the time.

In the role of the developmental editor, you actually companion the writer along the way. You enter the story-world, and interact with the characters, alongside the author. As the project progresses, you might even begin to have in-jokes with the author about their character’s traits and actions.

The writer is receiving regular feedback, and support as the chapters are revised and revised again, and as the work comes together. They are no longer quite as alone in the creation, and I wonder if this would assist some types of writer personalities to complete their projects more often, or more successfully. A developmental editor would have certainly helped me as a younger writer and a social extrovert. Carving out the essential periods of solitude was once something I struggled with.

As the characters and story-world of Italian Sonata seemed reluctant to evict themselves from my psyche, I thought it might be an ideal moment to record some of the things I did, working as a developmental editor, and all in a days’ work. I’d like to thank Emmanuelle for giving me permission to “deconstruct” elements of the editing process to reveal more about the role of the developmental editor in guiding the work from draft to publication.

Before you read further, I’d like to clarify that I’m discussing the work-in-progress of someone who is an extremely talented and capable writer. Emmanuelle writes evocative, compelling prose, and presides over her story-worlds with a queenly grace. She possesses a brilliant ability for social critique and her sometime cynical humour is often mischievously afoot in her scenes, as she explores the hypocrisy inherent in the machinations of polite society. She is mistress of complex plots and even more complex characters. Her imagery is often resonant, and is, at times, capable of evoking visceral reactions in me. I particularly admire her prowess when writing in the Victorian era. She and I share a love for the Gothic fiction aesthetic and genre, so I was very excited to embark on this project with her.

For a writer, I believe working with a developmental editor is like donning a magic cloak that enhances your writerly super-powers, and minimizes or neutralizes your weaknesses. Wherever you are in your development as a writer, the right developmental editor should lift your work to the next level. Additionally, through the process of working with an editor, your writing skills should improve, so you begin your next project a stronger, more capable writer. Developmental editor Alan Rinzler calls this “constructive collaboration.”

Wherever you are in your development as a writer, the right developmental editor should lift your work to the next level.

In other words, the draft of this manuscript was already, on many levels, in good shape. Yet most writers know that overwhelming feeling of holding so many details in their head at once: it’s easy to overlook flaws and inconsistencies in the draft.

Lists are a succinct (and fun) way to capture lots of information. As the skill-set of individual developmental editors will differ, depending on their background, talents and training, I’d expect another editors’ list to have common elements, but also contain elements unique to their approach.  An editor must be able to be responsive to the needs of the individual writer, and the manuscript.  This list is not intended to be definitive: rather it’s a snapshot of elements I contributed to this manuscript, this story. As developmental editor, I:

• Re-ordered some chapters to more clearly show the passing of time and build suspense more effectively between linked sub-plots.
• Contributed some chapter titles, and re-worked others.
• Chopped up some chapters and advised upon new ordering.
• Evaluated one mini-scene in a certain chapter which seemed unlikely, conceived a plot outline that placed that scene more credibly amongst new action, and guided the author to write a new chapter that revealed more devious elements to “the villain”
• Reminded the author of plot elements that had not been carried through in a credible way.
• Advised when characters were acting “out of character” and created plot notes to help get them back on track.
• Affirmed the author’s use of metaphors to express certain themes, and helped her refine and develop them, also acting as “location scout” for places throughout the novel for these themes to be elaborated on.
• Suggested actions to better reveal complex, conflicting emotions for the character(s)
• Ensured character’s entered and exited rooms when it was important to show they had done so.
• Wrote the occasional line of dialogue when a character (and the author) was stuck for words.
• As it was a story set in Victorian times, I advised on a few elements to more clearly evoke time and period. (Although, I didn’t have too much to do here, as the author is brilliant at writing in this era).
• Read out parts of prose aloud, and corrected to enhance the beauty or clarity or rhythm of expression.
• Helped author find a different approach to sections of descriptive imagery when they “snagged” and couldn’t quite complete something.
• Picked up minor story elements that held tantalizing erotic potential, and encouraged the author to follow this through in action, over several chapters, what one character initially, only playfully, mentioned in dialogue.
• Noticed when a character was doing too much talking, with no indication of actions.
• Took the final lines of the last chapter, and re-situated them as the last lines of the Epilogue ie the final, last words.

It seems apt to end my list there.

These tasks sprung out of the fundamental task of working through the manuscript, chapter by chapter, revising each sentence and paragraph, referring at times to a plot synopsis for the bigger picture.

I hope to have captured something here of what a developmental editor actually does: most things on my list would be beyond the role of a line editor.

Your developmental editor should provide that fresh objective eye; assisting you to hone your story-world and your characters, allowing you, the writer, to relax a little, stop sweating the details, and get on with the output and completion of the prima materia.

The ultimate magnum opus should soon be in sight …

What an editor contributes is, for the most part, invisible in the final published piece of work. Perhaps that’s a sign of a skilled editor. Yet, without the input of the editor, a piece of work is likely to turn out quite differently.

Finally, for this constructive collaboration to be successful, there is one vital quality that must be present between the author and their developmental editor: trust. I feel hugely honoured and humbled by this trust, given to allow me to suggest and affect such changes to a piece of work.

Italian Sonata was officially released a few hours ago. A huge congratulations to Emmanuelle, and I’m wishing the novella every success! Head here to pick up your digital copy: https://books.pronoun.com/italian-sonata/ or to Amazon.

More information on my Editing and Writing Services

Read about my “Sample Chapter Edit Offer”

Alan Rinzler’s excellent articles (and his site) on developmental editing and more:

https://alanrinzler.com/2012/07/what-should-you-expect-from-a-developmental-editor/

https://alanrinzler.com/2011/11/when-do-you-need-an-editor/

More about Emmanuelle de Maupassant

 

The Short Story: First Impressions

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Adrea Kore, Creative Process, Developmental Editing, editing fiction, Metaphor, On Writing, short story

 “To begin at the beginning.”

Under Milkwood Theatre Poster – Clwyd Theatr Cymrd

With this beckoning sentence, Welsh author and playwright Dylan Thomas opens his renowned and much-performed radio play Under Milkwood.

The narrator speaks here, setting the scene for a sleeping town; one “moonless night” in Spring, “starless and bible-black.” Most famously narrated by the resonant, deep tones of actor Richard Burton, the words bid the listeners to pay attention. Here comes a story. The alliteration and repetition already draws us in. For those of us with Christian backgrounds, the words echo the very first sentence of one of our oldest and most epic of stories: the Bible.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

We teeter on that first sentence with the narrator, waiting to step down into the rolling, seething, ribald psyche of the sleeping townspeople; to creep into their cellars, be voyeurs of their wet dreams and illicit affairs, their silent sorrows and repressed desires.

Begin at the beginning …

Described by Thomas as a “play for voices”, Under Milkwood has been produced many times worldwide for radio and stage. I was cast as narrator for a stage adaptation in my first year of drama school, and the opening lines always stayed with me. The play’s language and imagery is rich, visceral and poetic, alive with alliteration and metaphor, onopatopoeia and intoxicating rhythms. For those interested in language, I’d argue the play-text reads just as well as a short story. Vividly realised through both narration and brilliant dialogue, the characters of Llareggubb Hill leap off the page and into your imagination.

A compelling short story ideally can and should make use of the elements I’ve highlighted in Under Milkwood to achieve the same intensity of resonance in the reader’s imagination: opening, imagery, language, characterization and dialogue.

For this post, it feels appropriate “to begin at the beginning”, to focus on first impressions: title, the first sentence and the opening paragraph.

A brief aside: all of these elements are also important in longer-form fiction. Additionally, I’d underline the importance of the entire first chapter to lay the foundations of the story and capture the reader’s attention. But that’s another post in the making.

In a short story, you’re going to have less time with the reader than with a novel. You need to make every word, sentence, paragraph and scene count. First impressions matter.

I’ll say it again:

First impressions matter.

FIRST SENTENCE: THE ENTRY POINT FOR YOUR READER

First impressions are as important in a story as they are in a job interview or a first date. As a university student, majoring in theatre and taking literature as an elective, I studied Kafka’s polemic short story Metamorphosis. Kafka’s story begins with this intriguing first sentence:

“When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”

How could a dull story possibly emerge from that opening premise? I had to read on. It may well have been while studying Metamorphosis that I became convinced of the vital role of the opening sentence to set the short story in motion and to coax the reader inside the story-world.

A strong short story nearly always has a riveting first sentence. A sentence that beckons, or yanks you in by the hair.

To begin at the beginning …

How do we, as writers, find the right entry-point for our story? Where is that place in the charged narrative swimming inside our minds that we can clearly signpost as its unique and compelling beginning? As we know, it’s not always, chronologically speaking, the first “beat” of the story. Some narratives are most effective when they move back and forth in space and time.

As a writer, the idea for a story often coincides with the words of the first sentence, appearing in my mind’s eyes like burning neon on my retina. Heart pumping, I race to get it down on paper, because I know it’s my ticket into my own story-cinema. If I lose it, I may lose the story, popcorn and all. Here’s one:

“Last week, she tried to leave him on a Wednesday just before dinner.”
– Wet Satin Plaything (2015)

Just like a love affair, there’s a lot of heat in the imaginations’ first encounter with a new story. Other times, when I don’t get the first line, I draft out the story in chunks – whatever is coming to me. Then as it starts to take shape, I pull out my magnifying glass, and go hunting for that first line. It’s often buried somewhere in the body of the draft.

Some writers may relate to this. If you’re not excited when you read the first line of your story, chances are your readers won’t be either. Keep an open mind, and go hunting. Oftentimes, you’ve written it already – you just have to pull it out of the pile of words, set it on top of the page, and give it a polish.

Time for an eccentric writerly confession: I collect first lines of stories. I have notebooks full of them. For this post, I decided to re-visit some of my most beloved short story writers, and pull out some first-rate first sentences.

Let’s begin with the writer who made me truly want to be a writer, and precipitated my love for word-play and images: Ray Bradbury. If you haven’t read him, and you claim to love short stories, please stop what you are doing and go find some of his stories. Now. Start with The Martian Chronicles if you like science-fiction, or The Illustrated Man if strange tales with dark carnival themes appeal.

My well-read collections of Bradbury short stories

“He came out of the earth, hating.”
Pillar of Fire

“The rocket metal cooled in the meadow winds.”
Dark they Were, and Golden-Eyed

“The city waited twenty thousand years.”
The City

All of these first sentences, short as they are, feature important players in the story, and invoke the particular story-world. A man who should be dead, walks and feels again. A rocket has just landed – “cooled” being a telling verb. Where, we wonder, and who will come out? A city is a protagonist. It exists: has memory, a consciousness and a tenacious patience, and something is finally going to happen.

The first example also establishes one of the driving emotions of the story: hate.

Below are some other first sentences, by authors I have long read and admired:

“My father lost me to the Beast at cards.”
The Tiger’s Bride, Angela Carter (from The Bloody Chamber)

What’s introduced here? A desperate father, a wager gone wrong; betrayal of the deepest kind for a daughter. How beastly is this beast? We know we are not in a naturalistic story, at his mention, and that uncanny elements will be at play. How horrific her loss of choice. What happens next?

“Suddenly – dreadfully – she wakes up.”
The Wind Blows, Katherine Mansfield

The main character erupts into consciousness just as the story does, and something awful has either happened in her dream or is happening around her. These five words, and the clever use of the staccato energy of dashes as punctuation create a suspenseful beginning.

“Lilith was sexually cold, and her husband half-knew it, in spite of her pretenses.”
Lilith, Anias Nin (from Delta of Venus)

Nin creates an intriguing beginning that establishes the theme of pretense, and tension between a husband and wife. She wastes no words in getting to the “obstacle” of sexual frigidity, which the narrative then explores.

“First, mother went away.”
Being Kind to Titina, Patrick White (from The Burnt Ones)

An understated rendering of a life-changing event.  We sense this story will be about loss, and survival from the perspective of a child.

“My lover Picasso is going through her Blue Period.”
The Poetics of Sex, Jeanette Winterson (from The World and Other Places)

Here, Ms Winterson twists and subverts several aspects at once with her wry feminist perspective. Picasso is a woman, not a man. The reference to her “Blue Period” seems at first to be about art – but as we read on, she subverts our expectations with a description from her female lover’s viewpoint of  her behaviour when she’s menstruating, creating a secondary word-play on the meaning of “period”.

A strong first sentence finds a way to lean into the themes of the story, to be simultaneously at the beginning, and also at some other important emotional or thematic elsewhere in the story.

All of these examples show the writer’s agility and ability of story-telling. They know how their story unfolds, and they place the reader at the best vantage point to survey the story’s landscape. Prominent characters are introduced and emotional tones are established.

All of these sentences achieve one other more complex thing: the first sentence houses the seed of the story. The microcosm of the macrocosm.

What do I mean by this? Come back with me to the “vantage point” metaphor. As the writer, we locate our opening sentence at a specific point in space and time. We direct what the reader gets to see, but we also look out over the story landscape, noting the important stand-out features. These features can be themes or crucial plot-points or core emotional evocations of a character’s relationship to themselves, other characters or the world.

We describe where we are, and then we project our vison deeper into the story-world. We use words to link where we are (as character or narrator) to one of those prominent features. Or we lean into the metaphorical wind blowing at us from our story-world, to capture something evocative about our story, carried to us on that breeze. A scent of something, or a seed.

In your opening sentence, situate the reader where you want them at first contact with your story,  then try giving the readers a hint of something enticing to be encountered further into the narrative. What your first sentence introduces can then be elaborated upon in your opening paragraph.

I once did a movement theatre workshop around the theme of story-telling. One of the exercises was to find a first sentence of a favourite book or story, and translate that sentence into a movement piece – with a beginning, a middle and an end. The facilitator believed in the power of first sentences; that they could in some way, convey the entire essence of the story.

As a writer and editor, I’ve become increasingly interested in this idea: a strong first sentence finds a way to lean into the themes of the story, to be simultaneously at the beginning, and also at some other important emotional or thematic elsewhere in the story.

Short story writer Eudora Welty conveys a similar idea here:

“A short story is confined to one mood, to which everything in the story pertains. Characters, setting, time, events, are all subject to the mood.”

A large proportion of story drafts that I receive as a developmental editor have not had enough care and attention given to their opening sentence and paragraph. Eighty percent of the time that’s where I begin the work with the author. I’ve read openings of books already on sale on Amazon that have typos and grammatical errors in their first paragraphs. I have read no further, nor have I bought the book. And I would never be inclined to look up that author again.

I’ve nothing against self-publishing as a concept. But, writers, it should never be an excuse for releasing sloppy work onto the market. Use beta-readers, find yourself a skilled editor, or consider developmental editing to hone your work. Ensure it’s copy-edited before you release it. Putting unpolished, un-edited work before the public eye is not going to benefit your reputation as a writer. In fact, it will do the opposite.

From a writer’s perspective, I understand why haphazard, slap-dash story openings happen. We’re in a hurry to get it on the page before the idea fades. We’re impatient to just start the damn thing, and we can’t wait to get into the meaty part of the story. So we bumble and stumble bull-headed through our opening, when this is the part of the story where we most need to take care.

If this is what it takes to get you started, great. But go back and revise your opening once the heat of that first wave of inspiration has subsided. Then sleep on it, and revise again. As you generate more material, be aware that your true beginning could be somewhere in the middle of your draft.

This is one place where developmental editing can really offer something to the writer. I work with the author, giving them permission to slow down, take a breath. I ask questions, give them a framework in which to take a better look at the details of their opening, and I show them what they should be focusing on, or point out details have been sketched too hurriedly and aren’t clear to someone standing outside that writer’s head.

Write. Revise. Write. Revise.

Once you have that stellar, kick-ass beginning, revise it again. How tight can you make it? How clear? How intense” Can you eliminate excess words or phrases that are muddying the meaning or the impact?

In short, will it give the reader the most compelling view of your story-world?

The more essential every word you render in your opening sentence and paragraph, the more intense its impact will be upon the reader’s imagination.

The Short Story: from First Sentence to Final Words

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Adrea Kore, Creative Process, Creativity, Developmental Editing, editing fiction, Fairytales, Greek Mythology, My Bookshelf, On Writing, Published Fiction, quotes, short story, Women Writers

I’ve always been a voracious reader. I learnt to read a little earlier than was usual, and after that it seemed I couldn’t get enough words inside me. As a child and teenager, my reading habits bordered on addictive, and maybe that’s why I loved short stories; as for most children, these came at first in the form of fairytale and myth.

Image Credit: Brooke Shaden

Their brevity and the fact that they were a complete experience in themselves meant I could consume more stories in the amount of stolen time I had to read: under the desk at school while it was officially maths, beneath the bedclothes with a torch long after my parents thought I was asleep, even occasionally (though less successfully) in the shower. Following my mother around the supermarket. Sometimes I’d lose my mother, but never my place.

When it came to short stories, I guess you could say I was greedy.

Writer Ali Smith expresses this idea succinctly, and with a wry twist of logic:

“Short stories consume you faster. They’re connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality.”

We don’t just consume short stories; they consume us. It’s an interesting idea. Even at five years old, I seemed to sense I would only have so long to read in my lifetime, so I’d better get to it.

Myth and fairytale beguiled me as a little girl, and they still beguile me now. I don’t think it was ever the happy endings I craved, but more the sense of magic and the uncanny. Now, I enjoy reflecting on the archetypes in myth and fairytale, that resonate through different centuries and cultures. I like to muse on their themes; themes that swim; primal, invertebrate, deep in our psyches. Love. Belonging. Loss. Yet before I ever knew the words archetype or symbol, I sensed the wicked witch was more than she appeared to be, and that forests were governed by different lore and logic to houses or towns.These are the treasures hidden in fairytales and myths. Upon entering these story-worlds, as a very young reader, I believe I first comprehended the power in words, the pull and expansiveness of story on my imagination.

The world didn’t stop at the end of my street.

As the wonderfully imaginative writer Neil Gaiman observes:

“A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.”

I could visit other times, places, civilizations, and planets. I could be a princess, a witch, Thumbelina – all without leaving my backyard, and return home in time for dinner.

The myth of Persephone, first read when I was five, translated into a short story and included in the Childcraft Encyclopedia volume on stories and fables, has been whispering wisdom and insights to me all my life. What I related to in the story as a child is different to what I related to as a young, sexually adventurous woman in my twenties, and different again to how I relate to her story more than a decade later.

The theme of mother-daughter love drew me in as a child. The tantalizing sexual and psychological symbolism of the Underworld that Persephone is made to spend part of every year in fascinated me as a young woman. The idea that Persephone represents the sexual and psychologically integrated woman from a feminist perspective intrigues me now, and compels me to keep writing about her.

Like a set of Russian dolls, the other parts of me at different ages are still nestled  inside me, and re-visiting stories that have companioned me through my life-journey is one powerful way of accessing these other selves. Changes of perspective in how and what we see in a story, are like sign-posts, or scars, marking the places of our own growth or change.

My well-read collections of Bradbury short stories

As a teenager, I continued to read fairytales, but also developed other tastes – for science fiction, mystery, the macabre and ghostly, the absurd. I devoured the short stories of Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allen Poe, and Roald Dahl. All of these authors approached the short story with their own style and signatures of their era. All of them taught me something about the qualities of short story writing.

Writer Andre Dubus professes that he loves short stories because  “they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.” For certain styles and subjects of short stories, I think he’s right.

We live our lives day by day, and a short story is an apt framework to capture what happens to us or our lover or a neighbour in the commute to work, or late one night, or over a week. Short stories don’t just encapsulate how we live, but the way we recount how we live to others:

“A strange thing happened on the train to work today.”

“So, I met this guy last weekend at my local cafe when I accidentally spilt my take-away coffee over his shoes.”

These kinds of short stories are close relatives to the conversational anecdote. If they are good stories, they will inevitably play with the tension between the everyday and the profound, the trivial and the significant. The teller is not quite the same person they were before the story happened. And they will have that same potential for the reader or the listener.

Short stories don’t just encapsulate how we live, but the way we recount how we live to others.

In this series of posts, I’m going to be exploring the short story up close. I’ll be peering inside, prying the pages apart, savouring sentences upon my metaphorical tongue, and inviting you to do the same. How they differ from longer forms of story, such as novellas and novels, will also be touched upon. Writer Lorrie Moore makes apt comparisons between the short story and the novel:

“A short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”

I’ll be exploring the writers of short stories who have inspired and informed my own writing, and I’ll be musing on what works and why. To do this, I’ll be calling on three different perspectives I have into the short story: as a life-long reader of them, a published writer of them, and most recently, a developmental editor of short stories by numerous other authors.

Over my four decades of reading life, the number of short stories I’ve read would have to be in the thousands; maybe even the tens of thousands. Two literary theorists whose work I admire greatly were enthusiasts of lists to bookmark various ideas: Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes. So, here, I’ll list the authors of short stories that have inspired, intrigued or affected me:

• The brothers Grimm
• Ray Bradbury
• Roald Dahl
• Edgar Allen Poe
• Oscar Wilde
• Franz Kafka
• Anton Chekhov
• Patrick White
• Katherine Mansfield
• Angela Carter
• Jeanette Winterson
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Anais Nin
• Tobsha Learner

Some of these, such as Gilman and Kafka, are there for singular, stand-out stories. Most of the authors listed are there, because I’ve read many of their short stories, often returning to them again and again. Then there are the many anthologies I’ve read; attracted more to a genre or theme than a particular author’s voice. Ghost stories, Australian short stories (we’re pretty good at them as a nation) stories about the ocean, stories by women authors.

Try making a list of your own short fiction inspirations – just for fun, or to see who your influences are.

As a writer of short stories, I won first prize for a short story competition when I was eleven. I wrote a few decent short stories at high school, getting some published in the annual school magazine. Then, a long hiatus from any fiction-writing, where I took to copious journal-writing, poetry and snippets of memoir. I’d often had people say I had a gift for writing, but for a long time, I was too focused on pursuing my passion for theatre.

Since I started taking my writing more seriously just over four years ago, I’ve written twenty-two short stories (if I include flash fiction) and had seventeen publications, with a few other offers that didn’t eventuate. The first story I ever submitted for paid publication got accepted, the next one was also accepted, and currently my acceptance versus rejection rate is about 4:1. I think Ray Bradbury would be proud of me for having the courage to submit as soon as I started writing. I’m not one to let finished stories moulder away in a bottom desk drawer for years.

About two years ago, I started working as a developmental editor and have worked with numerous authors across different genres, editing some thirty short stories to date. My first editing project happened somewhat by accident, but was definitely fate in motion. I was asked by friend and writer Emmanuelle de Maupassant to critique one story for her new collection in progress. She liked how I approached it and asked me to work with her on the whole collection. It was a dream first editing project for me. Inspired by Eastern European and Russian superstitions and folklore, Cautionary Tales had macabre and erotic elements, and archetypes and symbols galore.

It’s extremely rewarding to see, through the developmental editing process, a story go from sketchy to stand-out.

Consider this post as an introduction to the series. From my own reading and writing of short stories, but also particularly from what I’ve gleaned through the drafting and editing process with other writers, I’ve compiled a list of seven elements I think are crucial to the writing of a compelling short story, and I’ll explore each element in more detail in a subsequent post.

1 First Impressions: Title, First sentence, First paragraph

2. Finding the Right Words: Imagery, Atmosphere & Metaphor

3. Character: Details, Depth & Dialogue

4. Narrative Gaps:  Sleuthing in the Spaces

5. Developing Themes

6. Paring Back & Revision (What Stays, What Goes)

7. Final Words: Finding your Ending

As an editor, working with other authors, I’ve gained what I’d call a privileged perspective into the potential challenges and blind spots that can be seen to recur over a sample of writers. It’s extremely rewarding to see, through the developmental editing process, a story go from sketchy to stand-out. Every writer has their own strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes these will even vary over different stories from the same author. While one story may have a very strong, engaging opening, another from the same pen might splutter and dither around in the first few paragraphs, or seem to start in the wrong place. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

These posts are intended as much to unravel my own fascination with the short story, to discover what I know about them, as to assist those writing them or wanting to write them. It’s my observation that some writers do need ongoing, considered feedback to help them identify (and strengthen) their weak spots. Other writers will have a gut instinct about what their weaknesses are, and take or leave advice accordingly. I tend to fall into the latter category. Whichever kind of writer you are, I invite you to take what resonates for you, and consider that what doesn’t resonate for you may be helpful for another writer.

Possible approaches to generating material for stories and for writing them are manifold. Any exercises I suggest are based on what has worked for me or other authors I’ve worked with, and occasionally what I’ve picked up or modified from a writing craft book or workshop. Take what you feel might work for you, or try something out of your comfort zone.

I’d also hope these posts will generate some vibrant dialogue, as I know many writers out there who enjoy the short story form, and, like me, would agree with writer Annie Prioux:

“I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story.”

Intensity. Brevity. Balance and word play. I love the qualities she singles out, and I’ll be discussing these qualities through the ensuing posts. I hope you’ll join me.

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