Five tips from Catherine Lundoff

 Five tips (in no particular order) on how to revise from Catherine Lundoff:

1) Almost everything wrong with an early draft can be fixed with thorough revisions.

2) Revising means learning to look at your work from a critical and detached perspective. It takes practice and timing – revising a brand new story right after you finish it isn’t as effective as letting it sit for a period of time while you work on other things. Then you can go back to it with a fresher eye to find the problem areas. 

3) Learn to love revising.

4) Some things to do when revising:      · Check for spelling and grammar errors.     · Ask yourself questions about your plot and your characters’ motivation. Look for logical flaws.     · Read your work aloud to see how it sounds.     · Do you have any words or phrases you like to use? Check to see how many times you used them in your story and start rewriting those sections.

5) Quit while you’re ahead. Don’t get caught up in an endless rewriting loop. When you feel that your story is the best that it can be, submit it. Then go write something else.

Catherine Lundoff is the author of many pieces of fiction including the short story 'Twilight' in Best Fantastic Erotica. More of Catherine's work can be found by visiting: http://catherinelundoff.com/.