Fiction Writing:

Prompts for Revising At the Level of Story

What’s the story really about? On the surface? Underneath?

What’s the story’s heart? Its center of gravity (Elbow)?

In its current draft, is it “too much about what it’s about” (Winegardner)? Is there a subplot or second plot strand already hinted at in the draft? (Paley: a story is at least two stories that talk to one another).

What are the tensions between the characters? Alliances? Reasons? Is there something going on with race, class, gender tensions? Conflicting desires?

How can you take what’s there in the draft and deepen it? Significance? Consequences? Zoom in. Sink down.

What matters in the story? To whom? Why?

Whose point of view? Why? What is that character’s yearning? What is his or her voice? Can you hear/feel the voice coming through?

What parts need to be shown “in scene,” moment by moment, with detail and feeling, and with a sense of character and a sense of being grounded in a time and place and space? Outline your draft scene by scene, without the exposition.

Are you telling/showing the parts that are the real heart of the story? Have you avoided something significant because it would be too hard to write? (Chicken . . .)

What needs to be in there that isn’t? What is in there but advances neither plot nor character, and so needs to be taken out?

Where does the real story, the real heart, begin? Where does it end?