The nice thing about short stories is that I can edit one in a single session; given how much I love editing, this is good to be able to limit this process to a single sitting.

The draft 2 (story edit) was dealing with holes in the plot, and there were quite a few. In this story, I snipped away and added some elements, without trying to have the correct language or continuity : all that mattered was to remove the extraneous stuff, and add what was required to make the story work.

This draft 3 (line edit) was to produce a manuscript with better language, and leaner writing.

Draft 2 saw the most editing out, with the removal of about 500 words (this is huge to me). I didn’t feel bad about those as I usually do : I had to cut those out to make a better story. Then, I had to write some to correct my story, and added 450 words. I felt a little saddened that after cutting out this much (and this is very difficult for me to cut out writing), I only decreased the count slightly – about just enough to bring the whole of the manuscript under the 7.5k limit imposed by the contest rules.

Draft 3 is a little different in this that I didn’t cut out paragraphs, but words on each line. This time, I added very few, and this resulted in 100 words cut out, for a final 7350 words.

I submitted the story again to my alpha reader, hoping to have a better response than last time : she hated the story, and I got very little comments besides “I don’t like this story.” Maybe this is a sign that I shouldn’t have her read the rough drafts anymore, I don’t know. This time, I think the story is much better, but the core of the story is still the same. Knowing my alpha reader, the result might be the same, even if I corrected the gaps she mentionned.

I’ll see for her comments, but I’m not keeping my hopes up : not everybody can like every story…