Q: I finished my story! Now what do I do? Can I start sending it out?

A: Hold on just a cotton-pickin' minute there, Cowboy. You're finished! That's fantastic. There's very little in this world that feels better….but….(there's always a “but”) you don't want to send it out just yet. Put it away for a few weeks or months if you can stand it, and work on something else in the meantime. That time away will give you fresh eyes when you read it again. When you do pick it up, then reread, revise, and edit. I'd love to say my work is just perfect the first time around, but it's never quite perfect no matter how many times I go through it. There's a difference between editing and revising. Editing implies taking care of the mechanics. That is, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, etc--easy but tedious. I have frequently gone back to a manuscript to find that I inadvertently changed a character's name early on in the book or said “an” when I meant to say “and”. A word about mechanics-yes, you're hearing this from a former English teacher-mechanics are extremely important but there are times when rules should be broken. For example, in the real world, we often don't speak in complete sentences and occasionally we use poor grammar. To make your characters more believable, you will want to make their dialogue less than perfect. Another good example is that, no matter what you learned in the third grade, paragraphs don't have to be four sentences each. That's only a guideline we use to explain the concept of a paragraph to young writers. One of my daughter's college professors actually took off points on a creative writing assignment she was working on because she had less than four sentences in a paragraph. I told her to do what she had to do to get along with the prof., but to remember that real writing allows you to take license from time to time. Pick up any book. You'll find such examples on every page.

Revision is a much harder task than editing. Revision means changing whole sections, moving things around, adding and taking away concepts improving the vocabulary you use, even writing in new characters. It's a really messy process and you have to be willing to toss it all into the air and get dirty. You can always save your first draft separately from the next two or ten in case you decide you liked it better.

When you finish your second revision, put it away and do it again several more times before you send it out. It will be worth it.


If you're still not satisfied, drop a line to writers@melindalongbooks.com. Due to the volume of inquiries I receive, I cannot respond to each question, but do get to as many as is possible in a timely manner. And, of course, thanks for your interest!