Pinky Miranda Productions

Revision is painful, but necessary. After all, writing is rewriting!

This is my method to editing: taking it paragraph by paragraph.

Below is a paragraph from my in-progress novel, “The Black Box”:

Gym was my least favorite class, and as I stared out of the steely windows into the soggy sky, I found myself beginning to daydream instead of listening to the lecture. I just had never found myself clicking with anyone in my class. Mainly it was because I couldn’t participate in any game days, because of my “knee condition” and was only allowed by my parents to work on the treadmills and in the fitness center. You think parents would be encouraging their kids to participate in sports, but mine weren’t as bright. They discouraged any competitive sport, saying that it was a ‘waste of my time’ and only bred ‘proud, arrogant cheaters’. The injury excuse was one that was obviously a lie, yet my teacher didn’t say anything about it. Strangely enough, my doctor continued with the facade along with everyone else in charge of my life, so I had no say in the matter.

Ugh. I’m shuddering while I’m reading that. There’s a lot of problems, and to list a few:

• Gym was my least favorite class, and as I stared out of the steely windows into the soggy sky, I found myself beginning to daydream instead of listening to the lecture.
  • This sentence accomplishes little, except for maybe abusing words when shorter phrases would do. From the setting description, we get the weather and a tiny bit of the setting. But really, it’s pointless. The reader thinks, oh, so there’s steel windows and it’s raining. So what? The main character hates gym and is daydreaming. So what? That doesn’t tell us much about the character. And it’s telling us, not showing us!
• I just had never found myself clicking with anyone in my class. Mainly it was because I couldn’t participate in any game days, because of my “knee condition” and was only allowed by my parents to work on the treadmills and in the fitness center.
  
  • This sentence is better. We get a more insightful view on the ‘whys’, although the subject changes abruptly in the middle of the sentence. From the underlined point on, the thought is detached and we needed a transition there.
• You think parents would be encouraging their kids to participate in sports, but mine weren’t as bright. They discouraged any competitive sport, saying that it was a ‘waste of my time’ and only bred ‘proud, arrogant cheaters’. The injury excuse was one that was obviously a lie, yet my teacher didn’t say anything about it. Strangely enough, my doctor continued with the facade along with everyone else in charge of my life, so I had no say in the matter.
  • There’s a bunch of extra words in here that don’t improve the writing, and some foggy phrases that could be replaced with some more concise words or could be rearranged.
  • There’s also problems with the past and present tenses, such as “had no say in the matter” can be changed to “have no say in the matter” and “my doctor continued” to “continues” among several more.

So now to rewrite the paragraph:

Walking into the dimly lit damp room for the lecture, I was reminded of how much I abhorred this class. It was one thing to be isolated from most of the normal activities like running on the track because of my “knee condition”, but the lazy people in my class were not exactly friendly.

I get asked all the time why I don’t play sports. I look athletic, sure, but my brilliant parents discourage any kind of competitive sport, saying that it is a ‘waste of my time’ and only bred ‘arrogant cheaters’. The injury excuse was obviously a lie, yet my teacher didn’t comment. Strangely enough, my doctor continues with the facade along with everyone else in charge of my life, so I have no say in the matter.

Ahh. Much better.

-Rika