Week 16 Revision and Portfolio

Revision activities and portfolio

When it came to choosing stories I suddenly worried that this was my last chance to revise and that there may be some small acorn of good in one that I wanted to toss so... I will revise a few of them over the weekend and see which ones turn out.  They are: the play- Teddy and Julio ( I really need a class on writing titles), Fair Is Fair- about driving with a baby in the car, the delivery room scene, Tess- a short story, and the car scene with a husband and wife. 

Revision

I always read my stories aloud before turning them in.  The sooner in the writing process I do that the more time I save myself.  It is a must-do and I always keep it in mind.

I also go through stories and try to cut down.  I usually look at the word count and then go through it and try to get the word count down, then reread it a few more times, cutting down each time.  Setting a word count forces me to clean up unnecessary wordage.  Just having that numerical goal in mind is helpful.

I had already learned to read the story backwards to find spelling errors but am sometimes too lazy, so I will make that one of my revision tactics for the portfolio.  It is no more time consuming than reading normally but each time I skim by it because it takes some concentration so this will be a good habit for me to get into.

I wrote out an autobiography for one of the characters that I was frustrated with and wrote a diary entry for another main character in another story, in order to get to know them better. I hope it gives me some material for rewriting some endings.

I will also read my stories before going to sleep.