Editing, Revision, and Polishing

The Draft Is Not the Story

In the previous lesson, we explored writing different genres with ai. Now let’s build on that foundation. Here’s a secret that published writers know and new writers often don’t: the draft is raw material. It’s not the story any more than a block of marble is a statue. The story emerges through revision.

Hemingway wrote 47 endings for A Farewell to Arms. Raymond Carver’s editor, Gordon Lish, sometimes cut his stories by 50%. Donna Tartt spent ten years revising The Goldfinch.

You don’t need ten years. But you need a revision process. And AI makes that process dramatically more efficient.

The Golden Rule: Finish First, Then Fix

Before you edit anything, finish the draft. The whole thing. Beginning to end.

Why? Three reasons:

1. You can’t see the forest from inside a tree. Structural problems are invisible when you’ve only written half the story. Maybe the real beginning is in chapter three. You won’t know until it’s all down.

2. Editing kills momentum. If you polish chapter one until it gleams, you lose the drive to push forward. And you might cut chapter one entirely during structural revision.

3. The inner critic is the enemy of drafting. Drafting requires reckless creativity. Editing requires cold judgment. They’re different mindsets. Mixing them paralyzes you.

Write ugly. Write fast. Write the whole thing. Then put on your editor’s hat.

The Five Editing Passes

Don’t try to fix everything at once. Make focused passes, from big picture to small picture.

Pass 1: Structural Edit (The Bones)

This is the most important pass. Does the story work as a whole?

Here's my complete story/chapter: [paste or provide summary]

Perform a structural edit. Evaluate:

1. BEGINNING: Does the opening hook the reader? Does the
   story start in the right place?
2. MIDDLE: Is there a clear escalation? Does the midpoint
   shift the conflict? Any sections that sag?
3. END: Is the ending earned? Does it resolve the central
   question? Is it surprising yet inevitable?
4. SCENES: Are there any scenes that don't advance
   character, plot, or tension? Flag candidates for cutting.
5. PACING: Where does the story move too fast? Too slow?
   Where did your attention wander as a reader?
6. ARC: Does the main character change? Is the transformation
   visible and believable?

Structural edits are where stories improve the most. Be ruthless. Cut scenes that don’t earn their place, even if they contain your favorite sentence. (Save it in your swipe file. Maybe it belongs in a different story.)

Pass 2: Character Consistency

Characters should behave consistently, unless they have a good reason not to.

Here are my main characters and their traits:
[paste character descriptions from your story bible]

Here's my draft: [paste relevant sections]

Check character consistency:
1. Does each character's behavior match their established
   personality? Flag any moments that feel out of character.
2. Are character voices distinct? Can you tell who's
   speaking without tags?
3. Do character arcs progress logically? Are the changes
   earned?
4. Are there any character details that contradict
   earlier chapters? (eye color, backstory details,
   relationships)
5. Do secondary characters have enough dimension, or are
   any of them just plot devices?

Pass 3: Pacing and Tension

Pacing is the rhythm of your story: when it speeds up, when it slows down, when it breathes.

Analyze the pacing of this section: [paste chapter/section]

For each scene or beat:
1. Is it FAST (action, dialogue, conflict) or SLOW
   (description, reflection, exposition)?
2. Does the alternation between fast and slow feel
   intentional or accidental?
3. Where does tension peak? Where does it dip?
4. Are the slow sections earning their place, or could
   they be cut or compressed?
5. Rate the "page-turner factor" of each scene ending:
   does the reader NEED to keep going?

A common first-draft problem: too much slow in a row. Three paragraphs of description, then a paragraph of backstory, then more description. The reader’s attention drifts. Pacing edits interleave these with action and dialogue.

Pass 4: Prose Style

Now we’re getting to the sentence level. This is where voice gets polished.

Quick check: Before moving on, can you recall the key concept we just covered? Try to explain it in your own words before continuing.

Review the prose quality of this passage: [paste]

Look for:
1. DEADWOOD: Words, phrases, or sentences that add nothing
   (very, really, just, started to, seemed to, kind of)
2. PASSIVE VOICE: Where active voice would be stronger
   (not always—sometimes passive is right)
3. REPETITION: Words, phrases, or sentence structures
   used too often too close together
4. WEAK VERBS: Where a specific verb could replace
   "was + adjective" or "moved + adverb"
5. SHOWING vs. TELLING: Where you tell an emotion that
   could be shown through action or detail
6. RHYTHM: Where sentence lengths are too uniform
7. SPECIFICITY: Where generic language could be replaced
   with concrete detail

Important: don’t accept all suggestions blindly. AI tends toward “correct” prose, but sometimes the technically imperfect choice is the right one for voice and rhythm. “She was mad” might be better than “Anger suffused her features” because simplicity can have more power.

Pass 5: Line Edit and Proofread

The final polish. Now you care about grammar, punctuation, spelling, and consistency of small details.

Proofread this passage for:
1. Grammar and punctuation errors
2. Spelling mistakes
3. Inconsistencies (character names, timeline, details)
4. Dialogue punctuation (commas inside quotes, proper
   dash usage for interruptions)
5. Paragraph breaks that help or hurt readability
6. Any remaining unclear sentences

Note: if something looks intentional (fragments for style,
unconventional punctuation for voice), flag it but don't
correct it.

The Sensitivity Read

If your story includes characters from backgrounds different from yours, AI can flag potential issues:

My story includes characters from [background/identity].
I am [your background].

Review this passage for:
1. Stereotypes or assumptions I may have unconsciously
   included
2. Language that might be inadvertently offensive
3. Experiences I may have represented inaccurately
4. Where I've relied on tropes rather than specificity
5. Questions I should research further or consult
   a sensitivity reader about

Be direct. I'd rather know now than after publication.

AI isn’t a substitute for a human sensitivity reader, but it’s a useful first pass that can catch obvious issues before you share with others.

The Read-Aloud Test

This isn’t an AI technique, but it’s the most effective editing tool that exists: read your work aloud. Every word. Out loud.

Your ear catches things your eyes miss:

Awkward rhythms
Repeated words
Dialogue that sounds unnatural
Sentences that are too long to speak in one breath
Passages that bore even you

If you stumble while reading aloud, the reader will stumble while reading silently. Fix it.

Knowing When to Stop

Revision has diminishing returns. After a certain point, you’re not improving the work. You’re just changing it.

Signs you’re done editing:

Changes are lateral, not upward (different but not better)
You’re undoing changes from previous passes
The story does what you intended
You’d rather start a new project than tweak this one more

Done is better than perfect. No story is ever truly “finished.” But at some point, it’s ready.

Exercise: Edit a Scene

Take the dialogue scene you wrote in the Lesson 5 exercise (or write a new 500-word scene).

Run it through all five editing passes:

Structure: Does the scene earn its place?
Character: Are voices distinct and consistent?
Pacing: Does the tension build appropriately?
Prose: Is every word earning its keep?
Polish: Grammar, punctuation, consistency

Track how many changes each pass generates. Most writers find that passes 1 and 4 generate the most revisions, while pass 5 generates the fewest (assuming decent first-draft habits).

Key Takeaways

Finish the full draft before editing; you can’t fix structure on an incomplete story
Edit from macro to micro: structure → character → pacing → style → polish
AI provides “fresh eyes” that catch what your familiarity has hidden
Structural editing generates the biggest improvements; don’t skip it for sentence-level polish
Read your work aloud; your ear catches what your eyes miss
Accept AI suggestions selectively: your voice matters more than technical correctness
Know when to stop; done is better than perpetually revised

Next lesson: the capstone. You’ll write a complete short story from scratch, using every technique in this course.