Again, this is an explanation of an old post showing unedited and edited parts of a story my cousin wrote for her seventh grade English class. Read along with "Guest Story Editing Part 2."
The first sentence/paragraph of Part 2 was in need of some rephrasing. It was too abrupt and indefinite. I gave it direction by stating that "the situation changed for the worse."
Dialogue pushed the plot forward in the next sentence. Wiggles' mother called him away to the kitchen. I cut the speech down a few words to improve the narrative rhythm. The nickname in the original served little purpose, so I removed it.
Paragraph three needed only tweaks, the most important of which was changing a "tell" to a "show."
The final paragraph turned into three. A sentence of description became a paragraph to add literary appeal, expand the setting, and slow the pacing. You could argue that there was some character development there too. The second of my created paragraphs did pretty much the same thing. My wording could have been a little better. The edited version of the story left off much the same as the unedited version, albeit with a few more words. I could have told less. It's not bad enough to worry about, in my opinion.
Any other suggestions or comments?
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