Though maybe not in the title of a post…

I’m editing an introductory essay for my submission to Clarion West (yep, I’m going to do it). The first draft was a bang up job that everyone seemed to like. So, I thought I’ll just clean it up a bit and be done.

Well, as things usually go, I made one cut and then another. I rearranged the whole thing and polished it up. The only problem is that I killed it dead.

I’m lucky to have good friends who are willing to put up with my stream of silliness. They told me straight out to go back to the last draft. That putting everything in chronological order took away the interest.

So, I went back and found that they were quite right. The essay would be sure to dull even the most die hard reader.

I went back to the old version and found what I liked about it, changed the chronological order back to the semi-mixed up version I had. This added emphasis to the most important details and allowed me to string the real purpose of my narrative thread from beginning to end.

Much better.

So, when you’re stuck trying to imbue a piece with life, see if you can mix it up a bit. The results might surprise you!

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