With short stories, it seems to take forever for me to get all the problems worked out. I joking made the comment to skadder over on the JBU Slush that please someday I hoped it would take fewer than 20,000 versions and that's only a little of an exaggeration. Mind you, I start out with something that generally isn't bad. Or I think so anyway. But getting it to the point of being really good takes revision after revision and I seem to suck at seeing the faults for myself.

Line edits help me. Gramar is a weak point for me.

What I filter the most are the "This makes me think" comments. I read alot and it makes me think alot. No two people are going to think the same exact thing while readings something unless of course it is a glaring flaw. This anchors the fact that a few or more readers for a story is very helpful. It might make me think something--liven up a paragragh or whatever, but I am not going to change things in my story just on a whim.

Repetition is worthy of closer examination. As I mentioned if all three readers point out the same thing. They are likely right no matter how bad it hurts.

What I look for the most is a nebulous viewpoint from the reader. I look for their post reading comments. If the faults they found were strong enonough to resonate as they typed a few paragraghs after reading, well that is the stuff I will work on. That is the lasting impression of the reader.

I usually carefully consider each comment. Many things which are commented on are stylistic issues which is that nagging voice within each of us to make prose a certain way. I can spot those pretty readily and weight them carefully without making my style someone elses.

But when it comes down to it, I will edit for major plotwork or certain issues if the need arises, but never based soley on a rewrite suggestion. If the change comes as inspiration-- a clear scene I can picture and paint myself then I will....Once, or maybe twice. But I would throw a story away before I stewed on it for months and months. I will incubate the idea for a long stretch but once I commit it to text, well I won't fll into that transhypnotic seduction. I can rearange words forever, but a story is a story and I will only tell it once. Send it to a junk market if the big leagues don't buy it. Keep moving forward is my anthem.

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(IB, not you. We're not finished arguing. *grins* Just kidding)

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Just for that...

My method is simple (though not all that effective as I only have 1 pro sale): I take all the critiques I can get, eagerly read through them and then save the critiques. Really. Every one. Then I ignore them and write something else. Repeat the process. And then, when everything has cooled off, I scan through all the critiques and mentally highlight the opinions that add up. The one that has the most in direct correlation with the others I keep open and close the others out. (There is always one that fills this position for me, though not always from the same critiquer.) Then I scroll through my copy and read through it for weaknesses that I'd point out in another person's story and fill in the changes as I go along. I fortunately have a friend I can read stuff aloud too, and while I'm doing so, I often catch what I missed. After that, I sub it out. If major plot issues are pointed out in a critique, and I see what they were saying, I'll hunt for another element to worm its way into the plot, which generally fixes the problem. For me, anyway. As most of what I write is drivel, it doesn't take much to make it look better. (Although, I'm reminded of an old adage: No matter how much you polish a piece of crap, it'll always be a turd.)

JeanneT - I share your challenge/frustration. You know what I've concluded? This writing stuff is *HARD*. I honestly had no idea. I mean, I figured it wasn't simple, but ... you know...It's just WRITING. I do it all the time (email, letters, business memos.) I didn't figure it was as hard as it is.

BUT

the fun part is - I keep getting better (stop snorting, I do. I swear.) So as much as it's painful to get back those critiques pointing out all the mistakes I should have been able to catch, they really do help me not make the exact same ones the next time. Instead I make nuanced versions of the same mistakes. Much better.

At my writer's group tonight we had a guest, the wife of one of the other members, who has recently self-published a book (niche market) and has already made enough money to do a second printing. She's not going to get rich off her book, but she's sold enough copies to have a set of suggestions for anyone considering the same, some of her suggestions were relevant regardless of the mode of publication. She said a published author recommended to her that she always have at least seven other people look at her manuscript. She said her book went through 14 major revision rounds before publication. She also said that the seven people she got endorsements/blurbs from for the back of the book all offered comments and helped her refine sections. So really she had more than a dozen people look at her book.

That may not work for everyone, but I thought the feedback to have a wide variety of people with a wide variety of experiences look at the manuscript to be really valuable. That's one of the benefits of online writers' sites like this one, because there are a wide range of people here (although they also all tend to be writers - some people who read your MS need to be *readers only* I believe.)

Maybe I should try your method, IB (just to get back at you for telling me about it )

I feel like I should be able to edit my own stories. Most of the professionals I talk to say that they do. But somehow I just don't see what needs to be edited.

It's not that I have trouble deciding what advice to follow. I generally have a very good sense of what is right for my own story and you can't convince me if I think it's not.

I feel for you JeanneT, I keep thinking the same thing that by now I should be able to self-edit my work effectively. It would be so much easier if I could.

Anyways, heres how I handle my crits. I keep them all in a file pertaining to the project. I write my novel complete, before I get crits and place it in ywriter. (Next novel I will write in ywriter) As a crit comes in, I go to the chapter and make notes pertaining to it, list the remarks I used and update the status level, each chapter crit at this points moves it from outline to draft, and so forth, hopefully nearing the infamous done column. And so on. This allows me to instantly know which readers i have applied.

I got to say, I got lucky with my readers this novel. One really pushed me to get the details of the landscape, and flesh out the scenes, so he had a better picture. Another is really pushing from the character standpoint. Made me realize that my MC's anger was misplaced at times and felt odd.

Are you talking about mechanics issues - grammer - or plotting issues?

I recently got Falcon back from Evil Editor. EEEK! Anyway, after probably 30 versions (and this is probably a low edit estimate) some of which were total rewrites and feeling reasonably confident I'd done away with nearly all the typos, it was humbling to see the number of typos EE caught. Actually, it was more than a bit appauling. This was after I've done global searches for words I know I spell wrong and those which are commonly spelled wrong, read the story backwards (though to be fair, that's exhausting for 80-100K words and you start to tune it out too) and such.

I've been trying to edit two books down into a manageable word count for one book to finish a main story arc based on other, prior feedback. EE pointed a dangling plot issue - a child who is mentioned but never seen. This catch was AFTER I've done charts of chapters and narrative arc and the other detailed feedback on the entire novel. It's not anything that's been pointed out before but it was a lightbulb comment. I saw how to address the fact that I chopped the story in half to make two managable word counts and how to pick the parts of each "book" that I needed to tell this story. So, now I'm addressing it and throwing out most of the already written second book because that issue changes everything.

The problem is we are all too close to what we write. It's why the cooling off peroid is necessary. When I write a brief for work, there will come a point I will hand it to someone and say, "I'm reading it but I can't see it anymore. Does this make sense? Are there typos?"

Sometimes, you need outside help. Professional writers didn't automatcially know the art of editing. They discovered it by practicing.

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You want to please the editors.

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I used to think that way...but right now, I want to please (1) myself, (2) the general readers, and then maybe (3) the editors.

I remember, years ago, reading a writeup on this one writer---I didn't much care for his work, what little I'd seen of it---which had a quote along the lines of, "if the readers don't like what I've written, it's no skin off my [mild expletive deleted]." I thought little of that attitude at the time---but now, I think I've come around to it myself.

I've found myself of late difficult to please. I look at what I've written and say to myself, "Did I write that? Geez, that's bad. I can do better than that." I've taken to polishing and polishing, but it doesn't help. Even after I send something out, I'll look at it, months later, and say to myself, "That's bad, that's poorly written, that's a bunch of mush."

But enough other people have said complimentary things about my work---Internet Fan Fiction was very helpful here---to make me reassess my position. Yup, it's as good as some of what's been published. Yup, it has worth. Yup, I should carry on with writing for the time being.

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I feel like I should be able to edit my own stories. Most of the professionals I talk to say that they do. But somehow I just don't see what needs to be edited.

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I think that's what the cooling off period is all about. you have to let it go during that period. If you don't, it's not going to benefit you. That's why I start something else. I get focused on the next project and try to get that done. Then, when I've sent the next project off to be beat-up, I go and see what repairs need to be made to my last one. Like I said, if you take a census of what the most-common problems are--IMHO--you'll learn better what to look for.

I try to encourage writers to apply what they've learned from doing this for someone else to what they have written themselves. I really believe that you don't learn as much from feedback on your own stories (because that often only helps with the story in question) as you can from figuring out how to give feedback on someone else's story.