Edit, edit, edit

Ok, to all of you writers out there . . .

I was writing another piece for an upcoming Chicken Soup Father/Son deadline. The nearly-finished story lay dormant in my computer for several weeks. I couldn't come up with an appropriate ending. Sigh.

"Today is the day," I decided. "I am going to finish that story!"

Those of you who are familiar with my writing style know that I love weaving in details throughout the story to come to a touching conclusion. So, I naturally did that.

What a beautiful ending paragraph! Ah, so sweet. My kids and two of my nieces read it. "It's fine," they all said. (Not quite the response I was after.) That is, except the youngest one. The story was about him - an event between he and his dad.

He was mad! "That's not exactly right," he decreed. "You can tell those other stories about me right, but . . . ."

I worked to soothe my angry son. "Honey, it's okay. I'll fix it."

He was right. The words didn't fit the tone of what really happened. That meant I had to edit it - AGAIN. Ugh.

I carried my laptop to the front porch to get away from the cousins' noisy banter. Time to get rid of those well-loved words. I couldn't delete them yet, afterall no writer likes to remove their precious words. So, I spaced the paragraph to the bottom of the page - just in case.

After several strategically placed words and a new finale, I reread it. Wow! I had to admit it was much better. I still didn't delete my original words, but I did read and edit the modified version about 15 more times. Now it was test time: my proofreaders needed to read it again.

"I like that much better." It was unanimous.

How about the child it affected the most? We read the new version together. His eyes sparkled while a big grin crept across his face.

"I take it you like this one better?" I asked hopefully.

"Yeah. That's how it really happened. You can send that one."

Isn't it amazing how our words can affect a story? Words, whether written or spoken, have great impact on others. Use yours wisely and EDIT, EDIT, EDIT!

Oh, by the way, I deleted the other paragraph.