How to Immediately Improve Any Story

Five questions to ask yourself before you hit publish

We know, we know—you’ve already used up precious hours, blood, sweat, and tears to get your story out onto a page. All you want now is to hit the publish button, slump back in your chair, and feel the sweet relief of finally being finished.

But! Hear us out: Revision gets a bad rap. As we explain in the revision workshop held as part of Medium’s Creator Workshop series (watch the recording here), it doesn’t have to be tedious or onerous. In fact, it can be as simple as asking yourself a few pointed questions. Below is the checklist we shared at the workshop—run through it before you publish, and when you do, the relief will be that much sweeter.

Question 1: What’s your Thing?

This could be information you’re trying to impart, an argument you’re trying to make, a perspective you want to share—basically, your reason for writing whatever it is you’re writing. The goal here is to get more specific than: What is my story about? It’s more like: What do I want this story to accomplish? (For instance, if this post were a story, it would be about revision, but the Thing — what we want it to accomplish — is sharing a self-editing checklist to make your piece stronger.)

Your Thing should be clear and concrete enough that you can say it in a sentence or two. Often, but not always, that’s the headline. When you’re revising, that can be a useful place to start: What is the headline promising your reader? Use that as a lens to take another critical look at your story, asking yourself at each point whether the text is helping you deliver on that promise.

A caveat: Of course, headlines can change! Your Thing can change, too—if a piece evolves as you revise, there’s no reason to feel locked into what you started with. But even if you stray from your starting point, making sure you have a point to stray from will help you keep your writing focused as you hone your new direction.

Question 2: Who’s your one person?

Who are you writing this for? The answer to that should be as small and specific as possible.

We don’t mean you want to write something that most people can’t understand—more that, as Julia Pugachevsky points out in her guide to writing a dating profile, trying to please everyone is only going to make it harder to say what you’re trying to say.

In the Medium piece “How to Write an Article Millions of People Will Read,” Darius Foroux explains his process for thinking small:

Before I write a story, I ask myself: “Who is this for?” For instance, when I sit down to write a piece about personal finance, I imagine I’m writing an email to my friend Quincy. Quincy has a 9-to-5 job, three kids, several hobbies, and a regular workout schedule. He cares about personal finance, but doesn’t have time to read dozens of books about investing. I write in a way that makes personal finance accessible to him, a regular guy — not some Wall Street investor.

Once you decide who you’re writing for, you’ll be able to figure out what should and shouldn’t be in your story. And while your writing will never be loved by everyone who reads it, it will resonate with the right readers.

Who’s your Quincy? Pick that person. Think through that person’s needs. And then talk to that person through your story.

Question 3: Have you expanded the lens?

Sex and the City fans will remember how Carrie Bradshaw would often start her columns by writing about something specific — her shoes, for instance — and then connect that thing to something universal, with a line like: “Are we all just settling for less?” That’s expanding the lens. You’re connecting a personal experience to the human experience.

We sometimes talk about that bridge as the story’s “outward turn,” the moment that reveals to readers why they should care. For a non-SATC example, check out this piece from Sarah Smith about reading her negative Goodreads reviews for the first time (bolding added to emphasize the outward turn):

What I’m discovering is that there is a whole sensational world — literally — full of zinging, living, pulsing feelings in my body — which I have shut out from my experience. The zing and pulse of reading a negative review is actually a lot like the zing and pulse of reading a really positive one. It feels exactly like the day in 7th grade when my crush sent his best friend to find out if I liked him back. (Which I did, although I expressed this by punching him in the stomach.) (This is before I was emotionally regulated, you see.)

Sometimes what we really want is terrifying, not because it feels bad, but because it feels like too much.

Did you feel that? The moment of realizing, Yes, I know exactly what you mean? That’s what you want your reader to feel. If you start personal, make sure you have a moment of opening the door to bring them in. (Here’s another great example from Jeff Yang.)

Question 4: Are you making this harder than it needs to be?

Reading your story shouldn’t be a confusing experience. You want to guide your reader through the text, not drop them off at the edge of a dense forest without a map.This doesn’t mean you don’t want to make people think, or that you don’t want to challenge them. It just means that you don’t want to add any mental friction that doesn’t need to be there.

As you go through your draft, look for spots where someone’s brain might snag. Could this paragraph be two paragraphs? (On Creators Hub, Sarah Stankorb counsels writers to “watch for the sprawl,” whether that’s an overlong paragraph or a section taking up more space than it needs to.) Does the reader have to wade through a bunch of throat clearing at the top before they arrive at the point? Is it clear that that joke is actually a joke? Did you use an SAT vocab word where a more conversational one would do the trick? Did you assume the reader knows something they might not actually know? (That last one is another place where your Quincy comes in handy. When in doubt, ask yourself: Would my person get this?)

Question 5: Have you gotten some distance?

There comes a point in every revision process where you need to switch from writer to reader. You don’t just want to read your story; you want to read it with fresh eyes, like you’ve never seen it before and have no idea what to expect.

Which means you should do whatever you can to make it feel foreign. Change the font or the color (or both!). Print it out and take the pages somewhere other than your normal work environment. Mark it up with a pen. Read it out loud.

And don’t just read it out loud. Consider this your license to get weird. Try reading your words with a British accent, or with the cadence of a YouTube star (one advantage of pretending to be a YouTuber is that they’re generally great at getting to the point quickly).

What are you listening for as you read? Pay attention to the rhythm (you want a mix of long and short sentences to keep things interesting, as John DeVore and Shani Silver illustrate so well here and here). Make sure, too, that your story flows, that it sounds natural—and that it sounds like you.

If you use any of these tips, we’d love to see the end result—and if you have your own revision advice to share, we’d love to see that, too! Post your story on Medium using the tag “MakeItBetter21.”