Revising a Scene: Step 6

Step 6 is optional.

IF you have the time, and IF you are not thoroughly ready to be done with the scene by now, read over your gussied-up version and make note of all the nouns. How many are concrete nouns-- things you can touch-- and how many are abstract concepts? In strong writing, concrete nouns > abstract nouns.

Then, if you can bear to, do the same exercise to check your verbs. How many weak verbs do you have? How many forms of to be? How many subjunctives? How much passive voice? Change every verb you possibly can to a strong verb that shows action. So, he was standing by the gate becomes he stood by the gate.

Again, this step is optional, since you'll probably do a final line edit once the whole rewrite is complete.

And there you have it! Revising a scene in 6 mind-bogglingly complicated steps!