When you undertake learning to write, you think that the main thing is the process of writing, that is, of recording the words that—one after the other—will make up the story. However, that is nothing more than a phase, that of “dumping” the first draft. Previously, there is an incubation phase and another outlining phase. And, subsequently, we have the review phase, which is proportionally the longest, and also the most important.
To review a written text, a story, our history, we need a certain assimilation of the technique. Doing it any other way would be like composing a symphony without knowing the musical language.
To be able to review we need some assimilation of the technique. If we do not know how stories work, we will hardly be able to review them effectively, because we will not distinguish the wheat from the chaff, the description from the narration, the scenes from the summaries. It would be like composing a symphony without knowing the musical language.
So for this guide that I am going to provide you to be useful to you, it is advisable that you have some experience Script writer, have attended literary workshops or some accompaniment of Writing and Meditating, or have read some books on literary theory, because otherwise you will not know very well what am I talking to you about.
I also suggest that, for each of the points I point out, you make a different correction. That is, don’t try to modify everything at once, because in that case you will forget many things or you will become stupid. It is better to focus your attention on a single item at a time.
Don’t try to review a text in one go with this guide. It will make you crazy. Do it part by part, focusing your attention on a single item included in the guide at a time.
Finally, I tell you that this guide can be used for both stories and novels.
1. CHARACTER CONFIGURATION
- Do the main characters follow their own impulses, or do they seem to be moved from the outside like puppets?
- Are they described through their concrete actions, or is the narrator making abstract judgments about them?
- Does each one speak in a particular and differentiated way?
- Are your characters different from yourself?
2. ACTION AND PLOT
- Can a superficial, concrete story and another underground or deep one be followed without problems?
- Do they both march at the same pace?
- Is the thread of the action or the plot never lost?
- Does each of the scenes point to the theme you want to address?
- Is there a continuous advance of the conflict?
3. PLACEMENT OF THE FACTS
- Are the facts placed in the best possible way?
- And graduated its importance?
- Is there narrative tension?
- Do you want to continue reading the narrative at every moment?
- At each moment, does the reader have enough information to interpret what is being told, but not so much that there is nothing left to know?
4. CHARACTERS AS A HOOK
- Does the protagonist appear in the first paragraphs?
- Do you want to know more about him from the first moment?
- Does it invite the reader to get involved in the story?
- Does the protagonist guide us throughout the entire story?
- Does he not flee at any time, leaving the reader helpless?
5. THE EMOTIONAL WORLD
- Do we empathize with the protagonist, with all his flaws and weaknesses?
- Is there an emotional approach from the reader to the story?
- Does the narrative voice transport emotions with its modulation?
- Are emotions shown through facts rather than explained in the abstract?
6. DIFFERENT VIEWS OF THE WORLD
- Are other visions of the world than the author’s exposed through the different characters?
- Are they explored in depth?
7. THE FUNCTION OF THE CHARACTERS
- Do you play fair with the protagonist, or force him to cheat?
- Is the character of the secondary characters well complemented with their respective functions?
- Do the characters speak? Is dialogue used enough, or is it avoided at some point?
- Are there no superfluous characters or several characters for the same function?
8. THE NARRATIVE VOICE
- Is the narrator’s voice well-modulated depending on what you want to tell?
- Doesn’t she point to herself?
- Has the best possible narrative point of view and chosen Childrens Book Ghostwriter so that the events are believable?
9. CONGRUENCY
- Are all the elements of the story connected?
- Does this give the impression of totality?
- Is there a continuous advance in the configuration of the characters while an unalterable essence remains in them at all times?
10. HUMANITY AND UNIVERSALITY
- After finishing reading, do we still have the feeling of having lived alongside coherent, human, unpredictable characters, as mortal as us, and from whom we can draw a universal lesson?
