Hello fellow writers. After we finish writing a piece, we have to revise it. But sometimes, we don't know what to cut or add, so we post it in the WW for critique so that we don't make the same mistakes in the future.This is the purpose of constructive criticism,however, some people abuse this by not taking the time to spot errors in their work that others pointed out to them in the past. So I have this challenge. I will post an excerpt from a short story, but this excerpt will have words that I added to it. Your job is to eliminate those words, and see if you can revise the piece back to normal. The actual excerpt will be in spoiler tags and the the excerpt with the extra words will be posted below. Remember:Keep Organs,remove tumors. Warning:Excerpt contains one curse word. My best friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and some*times that gives him the right to talk before me. The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table and we were drinking gin enthusiastically. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big,clean window behind the sink. There were Mel and me and his second wife, Teresa --Terri, we called her--and my lovely wife, Laura. We lived in Albuquerque then. But we were all from somewhere else that wasn't in Alberquerque. There was an ice bucket on the table. The gin and the warm tonic water kept going around rapidly, and suddenly, we somehow got on the subject of love. Mel thought real love was nothing less than or more than spiritual love. He said he'd spent five years in a seminary before quitting to go to medical school. He said he still looked back on those years in the seminary as the most important years in his very long life. Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her. Then suddenly, Terri said, "He beat me up one night. He dragged me around the living room by my ankles. He kept saying, `I love you Teresa, I love you, you little bitch.' He went on dragging me around the living room violently. My head kept knocking on things, which fell to the floor." Terri looked around the table. "What do you guys do with crazy love like that?" Spoiler My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and some*times that gives him the right. The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Mel and me and his second wife, Teresa-Terri, we called her--and my wife, Laura. We lived in Albuquerque then. But we were all from somewhere else. There was an ice bucket on the table. The gin and the tonic water kept going around, and we somehow got on the subject of love. Mel thought real love was nothing less than spiritual love. He said he'd spent five years in a seminary before quitting to go to medical school. He said he still looked back on those years in the seminary as the most important years in his life. Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her. Then Terri said, "He beat me up one night. He dragged me around the living room by my ankles. He kept saying, `I love you, I love you, you bitch.' He went on dragging me around the living room. My head kept knocking on things." Terri looked around the table. "What do you do with love like that?"
sorry, i don't get it... why would anyone want to spend time doing this? anyway, i don't see that it belongs here... should probably ask a mod to move it to the lounge...
Could you move it to Writing Prompts? And Mama, my intention was to have people work on their revising skills and see how good their revising is by comparing it to the finished product.
ok... but how has it been established that the 'finished product' is a good example of good revising?... [no offense intended... just wondering]
