Trying something different with the story I'm working on now. I'm sure it's not original, but I can't recall where I picked it up. (Feel free to contact me for proper credit.)
At the end of each paragraph of the story's first draft, I add a margin comment, stating what each paragraph "does." For instance, at the end of the first paragraph, I have in the comment, "Introduces protagonist Sandra and her immediate surroundings, hints at her financial condition and shows her intense fear of who might be calling her on the phone." Not that wordy, but you get the idea. If the paragraph doesn't do something to advance the story/characters, what's it doing there?
I'd sort of been doing this with several of the published stories I've been reading, which in short fiction can be a valuable exercise. I haven't seen a lot of unnecessary paragraphs in the published work of others; sentences sometimes, but rarely paragraphs. (I suppose you could do this exercise on the sentence level, too, and I'll probably do that next. Heck, maybe even the word level.)
This is a really good exercise for me. I tend to wander in some paragraphs, pursuing character elements that are important, but in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's helping tremendously, with this story, anyway. Anything that helps.
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