How to Tell When Revision Has Gone Too Far
Over-editing commonly leaves six symptoms:
| Symptom | Check |
|---|---|
| A run of short sentences | Reading experience: Actions arrive like separate incident reports. What is actually missing: Timing and causality between actions |
| Subjects are omitted repeatedly | Reading experience: It becomes unclear who does what. What is actually missing: Ownership of character and action |
| Every connective disappears | Reading experience: Each sentence is intelligible, but the scene jumps. What is actually missing: Contrast, condition, and sequence |
| Every sentence becomes its own paragraph | Reading experience: Every motion receives equal emphasis. What is actually missing: A hierarchy between peaks and transitions |
| Inversions and typos are added to sound conversational | Reading experience: Characters perform “naturalness”. What is actually missing: A stable character voice |
| Dialogue carries all information | Reading experience: Characters tell one another things they already know. What is actually missing: Scene action and necessary narration |
These symptoms show that revision damaged narrative connections. Replacing more words only widens the breaks.
Five Steps for Repairing Broken Sentences
- Lock the facts: identify who is present, what they want, what occurs, the result and how the character learns it.
- Choose pauses under the book’s style: a decision, surprise or impact may stand alone; a continuous process may use a connected sentence group. This is not a universal sentence-length rule.
- Reconnect continuous actions: restore relations lost between actions sharing purpose, space and time without forcing them into one long sentence.
- Restore necessary links: repair time, conditions, references and causality without adding observations or experiences.
- Check the voice: read under the chosen style for meaningful pauses, appropriate character speech and paragraphs not mechanically fragmented.
Conjunctions are useful when they express real relationships. Evaluate information, tone, rhythm and experience rather than counting sentence lengths.
Original Example: Telegraphic Prose on a Night of Leaks
Over-edited version:
Water dripped. Lin Cheng set out a washing-up bowl. Caught it. Carried the bowl to the balcony. Emptied it once. Came back. Paint bulged from the wall. Palm-sized. She went upstairs. Knocked. No answer. The landlord’s number was posted on the door. She called. Disconnected.
The facts are present, but the passage reads like a surveillance log. Every movement receives the same emphasis, so the important change—that no one upstairs responds—barely registers.
Repaired version:
Lin Cheng slid a washing-up bowl beneath the leak and carried it to the balcony to empty it once. By the time she returned, the paint had swollen into a palm-sized blister. She went upstairs and knocked, but no one answered. The landlord’s number was taped to the door. She dialed it and heard a disconnected-line message.
The first sentence joins catching and emptying the water. The second puts the passage of time into the change in the wall. The last sentences preserve knocking, seeing the number, dialing and hearing the disconnected-line message. The call provides her knowledge that the line does not work; she does not simply know it. No new event has been added; the scene simply moves continuously again. This is a fictional scene designed to demonstrate the method.
A Minimal Record for Repairing One Passage
Start with a four-line repair card:
| Item | Record |
|---|---|
| Facts that cannot change | Characters, location, action results, and crucial exact dialogue |
| Peak of the passage | The one sentence worth isolating or shortening |
| Continuous process | Actions sharing one line of sight or purpose |
| Missing relationship | The broken link in time, cause, condition, or reference |
The card prevents an editor from inventing new plot while restoring connections. Once the repair is complete, put the card aside and reread the prose at an ordinary reader’s pace.
Other Extremes to Avoid During Repair
| Second overcorrection | Fix |
|---|---|
| Joining every fragment into one long sentence | Combine only continuous processes; impact points may remain separate |
| Adding “then,” “so,” and “but” to every sentence | Restore only relationships that sequence alone cannot communicate |
| Adding psychological explanations to make the prose smooth | Connect existing actions, choices, and dialogue |
| Restoring large amounts of stock phrasing | Restore grammar and causality, not vague elevation |
| Deliberately writing errors to sound human | Preserve natural pauses, hesitation, and character differences |
| Rewriting an entire chapter at once | Repair the most broken scene first, then inspect its joins with surrounding scenes |
FAQ
Are fewer short sentences always better?
Short sentences can serve decisions, blows, turns and discoveries, or other effects chosen by the author. Mechanical uniformity and lost connections are the problems. Judge by the book’s style and reading effect.
What if common words return after the repair?
Ask whether each word accurately carries a connection, tone, or fact. Natural English needs pronouns and conjunctions. Do not break the sentences again merely to avoid common vocabulary.
Do it with the skill
In Claude Code, say: “Use /story-deslop to repair this passage after it was cut into telegraphic fragments. Lock the facts and peak first. Restore only necessary subjects, references, timing, and causal links, and do not expand the plot.” In Codex, use $story-deslop.
Read the method: Minimal changes and creative intent · Style and knowledge-source boundaries