Every week, Wrightspeak shares writing exercises with readers. This week’s exercise focuses on the revision stage.

For this exercise, find one of your stories that is at least 500 words. Pretend that an editor thinks your story is too long. Print out the document, and take a pen or pencil and scratch out every other sentence of the story.

When you are finished, read the new story out loud. Ask yourself, “do the edited parts of the story need to be there?”