A practical writing exercise

Rewrite prose without changing story facts

Freeze a source passage's facts, write two stylistically different revisions, and audit each fact with output evidence and a change record.

Explore prose editing →

Your starting material

Use this complete original material for the demonstration. You can copy or download it before working through the steps.

Original source passage:
Firefighter Iris braced her injured left arm against her ribs. With her right hand she felt for the only key, still in the inside pocket of her coat. Smoke slipped under the locked door. She had not opened it.
Task: make one version more immediate and another more measured. Iris remains a firefighter outside the same door. No extra key, helper, door opening, movement through the door, change of injury side, or relocation of the key is allowed. New sensory detail may be proposed only if it does not establish a new action or cause.

Deliberately flawed example

Deliberately flawed example: Iris flexed her injured right arm, snatched a spare key from her trouser pocket, and slipped through the open doorway. The sentence is smoother, so all important facts must have survived.

Number facts, including negatives

Record F1: Iris is a firefighter; F2: left arm is injured and held against ribs; F3: right hand searches; F4: the only key remains in the coat's inside pocket; F5: smoke comes under a locked door; F6: she has not opened it. Negative and exclusive claims are easy to lose: 'a key' does not preserve 'only key,' and 'the doorway' does not preserve 'unopened door.'

Choose an editing intention separate from the facts. Shorter units can bring attention closer; longer syntax can slow the same moment. Neither requires new events.

Audit meaning, not shared vocabulary

A revision can use 'uninjured hand' only if its identity is unambiguous; explicitly naming 'right' makes this exercise easier to audit. Conversely, repeating 'left arm' is insufficient if the revision says it is healthy.

After each rewrite, cite a phrase for every fact. If a phrase cannot prove it, mark needs revision. A high overlap of original words is not a substitute for checking what those words now assert.

One possible revision

One possible revision — frozen facts: F1 firefighter Iris; F2 injured left arm braced against ribs; F3 right hand searching; F4 only key still in coat's inside pocket; F5 smoke under locked door; F6 door not opened.
Version A, immediate: Firefighter Iris kept her injured left arm tight to her ribs. Her right hand searched the coat's inside pocket. The only key was still there. Smoke threaded beneath the locked door. She had not opened it.
Version B, measured: Holding her injured left arm against her ribs, firefighter Iris searched with her right hand for the only key, which remained in her coat's inside pocket. Smoke was slipping beneath the locked door; she had yet to open it.
Fact audit, A/B: F1 'Firefighter Iris' / 'firefighter Iris'; F2 'injured left arm tight to her ribs' / 'Holding her injured left arm against her ribs'; F3 'right hand searched' / 'searched with her right hand'; F4 'coat's inside pocket' + 'only key was still there' / 'only key, which remained in her coat's inside pocket'; F5 'Smoke threaded beneath the locked door' / 'Smoke was slipping beneath the locked door'; F6 'had not opened it' / 'had yet to open it'. All six retained; neither version retrieves the key or opens the door.
Change record: A separates search, key location, and smoke into short units to control attention. B joins posture and search in one sentence and keeps smoke beside the unopened-door reminder. 'Threaded' is a proposed image, not evidence of a different smoke source.

What changed and why

Restored injury side, hand, exclusive key, pocket, and unopened-door status after the flawed rewrite changed the event.
Separated stylistic intentions from fact verification, allowing two rhythms without treating either as permission to advance the plot.

A choice worth keeping

Keep an explicit unopened-door statement even if it feels repetitive. It is a locked negative fact in this task and protects the next passage's starting state.

Try it with fresh material

Original transfer passage: 'Surveyor Hana sat on the station step, her right ankle bandaged. The red envelope remained sealed in her left coat pocket. She had missed the last train but had not told her brother. Across the empty platform, the clock showed eleven.' Locked facts include envelope color, seal, pocket side, injury side, missed last train, untold news, empty platform and time. Do not invent a replacement train or a sent message.

Number the facts, write two versions with different rhythm or distance, then cite output evidence for each fact in each version. Add two concrete change reasons and mark any unsupported detail as a proposal. Deliver ledger, both revisions, audit, and change notes.

Feedback for your attempt

Does 'she reached for the envelope' preserve that it remains sealed and in the left coat pocket? Add evidence if those facts disappear.
Can a negative fact become accidentally positive through a tense or verb change? Check 'had not told' carefully.
Different wording is welcome. Every locked assertion still needs semantic support.

Check before moving on

List negative, exclusive, side, time, and object-location facts before editing.
Check each version independently; passing one does not validate the other.
If a stylistic improvement needs a fact change, ask for that change as a separate author decision.

Original passage, fact ledger, and two revisions authored by an AI agent. Designed edit examples, not captured tool results or a guarantee of fact preservation in other text. An independent AI agent completed the transfer exercise and archived its artifacts; no human reader testing is claimed. Material version: 2026-10-18.