Hundreds of books have been written on the art of writing. Here at last is a book by two professional editors to teach writers the techniques of the editing trade that turn promising manuscripts into published novels and short stories.
In this completely revised and updated second edition, Renni Browne and Dave King teach you, the writer, how to apply the editing techniques they have developed to your own work. Chapters on dialogue, exposition, point of view, interior monologue, and other techniques take you through the same processes an expert editor would go through to perfect your manuscript. Each point is illustrated with examples, many drawn from the hundreds of books Browne and King have edited.
There's not much of the old-style editing going on at publishing houses today. Renni Browne, veteran of William Morrow and other publishers, founded the Editorial Department in 1980 to teach fiction writers the techniques professional editors (many of whom have gone independent) use to prepare a manuscript for publication. In this book, she and senior editor Dave King share their accumulated expertise in a series of brilliantly compact lessons. One page from their simply and markedly improved version of a scene from The Great Gatsby alone would make a compelling advertisement for their techniques. Very highly recommended. --MTB
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Great, great book:
This book Self-editing for Fiction Writers were written by two professionals. These guys really know what they were doing. There were a lot of good points. I especially loved the chapter on Dialogue Mechanics. That was the most useful. The authors recommend using the word 'said' the majority of the time. This is done because 'said' is an invisible word. Many times author use words like 'he growled,' or propping the word like 'he said angrily' but this is not good because it dilutes the effect. The words... more info
A wonderful tool for editing your work.:
This book is an excellent resource for any writers looking to get their fiction up and running for publication. The instructions are very clear and well stated. The examples are very helpful. I especially enjoyed the use of "The Great Gatsby" as a comparison of good writing and poor writing. The end of each chapter provides a checklist of topics covered (for quick use while editing your own documents) as well as some exercises to practice editing on your own. The topics covered include: writing to show... more info
A breezy read:
Renni Browne and Dave King have written a better than average book on craft for fiction writers. It covers the following topics: 1. Showing not telling
2. Characterization & exposition
3. Point of view
4. Proportion
5. Dialog mechanics
6. How the text sounds
7. Interior monologue
8. Beats (character actions between bits of dialog)
9. Sentence/paragraph/chapter breaks
10. Repetition
11. Sophisticated versus amateur style
12. Voicemore info
A Tool You Should Have:
Any craftsman needs an appropriate mix of the right caliber tools in the chest. For writers, this is one such tool. There's a lot of subjectivity in what gets published. Times and tastes change. Successes of yesteryear might be viewed more skeptically today. The authors make no bones about this as you have the opportunity to practice editing on some great works. That's not to say those works were flawed in any way. You are simply modernizing them, bringing them up to standard that the authors feel is... more info
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