Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition

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.

Jami’s Review:

In this book, two editors step us through the process of editing our own work. They cover most of the major issues all writers—and newer writers especially—tend to struggle with in the pursuit of better writing.

No matter how we plan to publish, we should strive for a cleaner manuscript, and this book gives a great overview of the elements that create well-crafted writing. If we’re taking the traditional publishing path, quality writing craft makes it more likely an agent will request our pages. If we plan to self-publish, I wouldn’t recommend relying only on our own editing abilities and skipping an outside edit, but improving our prose the best we can on our own ensures that a freelance editor will be able to focus on the issues we can’t fix ourselves.

Don’t miss this guest post by Janice Hardy with her suggestion for how to fix 99% of our writing problems.