AT A GLANCE:
Genre: Books for Writers, Editing, Reference, Writing Books
Length: 292 pages
Released: 4/1/2006
Excellent book for teaching yourself to edit your own work. Highly recommended.
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni BrowneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I absolutely loved this book. It has a ton of practical tips that can be put into practice immediately when editing. There was also multiple concepts that I really enjoyed thinking about and I know I’ll apply to future drafts. Basically, the practical and conceptual were well balanced.
I particularly found the chapter on dialogue tags interesting. I never considered that said is almost invisible to most readers and almost functions as punctuation. The book also pointed out how you can’t shrug, sigh, or laugh words. After reading that chapter, I cannot stop seeing these dialogue tags on other writers’ works, and it always makes me laugh imagining how someone would pull off laughing and talking simultaneously.
I know this will be a reference book I will return to again and again, making sure to skim it before taking another crack at a draft.
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