A friend of mine recommended the book listed in the subject line: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060545690/?tag=postedlinks04-20 ...as a good way to both edit yourself after the fact and avoid serious newbie pitfalls. Has anyone seen this book? If so, what do you think? If you haven't seen this book, do you have something else you'd recommend? I was thinkin' about running over to Amazon tonight or tomorrow and snagging a copy. Thanks, Cady P.S. If nobody has ever HEARD of this book - lol - I'll get it and tell you what I think. It's fairly cheap.
did you check out the author's bona fides?... what makes you think s/he knows the subject well enough for you to trust the info?... i'd never buy a how-to book of any kind blind... or is your friend a writing pro who would know if it's worth the cost?
the same book was recommended to me by Jim Bintz a editor at Baen books over at Baen's bar...it's supposed to be, in his opinion, the best one for amateurs to use.
Hey, Maia. Yes, she writes professionally, and thinks this is a good book to keep newbies like me from making stupid mistakes starting out. It was only 15 bucks WITH the shipping, so not out much if I don't like it. I ordered it tonight, and they are shipping on Monday. I'll post back what I think of it.
Yep, and I'm in the Pacific time part of Idaho. Sometimes I'm up early (the people I work with are east coast and UK) and sometimes I get insomnia...that was an insomnia night. Sadly, most nights with insomnia I still have to get up at 5 or 6 - lol. I think it's one of the reasons I'm enjoying writing so much, now that I've started again - gives me something to do between 10pm and 4am when I can't sleep. Cady
Depending upon how good you think it is, I might order this. I'm starting to edit my novel soon and need a decent guide on how exactly to go about it, so this might be a big help to me.
I saw the book recommended at other writing sites, and picked up a copy. I thought that it said a lot of good things on how to convey the mood of the scene and the story, how to achieve pacing, how to tell whether or not a scene is necessary to the story, and how to clean up dialog. So, overall, I thought it was worth my money.
Well, I got this book, and it wasn't precisely what I was expecting (not sure what I WAS expecting) but it's a good book. It covers a lot of the same things people will point out to you here in reviews, and a bunch of stuff that I already knew, but never quantified, and a few things I'd never considered! lol. Each chapter has example exercises to get across the concept they are covering in that chapter, and a check list of specific things to look for in your story. It's nice having all of this in one place rather than going "Ok, cripe...now I have to go through the whole thing *again* and fix THAT sort of problem." I've put a list of my most common problems together, and have been referring to it occasionally as I write. I also ran through a couple of my chapters using the suggestions in this book and they became much shorter, smoother, more concise. All in all, I'd say it was definitely worth the money and is a great beginner's book.
