Self-Editing for Fiction Writers - Dave King, Renni Browne

***** An essential book for any writer

There are many books about writing. Each, in its own way, may be useful to the writer of fiction (novels, novellas or short stories), because allows them to think about the many facets of their work. But there is a particular book on writing that I believe every writer should read and consult whenever they are working on rewriting. This is actually "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers."

This book is a real step by step guide that provides the writer, whatever the language in which they write, the very foundations of the editing process.

In each chapter it addresses a particular topic and it is shown, through excerpts from more or less famous writings, the way to identify the problems related to that topic, in your text, so that you can fix them. To facilitate the work, at the end of each chapter is a checklist with a series of questions and points to check before going on.

The topics offered are: 1) difference between telling and showing; 2) characterization and exposition; 3) point of view; 4) dialogue mechanics; 5) character's voice; 6) interior monologue; 7) use of beats in dialogues; 8) paragraph breaks; 9) repetitions; 10) proportions; 11) sophistication and finally 12) author's voice.

Analysing the individual chapters not only improves the text on which you are working, but you understand more fully the mechanisms of writing and as a result you learn to write better. It takes practice, but this book is written in a way so clear that the assimilation of concepts is simple, without much effort.

Some might think that such a book is not good for an author who writes in a language other than English, actually "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" focuses on universal topics about editing, so this is not the case.

Finally more kudos is given to its lower price than the one of other similar books, but much less useful than this.

I highly recommend it to all writers, but especially to independent authors and to all those who would like to become editors (and maybe even to those who already work as editor).

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (Kindle) on Amazon.com.