Non-Fiction Book Review - 'Self-Editing for Fiction Writers' by Renni Browne and Dave King

It's not even 200 pages but 'Self-Editing for Fiction Writers' is one of the most effective books on writing - and the first on specific editing - I have ever read. Amazing how the simplest, most obvious advice can be so easy to overlook when writing anything. As engaging as its reading excerpts, 'Self-Editing' can be read and understood in one sitting, and it's a great tool to get back to when polishing your manuscript. 



Some of the useful things I’ve learnt from it are:


Less is more, for everything from description to dialogue, in your paragraphs; 

Narrative summaries or immediate scenes? Depends, but it is best to get the readers engaged and thrown into your story right away, leaving room for backstory later on;

Avoid repetitions and going off on tangents – often once is enough, but not always. It depends on your intended effect;

Respect your reader’s intelligence and use of imagination, so avoid mundane descriptions and telling them how a character is feeling and why;

There are ways to both tell and show;

Speech adjectives – and any adverb – can take away from and replace the emotion of a scene rather than help it, making it look cluttered and artificial;

Beats help to relax dialogue exchanges in paragraphs, but overdoing them can distract from the dialogue itself and its intended purpose;

Overuse of exclamation marks and italics are a big no-no – it’s a tool for telling instead of showing, and all it shows is a lack of confidence on the part of the author;

The individual voices of your characters and of your own narration are found naturally as you work harder and pay attention to your own writing;

There are always exceptions to the rules – in fact there are no rules to writing and finding your own voice. Just write what feels right;

Read aloud everything you have written – hear rather than see if it sounds authentic;

White space and "said" are your friends.


Final Score: 5/5