Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into PrintHundreds 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. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 5 | |
CHARACTERIZATION AND EXPOSITION | 23 |
POINT OF VIEW | 40 |
PROPORTION | 67 |
DIALOGUE MECHANICS | 82 |
SEE HOW IT SOUNDS | 99 |
INTERIOR MONOLOGUE | 116 |
BREAKING UP IS EASY TO DO | 160 |
ONCE IS USUALLY ENOUGH | 175 |
SOPHISTICATION | 192 |
VOICE | 213 |
Answers to Exercises | 235 |
Top Books for Writers | 264 |
Index | 269 |
About the Authors | 280 |
Other editions - View all
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into ... Renni Browne,Dave King No preview available - 2004 |
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into ... Renni Browne,Dave King No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
action ain't aloud asked beats convey course DAVE KING describing detail dialogue editing editor effect ellen gilchrist Elmore Leonard emotions example exposition eyes feel fiction flashbacks Foxy Gatsby girl give your readers going grabbed hand happened head immediate scenes interior monologue italics John le Carré keep kids kill kitchen living logue Lonesome Dove ly adverbs manuscript mechanics Miss Marple Moby-Dick movie projector narration narrative distance narrative summary never novel Okay Omoo once p. d. james paragraph passage plot point of view pulled repetition rhythm Sally scene or chapter Secret Pilgrim self-editing sentences simply speaker attributions story sure take a look talk technique tell tension things thought tion told took trying turned verbs viewpoint character voice walked What's word workshop submission writer's voice writing Yeah دو
Popular passages
Page 214 - Call me Ishmael. Some years ago never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
Page 44 - It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Page 110 - Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?" "No, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said— not a single word.
Page 126 - She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness.
Page 216 - you are flurried, Mr Lockwood. Here, take a little wine. Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them. Your health, sir!
Page 189 - A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was his broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred...
Page 126 - Her thighs, fuller and softhued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dove-tailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove.
Page 125 - A girl stood before him in midstream : alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird.
Page 110 - I'd take en bust him over de head— dat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat." "Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know how to talk French?
Page 217 - ... tenant — relaxed a little in the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs, and introduced what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me, a discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of retirement. I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and, before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another visit, to-morrow. He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I shall go, notwithstanding. It is astonishing how...