The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction

Rating:
Summary: A keeper
Review: At any given time, there are thousands of aspiring writers sending out their manuscripts. The majority will never get published. "But I have a great plot!" you think to yourself. "I have great characters, a wonderful setting, a premise that will resonate with readers throughout the ages..." And you very well might. But the secret to keeping your manuscript from returning home with a rejection letter comes down to smooth, polished writing.

How do you do that? First, finish writing your novel. The first draft has a particular purpose: getting your story down on paper. Then, pick up Michael Seidman's EDITING YOUR FICTION and read it cover to cover. After you've done that, go back through it, chapter by chapter, and do the exercises, applying the concepts to your own writing. By the time you're done, your manuscript will be a lot better than when you started, and your chances of attracting an editor and perhaps getting your work published will have also improved.

Of course, no rule should be followed off a cliff. Common sense is key. If you feel a particular statement doesn't apply to your writing, or you disagree with Mr. Seidman's way of altering a particular case study, by all means, do what's best for you. Just make sure that you have given enough thought as to the reason behind that particular rule.

EDITING YOUR FICTION is a definite must-have for any aspiring writer (and a few published authors could benefit from reading this one as well).

Rating:
Summary: Depends on your learning style
Review: The usefulness of this book will depend a lot on your personal style of learning writing. If you learn best by a case study as an example, this book can be very helpful. (Writing teachers will love this book.)

If you're more into just getting the concepts and then seeing how to apply them to your own work, this book is frustrating. (Self-taught or intermediate writer-types will not enjoy this book.)

The examples closely follow a few stories presented within the book. Since I'm in the latter category of learner, I found the 'corrections' may or may not be even vaguely applicable to one's own work, so it's hard to tell which suggestions to apply and which to ignore. Personally, for my learning style, I like "Self-Editing For Fiction Writers," "Fiction First Aid," or even "Revising Fiction" (David Madden).

Rating:
Summary: A Complete Success
Review: While the books by Stein and Browne have much to offer the novelist struggling on her own, James Hill's screed is so off the mark as to be insulting. Did he even read the book? Seidman offers whole sections on dialogue and description, showing both poor examples and the suggested improvements, step by step. The notations on the forty pages of a draft ms are perfectly clear to anyone who has spent more than ten minutes writing fiction; the 'cryptic' notations are clearly edits in place. He does not show a fix created with "new characters, new dialogue, new setting giving no clue as to why nothing could be done with the first"; we follow one story from inception to publication (though he does, in the introduction, talk about a story that was completely rewritten. That takes a paragraph). Seidman also uses sections from the mss of writers who submitted works for the purpose, showing the changes and explaining the reasons. If someone is going to comment on a book, it would be nice if they read it first. Seidman does an excellent job and I've recommended the book to my students and keep it on my shelf.