Author: Bob kellogg (---.san.rr.com)
Date: 01-12-02 23:00
Here are two books every novice fiction writer needs:
"Self-editing For Fiction Writers" by Browne & King (Harper)
"Stein on Writing" by Sol Stein (St. Martin's)
Those help you strip your work of amateurish taint, the kind that shows you're not yet accomplished at keeping a reader into the story. I also liked "Characters & Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card (Wtires Digest).
Even if you do go to a professional editor someday, you'll want your work to be the best you can do before you seek outside help. Those books will help enormously.
And Nic.h, you're sadly mistaken if you think an agent will edit your book for you. Anything they receive that they feel isn't ready to publish will be rejected. Fifty years ago great writers could count on the help of fine editors, but nowadays, no. You're on your own.
Of course, we have computers and word processing progams that let us do relatively painless revisions. Those poor devils had to pound out their work on a typewriter. Doing revisions was like scraping skin off their arms.
Bob K.
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