The Tidy Guide to Self-Editing Your Novel by Rachel Aukes – Book Review

This book seeks to provide clear-cut and practical tips to editing your novel.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

Review: Following the pattern of the preceding book ‘The tidy guide to writing a novel,’  this book follows a clear, organised method to self editing your novel. This method is divided into headings and sub headings in a chronological order so that the reader may follow this step-by-step guide as they progress. This prevents the reader from getting lost in a theoretical pile and helps in better execution of the information.

This book helps the reader get acquainted with the different obstacles one has to face while editing and the practices that help overcome these hindrances. The author further addresses each heading/ element of editing separately, providing insight on the questions we should ask ourselves while editing and the loopholes we must avoid. The author also mentions snags, overused words and styles one must abstain from.

This book ends with a list of tips regarding replacement and removal of words and the usage of numbers while writing. Further, being a concise, 30 minute read, this book proves to be convenient and swiftly applicable.

Get it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2J6qrk1

~ Saadia

 

 

The Tidy Guide to Writing a Novel – Book Review

This book aims to provide precise, lucid and practical tips to writing your first novel.

Review: Because of its clear-cut expression and division into bite-sized chapters, this book is a quick read. This concise book can open doorways for learning more about different genres and publishing but can also be treated as a summary of writing advice from a more thorough resource pool. I rated this book 4/5 stars.

It is a perfect read for someone with just basic knowledge about writing their first book. It gives out important information about word-counts and characteristics of different genres. The best way to read this book is to jot down the tips in your journal/notebook to come back to whenever necessary. This book also helped me understand why books with side-characters who play an important role in the protagonist’s development are more successful. (Think Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games, Divergent Series and so on.)

A quick and beneficial read for debut authors or beginners.

Get it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2RmeRFb

~ Saadia