Self-Edit Your Novel

by David H Fears

Overview

In today’s publishing world many writers can neither find nor afford a professional editor. The only editing such writers benefit from is self-editing. Fears, a recognized Twain scholar, argues against the common notion that an independent novelist must hire an editor to turn out a good novel and proposes writers learn the skill set of an editor. He points out the advantages a novelist has with his own work and how to avoid the “snow blindness” that often afflicts self-editing. He covers micro-level changes of editing at the word/phrase/sentence level, and macro-level revision of larger elements, such as characters, pacing, plot, and dialogue. Fears offers several practices and processes that teach a writer editor skills.

There’s no promise here of making riches, or becoming a top-notch editor without effort. You’ll have to work at it, just like you did to learn the craft of writing fiction. If you’re neither a beginner nor a best-selling novelist, this book is for you.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940046202724
Publisher:	David H Fears
Publication date:	09/26/2014
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	238 KB

About the Author

David was known by the handle “professor” as a boy (no doubt the thick black spectacles, Buddy Holly style), and has had a lifetime interest in Mark Twain. He has also written nearly one hundred short stories with about sixteen published, and is working on the 14th Mike Angel PI Mystery novel.

Fears is a pretty handy name for horror stories, but he also has written mainstream nostalgic, literary, some fantasy/magical realism, as well as the PI novels. For the past decade he has devoted his full time to producing Mark Twain Day By Day, a four-volume annotated chronology in the life of Samuel L. Clemens. Two volumes are now available, and have been called, “The Ultimate Mark Twain Reference” by top Twain scholars. His aim for these books is “to provide a reference and starting-off place for the Twain scholar, as well as a readable book for the masses,” one that provides many “tastes” of Twain and perspective into his complex and fascinating life. He understands this is a work that will never be “finished” — in fact, he claims that no piece of writing is ever finished, only abandoned after a time. As a historian, David enjoys mixing historical aspects in his fiction.

David recently taught literature and writing at DeVry University in Portland, his third college stint. His former lives enjoyed some success in real estate and computer business, sandwiched between undergraduate studies in the early 70s and his masters degree in education and composition, awarded in 2004.

He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and has lived in New England, Southern California and Nevada. David is youthful looking and is the father of three girls, the grandfather of four and the great-grandfather of two; he’s written, “It all shows what you can do if you fool around when you’re very young.” David’s a card. How many of us think humor has a place in mystery tales or history tomes? He claims his calico cat Sophie helps him edit his stories while lying across his arm when he is composing, and sinking her claws in with any poorly drawn sentence. As a writer, a humorist, a cat lover and father of girls, he relates well to Clemens. Writing hardboiled PI novels is his way of saying "NUTS!" to politically correct fiction.

UPDATE: Beloved Calico Sophie died on Apr 24, 2016 at 13 & 1/2 years. She is sorely missed.