Self-Editing for Fiction Writers Quotes

“Far better to give your readers some hints and then allow them to fill in the blanks for themselves. This”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“Instead of saying “Amanda took one look at the hotel room and recoiled in disgust,” describe the room in such a way that the readers feel that disgust for themselves. You don’t want to give your readers information. You want to give them experiences.”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“You want to draw your readers into the world you’ve created, make them feel a part of it, make them forget where they are. And you can’t do this effectively if you tell your readers about your world secondhand. You”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“Movies and television may be influencing writers to write more visually, using immediate scenes with specific points of view to put their stories across. But fiction can always accomplish something that visual media will never be able to match.
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One of the great gifts of literature is that it allows for the expression of unexpressed thoughts: interior monologue.”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“Describing your action too precisely can be as condescending as describing your characters’ emotions. Far better to give your readers some hints and then allow them to fill in the blanks for themselves. This”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“You don’t want to sound as though you used a Sharper Image catalogue for a thesaurus.”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“C.      Once you got off Route 9W, though, you were in another world, a world where two streets never met at a right angle, where streets, in fact, didn’t exist. Instead you had “courts,” “terraces,” “ways,” a “landing” or two. And lining these street-like things were row on row of little houses that could be distinguished, it seemed, only by the lawn ornaments. Travelers who disappeared into the developments had been known to call taxis just to lead them out again.”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“Once you got off Route 9W, though, you were in another world, a world where two streets never met at a right angle, where streets, in fact, didn’t exist. Instead you had “courts,” “terraces,” “ways,” a “landing” or two. And lining these street-like things were row on row of little houses that could be distinguished, it seemed, only by the lawn ornaments. Travelers who disappeared into the developments had been known to call taxis just to lead them out again.”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“Stein, Sol, Stein on Writing. Perhaps the best book ever written on the overall craft of fiction. Straightforward, practical, easily absorbed.”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“Frey, James, How to Write a Damn Good Novel. Helpful emphasis on the three C’s of Premise: character, conflict, and conclusion; useful throughout. One of the damn best books on the subject.”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print