This award-winning editor’s guide to writing compelling fiction offers indispensable spot-on information for taking the reader’s writing skills up several levels. In a highly accessible, inviting, reader-friendly format with plenty of before-and-after examples, subheadings, and white space, this guide is ideal for today’s busy writers and aspiring authors who want to quickly find what they need to hone their fiction-writing skills and sell more books.

Topics include: hooking readers in on the first pages, techniques for bringing characters and scenes to life, using close point of view, showing instead of telling, avoiding style blunders, streamlining cluttered paragraphs, smoothing out awkward structures, choosing words that nail it, varying the pacing, avoiding info dumps, writing natural-sounding dialogue, finding an authentic voice, and more.

- Writer’s Digest: “should be on the booklist for Master’s Programs in Writing for Publication.”

- IndieReader: “the Strunk & White for writers who want to be not just mere storytellers but master story-compellers.”

This writing guide has won two book awards to date and is a finalist for three more.

Jodie Renner's profile page

Jodie Renner is a sought-after freelance fiction editor and author of numerous blog posts on writing captivating fiction. Jodie's craft-of-fiction articles appear on many blogs, including her two group blogs, The Kill Zone and Crime Fiction Collective, and her own blog, Resources for Writers.

As a freelance fiction manuscript editor, Jodie specializes in thrillers, romantic suspense, mysteries, and other fast-paced, suspenseful fiction.

Jodie has had a lifelong passion for reading, especially fiction, and she loves movies, too. She has had a variety of life experiences, working at a lot of different jobs before she became an English and French teacher and, later, a school librarian. Somewhere in there, she traveled to a lot of different countries and cities, moved thousands of miles, raised two sons, and attained a master's degree in literature.

“This book is packed with good advice on how to spot and fix weaknesses in your fiction writing. It summarizes the combined wisdom of the last century or so of fiction teachers into one handy volume.” - Randy Ingermanson, bestselling author of WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES

“A handy checklist and self-editing guide that will get any fiction writer to a stronger, well-told tale.” – James Scott Bell, bestselling author of REVISION & SELF-EDITING, PLOT & STRUCTURE, and CONFLICT & SUSPENSE, among others.