Writing Advice Book Reports #5: Renni Browne & Dave King
A discussion about the books I've read while I try to master the writing craft?
A photo of my feline-muse, Boots, watching the birds circling overhead. Her intensity looks a lot like me when I’m reading. Especially when I’m reading writing advice books.
What’ve I read?
The first step I took in learning to write was when I used some Kindle credits to buy a book by Renni Browne & Dave King, “Self-editing for Fiction Writers.” Even though I read this book first, I’m listing it last because it didn’t really help me as much as the other books did.
Why should you read this book?
They laid out several concepts: showing, not telling; exposition; viewpoint; dialogue; interior monologue; “beats”; and “voice.” All of these were enlightening for this beginning writer, but the book was not written for a beginning, IMHO. It didn’t explain fiction style for paragraphs, scenes, and chapters, which I desperately needed to know before my writing made sense to the reader. So a book that teaches the beginning writer how to polish a turd isn’t helpful, IMHO.
Is it worth reading? Oh, heck, yeah. Once you know what you’re doing, there is a very good section on the symbols editors use. Is it worth the price? Better to borrow a copy from the library. 🤷♂️
What I’ve gained?
Not much really. After reading this, I was left dissatisfied, which sent me in search of better books.
This is the last post in this series. I haven’t found any more writing advice books that could beat what I’ve already shared.
However, there are two Substacks that have really helped me to improve further:
‘s Substack and Ms. ‘s Substack. I’m learning more about dialogue right now from Robb’s posts, and Ms. Monalisa is sharing her knowledge on internalizations for the different viewpoint schema that is really shaking my understandings of the craft. In a good way. Both of these Substacks cost to access, and I am gladly paying that to learn from their experience.Anyway, that’s all I have. Y’all have a great week. 👋
Thanks for the mention and I'm glad you are finding my Substack useful. Your comments here are exactly why I am currently working on (along with Toni Weisskopf and Joy Freeman) on a non-fiction book to help people like yourself.
Thanks for the mention and I’m glad you’re finding something helpful in the articles on A Writer’s Block. I had the exact same experience you’re describing, although it was about 30+ years ago. Lots of great books on writing fiction but mostly on art and a few high-level craft issues. Not much to help get started. I had to figure that out, and I was a journalist so pretty adept at writing in general. In critique groups, I learned some things, and learned even more by critiquing other writers. I knew something wasn’t working but didn’t know how to explain why or how to fix it. So I’d go down rabbit holes to find out. When I started a blog, which evolved into my Substack, that was my goal. It just felt like there was an overlooked niche of the basics of the craft of writing fiction. Lots of sources for the art and plotting and such, but not much on the nuts and bolts. Although I try to hit all levels, it’s the beginner to novice that I always try to keep in mind.
And I’m also a reader of Monalisa’s Musings and highly recommend!