Indispensable Writing Books: The Well-Presented Manuscript

Indispensable Writing Books: The Well-Presented Manuscript

I recently donated a large box of writing books to the library, including my copy of The Elements of Style. I’d owned it for a long time and had never found it useful for what I actually needed in my writing. 

Enter Mike Reeves-McMillan’s new book, The Well-Presented Manuscript. I was offered a copy in exchange for an honest review, and decided it was worth checking out. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to get with this book.  I know Mike here on Google+ and he is a prolific writer whose stories and books are both traditionally and independently published. He also used to be a professional copy editor. I figured he knew his stuff about getting editors and agents to take a look at your work.

This book is part formatting guide and part grammar guide. In fact, you could use it as a checklist while preparing your book or story. Did I format my manuscript correctly? Have I made any of these common grammar mistakes?

I confess that the grammar guide made my eyes glaze over. There were a few rules I still couldn’t understand, even after Mike’s introduction and excellent examples. There’s a reason I hire a professional editor (the fantastic Karen Conlin) for my work. However, I found the sections on adjectives and adverbs quite informative, and the long list of homonym errors was incredibly helpful.

I hope Mike will put this out in a hardcover version. A reference like this would be very handy to have on the writing shelves, and it’s one, unlike Elements of Style, that I’d actually look through when I needed the help.

Available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1IKMrHK

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