Category Archives: The Well-Presented Manuscript

Aug 06

Indispensable Writing Books: The Well-Presented Manuscript

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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

#indispensablewritingbooks   #grammar  

Jul 17

If you prefer not to get your books from Amazon for whatever reason, you can now get The Well-Presented Manuscript…

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If you prefer not to get your books from Amazon for whatever reason, you can now get The Well-Presented Manuscript from:

– Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-well-presented-manuscript-just-what-you-need-to-know-to-make-your-fiction-look-professional 

– iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1020484257

– Oyster: https://www.oysterbooks.com/book/tKmQPKKJxbdqYx3THkqU3V/the-well-presented-manuscript-just-what-you-need-to-know-to-make-your-fiction-look-professional 

– Inktera: http://www.inktera.com/store/title/f63d3f31-1fa7-48a2-9758-45effd60841d 

It’s been submitted to Barnes &  Noble and Scribd, but they don’t have it in their stores yet.

It’s also on Amazon, of course: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010RJOAYA/

In case you missed it earlier, The Well-Presented Manuscript is a no-frills, straightforward guide to freeing your fiction from typos, homonym errors (where you use the wrong word for what you mean), punctuation problems and common research failures. 

Jul 14

I’m a reviewer. I read a lot of books.

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I’m a reviewer. I read a lot of books. 

I’m a former professional copy editor for Hodders. I notice errors in those books–often the same errors. (In traditionally-published books as well as indie ones, because quality comes from the author, and the editor can only do so much.)

I’m also a former technical writer, so I thought, “What if the problem is that people don’t know that these are errors, or don’t know how to do it right? What if a book that went through a clear, straightforward presentation of the basics would help? What if I wrote that book?“

So I did, and it’s available here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010RJOAYA. 

If you write fiction, you’re likely to find at least two useful things in this book that you didn’t know before. If you need to sample first, I drafted some of it on this blog: http://csidemedia.com/wellpresentedms. It isn’t just the blog turned into a book, though. It’s extensively rewritten, and I’ve added a lot more material.

Give it a try. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010RJOAYA.

Jul 03

In case anyone missed it: The Well-Presented Manuscript is available for preorder, and will publish on the 14th of…

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In case anyone missed it: The Well-Presented Manuscript is available for preorder, and will publish on the 14th of July. The link below takes you to the blog where I drafted it, so you can get a taster if you need it. There are links from there to the preorder page.

Here’s the blurb:

Do you want to be taken seriously by editors, readers or reviewers? 

Do you make errors in your fiction writing? 

This book is for you. 

Mike Reeves-McMillan is a fiction author, reviewer, and former copy editor and technical writer. He’s analysed the errors he’s found in almost 250 books, both indie and traditionally published, and written a simple, clear guide to avoiding the most common issues. 

Learn: 

– Why editors reject 90% of what’s submitted to them—and how to increase your chances. 

– How to get punctuation right every time. 

– The special conventions of dialog. 

– The most common word confusions, typos, and research errors—and how to check for and eliminate them.

http://csidemedia.com/wellpresentedms/

Jul 02

The Well-Presented Manuscript: Just What You Need to Know to Make Your Fiction Look Professional is available for…

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The Well-Presented Manuscript: Just What You Need to Know to Make Your Fiction Look Professional is available for preorder on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010RJOAYA. Launch day is 14 July (US Pacific time).

I set out to write a gentle, accessible guide to avoiding or correcting the most common errors that fiction writers make. How do I know which ones those are? I read nearly 250 books–indie and trad-pub–and marked the errors in my Kindle, then analysed them. And who am I, anyway? I’m a fiction author, a former professional editor and technical writer, and a book reviewer.

I cover punctuation (including breaking down sentence structure and parts of speech, so you understand where the commas should go); the special rules of punctuating dialog; commonly confused words; spotting and removing typos; and even a few research problems. I also talk about submitting to short-fiction and trad-pub editors, who reject 90% or more of what they receive, and how you can increase your chances with them.

Even good writers make many of the mistakes I cover, and I mark the commonest ones for special attention.

If you’d like to improve your fiction manuscript, but find other guides confusing or too technical, give this one a try. With hundreds of examples, many drawn from real books, it’s focused on practical use, not theory.

You can see an early draft in blog form here: http://csidemedia.com/wellpresentedms (but I’ve substantially revised and expanded it for the book, and added several new chapters).