BOOK REVIEWS
FOUR BOOKS ON EDITING AND REVISION
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The 10% Solution: Self-editing for the Modern Writer, by Ken Rand, Fairwood Press. Available at www.amazon.com. Price: $5.95 Contact the author directly at: Krand27577@aol.com.

After attending Ken Rand’s writing workshop, I had to buy this book. It’s an excellent investment. Though small in size (60 pages), every page is packed with valuable tips for editing and revising. It’s small enough to fit in a backpack, yet contains most of the information found in larger books. Here’s what another reviewer has to say:

"Take this book and read it cover to cover. It won’t take forever. Then sit down with a story you wish to polish and follow Ken’s method, his 10% solution for trimming the wordiness from your prose. It works. He explains how his solution came about, how it helped him, and how it can help you. Then he details the method, step by step. Lastly, he demonstrates how it worked on his own writing. It made all the difference in my writing. I now keep this book next to me when I revise my writing. It’s that good." – Craig O. Jones.
Rating: ****

The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, by Noah Lukeman, a Fireside Book by Simon and Schuster. www.amazon.com $9.90.

A small book in size only, this one is well worth the price. I read every page the day I bought it, then immediately started rewriting the first three pages of my novel.

Lukeman has arranged his book "in the order of what I look for when trying to dismiss a manuscript," starting with presentation and concluding with pacing and progression. Each chapter discusses a pitfall of poor writing – overuse of adjectives and adverbs, flat or forced metaphors or similes, and commonplace dialogue, and undeveloped characterization – to name just a few. He identifies each problem, presents solutions, and gives examples. Writing exercises follow each chapter. I highly recommend this book for writers who hope to publish and will deal with editors and agents.

Noah Lukeman is a literary agent whose clients include Pulitzer Prize nominees and New York Times bestselling authors. Prior to becoming an agent, he worked on the editorial side of several major publishing companies. To learn more about The First Five Pages, point your browser to Noah Lukeman’s web site at www.lukeman.com/thefirstfivepages/.
Rating: *****

The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction, by Michael Seidman, Writer’s Digest Books. Available from Amazon (www.amazon.com) for $17.09, or Writer’s Digest (www.writersdigest.com).

This 264 page hardcover book was written by Michael Seidman, the senior mystery editor for Walker Publishing. The book received mixed reader reviews on Amazon's’web site, and I agree that it isn’t the perfect book on editing. The 10% Solution and The First Five Pages pack the same information into fewer pages, with a lot less fluff.

In this book, we follow a story from inception to publication and review several case studies of manuscripts that don’t work. The examples are too long for my taste, but the book is a good read and does contain useful information. The six page Checklist for Revision in the Appendix is helpful. I recommend this book as a secondary editing text, but it isn’t one I’d carry around with my manuscript.
Rating: ***

Sammie Justesen