Line By Line: How To Edit Your Own Writing

Transparency alert: I have NOT read this book. But the title says it all. Line By Line: How To Edit Your Own Writing is the sort of book I wish every writer who works for me would purchase.

There’s nothing worse than having to edit pointless mistakes a writer should be catching before they click “send”. When I sit in the editor’s chair, it gives me actual physical pain to see yet another abused apostrophe or the word “advise” instead of “advice”. Suppressing the urge to kill is the least of an editor’s problems. The desire to play drinking games with those article submissions and blog posts is overwhelming.

Spot the wrongly used “there,” “their” or “they’re” and take a drink. See the contraction of “there is” followed by a plural? Take TWO drinks.

All those dead brain cells could be avoided if all writers would buy books like these and start SELF-EDITING! Please, for the love of all that is nice and true, do this one favor for us overworked editors.

Thank you.