by Harmony Kent
"If the complexities of grammar and punctuation sometimes confound you - this gem of a book is for you. This is a guide I'll be dipping into over and over."--Wendy Scott, Fantasy Author
Polish Your Prose is a powerful new guide that gives essential editing tips for authors.
Lots of books have been written on the art of writing, and here—at last—is a guide that will teach you the essential techniques of editing your own book. This will help you turn a promising manuscript into a published novel. And, it does this without the jargon. You don’t need to know all the grammatical terms in order to make use of this book. You don’t need to know the definition of a split infinitive, a comma splice, or a ‘to be’ verb, as this manual explains these in detail in easy to understand terms, and a lively and engaging style.
Chapters on Passive Writing, Tense, Point of View, Dialogue, and other techniques take you through the same processes an editor would go through to polish and perfect your manuscript.
Good writing is nothing without good editing. Learn the secrets of good editing and writing with this essential author reference, which offers so much more for so much less.
Harmony Kent is an award winning author, and accomplished editor and proofreader. Her passion is helping Indie Authors to successfully achieve their goals and dreams.
New Apple Book Awards Top Medalist Winner 2015
A MUST-HAVE! The literary world is filled with how-to books on every topic imaginable. Writers have millions of options for finding resources which are the right fit and aids them in their writing journey. 'Polish Your Prose' is a right fit resource for any writer, be it the new-kid-on-the-block or professional. Divided into three sections, this short writing aide covers everything from passive prose to dealing with negative reviews in a positive way. There’s even a short chapter dedicated to U.S. English vs. U.K. English. Chapters are clear and concise, with examples of each tip and a quick summary of each chapter. The author does not pad chapters with the time-honored rules of writing from the halls of academia but recommends other resources for further explanation and examples. Whether you’re writing the first draft, revising, or editing, this is the book to keep close-at-hand. 'Polish Your Prose' is available in ebook format, but I recommend the print version as it’s easier and faster to access all those often used tips highlighted and bookmarked by Post-it notes. Or maybe that’s just me. If you’re building a library, you could add this book. But if you want to hone your writing skills and deliver quality books/blogs to your readers, you need this book. Scroll up and 1-click.
HARMONY KENT HAS PUBLISHED A VERY USEFUL COLLECTION OF GUIDELINES FOR SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHORS ... Harmony Kent has published a very useful collection of guidelines for self-published authors that may not have access to professional editors. She offers her own expertise to highlight various stages in the editing/proofreading process, helpful for writers that want to tighten their prose and avoid errors. Stylistic and grammar mistakes can make writers appear unprofessional, thereby undermining their credibility. Her own prose is clear and readable. Kent's explanations of point of view, verb tenses, and punctuation are particularly helpful for the novice (or anyone who needs to brush up in these areas). She also gives an extensive list of commonly used words that have different spelling in the UK, a great resource for authors who publish in both countries. Overall, this is a book any writer can learn from. I recommend it.
I LOVE THIS BOOK Harmony wrote that she doesn't learn a lot from positive reviews, but I thought this book was perfect. I love the way she made the her editing advice simple and to the point. I wish I had stumbled across this book years ago.. Thank you, Harmony.
INVALUABLE ADVICE This is a very well written, concise and easily understandable book, filled with invaluable advice for any author. Although aimed more at fiction writers, I found that most of the tips and tricks that Harmony Kent includes are appropriate to my own genre of memoir writing as well. As I read this book it sparked my imagination and corrected some long held misconceptions. Over the next few months I will continually refer back to this fantastic source of advice as I work on my new memoir. The end product will be much better as a result.
HELPFUL AND TO THE POINT This book gave me great tips and ideas for editing my novel. It was a quick read and went straight to the point with easy to understand language and examples. I bookmarked many pages to come back to as I edit. A great read for a new writer.
GREAT HANDBOOK FOR WRITERS! A concise writer’s guide written in simplicity with easy to refer to chapters, no filler babble in these bite-sized chapters to help hone your editing skills. This book succinctly covers chapters on all bibs and bobs of writing a clean and concise manuscript. However, this is not a book about how to write a book, but rather, a complete checklist on the dos and don’ts of writing clean, complete with easy to understand lessons with examples covering all the topics that make for better writing. In this book Kent covers such topics as: show don’t tell, how to avoid head-hopping, weeding out adverbs and cliches, importance of staying in tense, use of contractions, dialogue tags, overuse of starting sentences with same pronouns, common stylistic and grammar issues, and more! Kent also adds good tips for proofreading, what to include when writing book reviews – and what not to, how to handle bad reviews, and once learning the rules – how they can be broken. Polish Your Prose also includes added bonus charts on common word replacements from British to American English, and a list of commonly used words that are used incorrectly. Point of view use is also discussed and demonstrated with concise examples. This book is a handy guide for writers on all levels. For the seasoned writer, it’s a wonderful refresher guide for those moments we are stumped while revising and editing. And for new writers, it’s a must have on every desktop.
