Write, Edit, Publish

Literary agents and publishers reject 99 percent of manuscripts before finishing the first page, and readers are just as impatient. If your opening doesn't grab them by the throat, they're gone. Award-winning author and veteran editor Michael J. Totten will show you-in the first two chapters alone-how to craft a killer first sentence and a gripping first page.

Most books about writing are written by writers, not editors. They don't see the troubled manuscripts that Totten sees, so the dozens of crippling mistakes that sink so many otherwise promising manuscripts, both fiction and nonfiction, aren't well covered in most books about writing-until now. In Write, Edit, Publish, you will learn how to:

• Correct all the most common mistakes that expose you as an amateur.
• Hook your audience and compel them to keep reading.
• Avoid the top two fatal errors most self-publishers make.
• Tap into readers' innate capacity for empathy so they truly sympathize with the characters and people you're writing about.
• Give readers exactly what they want-even if they don't consciously know what that is.
• Fast-forward through the boring parts and ratchet up the suspense.
• Spellbind readers using real rather than vacuous descriptions-and, just as importantly, know precisely where and when to include that description.
• Turn your muddled story into a focused, structurally sound narrative.
• Declutter your sentences so they land like hammer blows, not slaps with a Nerf bat.
• Remove friction from your prose so readers can relax and glide through it.
• Write dialogue that actually sounds spoken rather than written.
• Repair fractured, backward, and bloated information flow so your writing is as clear as a still pool of water.
• Craft an ending that haunts readers long after it's over.

Read this book, show readers you have an expert command of the craft, and write so well the world can't ignore you.


Praise for Michael J. Totten

"This book is game-changing for writers. Michael J. Totten gives great advice about writing that only a seasoned editor could convey. I'm including this book as required reading in my editing course and plan to have other folks in my department read it as well."
-Allyson Longueira, professor in the graduate program in creative writing at Western Colorado University

"Michael J. Totten explains the rookie errors new writers make-and how to fix them. This exceptional and highly readable book should be at the top of the list for any fiction author and most nonfiction authors. I rewrote this endorsement five times because I was making some of those writing goofs."
-Sandra Wendel, nonfiction book editor and author of Cover to Cover: What First-Time Authors Need to Know About Editing

"I've admired Michael J. Totten's work as a writer for years, but it turns out he is also a superb editor."
-Judith Deborah, author of A Falling Knife: An Evan Adair Mystery

"As an accomplished writer, journalist, and editor, Michael is second to none. He has helped me with two books and enormously improved both."
-Fred Litwin, author of I Was a Teenage JFK Conspiracy Freak

"If you're looking for an editor to help you take your book to the next level, look no further than Michael J. Totten. I've always found his astute insights invaluable."
-Scott William Carter, author of The Gray and Guilty Sea