The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) Paperback – March 10, 2023

Very clear and easy to understand. This author had an excellent copyeditor.

This book does a great job of highlighting how to copyedit and proofread fiction, either your own or for other authors, prior to publication.

It gives you a good understanding as a fiction writer about what do editors expect from you, the general process and steps you should follow to better organize your manuscripts.

Every fiction editor should own this book. There's not much else to say besides that, but I'll give it a try...Anyone who is considering purchasing this book is aware of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), 17th edition; but there is only so much CMOS can do for fiction editors. The University of Chicago Press, the same publisher as CMOS, called on Amy J. Schneider to write this book because she's a big name in the industry. We all knew her name, even before she wrote this book. And, she did exceptionally well! I now add this book to every style sheet and I use this book each time I can't remember how to explain something to one of my authors—I leave a comment for the author with a quote from Amy's book or I paraphrase. Either way, Amy's book should be standard reading for any one breaking out into fiction editing, and it's great for seasoned editors like myself. Whoever you are, if you edit fiction, you need this book. Enjoy!!

The author, Amy J. Schneider, is a highly experienced editor and is well known and highly respected in the worldwide community of editors. She knows how to help authors make their fiction manuscripts sing, and in the Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction, she shares great guidelines in a down-to-earth, enjoyable way. And hey, this is a companion to the hallowed Chicago Manual of Style, both of them from the venerable University of Chicago Press. Editors, your career will benefit a great deal by reading Amy's book and following her advice.

The book was great about explaining dialogue and other philosophical points, but I hoped the grammar section would address punctuation with the em dash, ellipses, and colons more, especially when they are used with compound sentences. Yeah, as the author suggests, I could buy the industry standard software and attach it to Microsoft Word or buy the Chicago Style manual (which is whopping $55 dollars) or subscribe to the Chicago Style website, but the use of both the em dash and ellipses is not consistent in fiction with traditional publishing houses, and it's not very well explained in the Chicago Style Manual itself (I had the website trial version for a spell). I would even wager that most copyeditors don't put the fourth period at the end of the sentence using ellipses which is grammatically correct.The book is worth the read because this conversation needs to be had, and I enjoyed the fluid writing style, but I was hoping to avoid buying the manual. I guess if I took anything from the book is to keep the reader in mind at all times and the fluidity of writing and that rules will be broken. I think most writers, editors, and copyeditors know that, BUT it's nice to have the ideas reinforced.

Nuff said. I bought both physical and digital copies. Ridiculously useful. A must own for most copyeditors.

The book covered the subject thoroughly but it wasn’t what I needed. I donated it to a writing group.