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Captivate Your Readers: An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction Paperback – February 24, 2015
Enhance your purchase
- Print length230 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateFebruary 24, 2015
- Dimensions6 x 0.52 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100993700411
- ISBN-13978-0993700415
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Product details
- Publisher : Cobalt Books (February 24, 2015)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 230 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0993700411
- ISBN-13 : 978-0993700415
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.52 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,930,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,730 in Authorship Reference
- #10,561 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Jodie Renner is a sought-after freelance fiction editor and award-winning author of three Editor's Guides to Writing Compelling Fiction, WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS; as well as two QUICK CLICKS e-resources for writers and editors, SPELLING LIST and WORD USAGE. She has also organized and edited two anthologies for charity, VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS - Stories & Poems about Life in BC's Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED - Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers.
FIRE UP YOUR FICTION offers concrete tips to tighten your prose and take your writing skills up several levels and has won three awards (two silver medals - Readers' Favorite Awards, FAPA President's Book Awards - and an Honorable Mention in Writer's Digest E-Book Awards).
CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS is all about engaging readers, bonding them with your protagonist, and drawing them into your story world through techniques like deep point of view, showing instead of telling, avoiding author intrusions, writing dialogue that zings, and generally letting the characters tell the story. It has won a silver medal in the FAPA Book Awards and is a finalist in two other book awards.
WRITING A KILLER THRILLER gives concrete tips for adding tension, suspense, and intrigue to any novel.
Also check out Jodie's handy, time-saving, clickable e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: WORD USAGE - PRECISE WORD CHOICES AT YOUR FINGERTIPS, and QUICK CLICKS: SPELLING - COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORDS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS, both of which you can also read on your computer, tablet, or smartphone.
Jodie has also organized and edited two anthologies, both for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS - STORIES & POEMS ABOUT LIFE IN BC'S INTERIOR, with all net proceeds to Doctors Without Borders Canada; and CHILDHOOD REGAINED - Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers.
Visit www.JodieRenner.com.
Jodie is also a well-known blogger, and her craft-of-writing articles and other resources for writers appear on various blogs, and, occasionally, her own blog, Resources for Writers.
Jodie judges novels and short stories for various organizations, including several times for Writer's Digest. She has also presented workshops at writers' conferences and to writers'
As a freelance fiction manuscript editor, Jodie specializes in thrillers, romantic suspense, mysteries, and other fast-paced, suspenseful fiction.
When she's not editing, writing, or reading novels or books on writing compelling fiction, Jodie loves to pursue her three other passions, dancing, photography and traveling. She has traveled extensively throughout North America, Europe and the Middle East, and continues to sneak away whenever she gets the chance.
Customer reviews
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Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2015
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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She covers several points writers need to know about, including characters and show don't tell with fresh new insights, but the section in the second half of the book was truly remarkable. She talks about how to use your word choice, sensory details, and decision making to capture your reader's attention from start to finish. Most of these things are subtle, pernicious things you wouldn't think about as a writer, but someone with Renner's editorial eagle eye will spot and flag. I also enjoyed the three appendices she included in the back.
Buy this book and follow her guidelines, and it will be like hiring her for a developmental edit, only at a fraction of the cost.
The book covers much of what I haven't read already in other craft books, but she does bring a unique perspective to these topics as well as provide excellent examples that hammer in the ideas. Definitely worth the money.
Top reviews from other countries

Although I was an English teacher for many years and had a degree in English, that did not prepare me for writing books.
I self-published 2 books recently. Both were nonfiction. Then I started writing my first novel. That was a completely different writing challenge. The writer needs to engage the reader emotionally, and Jodie Renner show show to do this.
Each chapter can be read as a one off with link back to the beginning of the book.
Her help lies in the richness of her experience as an editor who has participated in eg Readers' Digest writing contests as well as free- lanced as well.
She uses examples of prose from published books (disguised of course) to make her points. For example the famous enough adage, "Show - Don't Tell" appears a lot in books giving advice to authors. Her explanations are the best I have read.
The crucial importance of the first chapter of a novel is brilliantly handled, from the point of view of editors as well as readers. It helped me sculpt my thoughts in a more refined way, and chunks of information were removed to be used in later chapters in a more organic way.
I have bought her other books as a result.
Can't speak too highly of her book.

Entire chapters have come and gone, to ensure the final product stays focused on delivering exactly what it promises - techniques that will ensure your writing captivates its readers, and brings them back for more.
Each chapter has been written to stand on its own merits; so dive in to the pages that interest you most, and take notes as you go.
This is Jodie Renner's third book on the craft of writing; written from her experience both as a published author and professional freelance-editor, and that experience really comes through in this book.


