Written by a professional editor with 20 years experience, this guide to self-editing offers writers of novels and short stories multiple ways to improve their writing and produce cleaner manuscripts to pitch to agents and editors or to self-publish. Includes 10 rules for avoiding errors in punctuation and syntax and creating clearer sentences and better description and dialog. Offers ideas for knowing when your book is really done and how to save money if you decide to hire a professional editor before pitching or publishing.