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Line Editing for Crime, Mystery and Thriller Writers: Professional Techniques for Writers and Editors
Paperback
General ReferenceWriting Instruction
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Aug 23 2026
Pages: 424
Weight: 1.61
Height: 0.86 Width: 7.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
This practical handbook shows writers and professional editors how to line edit crime, mystery and thriller fiction with confidence.
Each chapter explains how the topic works, then provides an accessible framework for editing at sentence level, and finishes with a lengthy before-and-after worked example that demonstrates line editing in action.
The goal: You'll learn how to hone and apply sentence-level craft that will ensure the book's scenes keep readers turning the pages long into the night.
Essential foundations- Viewpoint
- Psychic distance
- Showing and telling
- Atmosphere and mood
- Decluttering prose
- Momentum
Reader engagement and orientation
- Opening pages
- Opening lines
- Foreshadowing
- Clues
- Suspicion
- Misdirection
- Suspense
- Scene transitions
- Chapter exits
Character communication
- Voice
- Dialogue, thought and subtext
- Interrogations
- Embedded dialogue
- Slurs in dialogue
Pace, pressure and flow
- Scene beats
- Rhythm
- Scene pacing
- Tension
- Urgency
- Repetition
- Verbs and adverbs
Character presentation and identity
- First-person narrator presence
- Character references
- Identity-led pronouns
- Character description
- Character framing
- Backstory
Action, threat and harm
- Fight scenes
- Chase scenes
- Fear and unease
- Pain and injury
- Gore and brutality
- Aftermath, shock and trauma
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