Don’t Sabotage Your Submission by Chris Roerden is the most informative, helpful book I’ve read about writing. A revamping of the award-winning Don’t Murder Your Mystery, the book offers 230 positive examples of effective techniques to save your manuscript from turning up dead on arrival. First-screeners are merciless and will pitch your manuscript into the morgue for merely looking unprofessional. This book teaches how to avoid sudden death.

Don’t Sabotage Your Submission is not just for mystery writers. Roerden offers examples of effective writing from 215 authors from many genres. Still the chapter headings reflect a murderous bent, covering topics such as The Hobbled Hook, Perilous Prologue, Bloody Backstory, Fatal Flashback, Dastardly Description, Shifty Eyes, Dying Dialogue, Gestured to Death and Killed by Cliché, to name a few.

Available in paperback from Amazon, this 2008 publication not only teaches technique it made me laugh. I give it five stars.