"Unputdownable" is a book for authors who want to write fiction that's truly immersive and captivating. It helps you get the craft in place or sharpen the material you already have. Here, you’ll find tips on world-building, protagonist, goal, antagonism, genre, structure, character development, language, and "show, don’t tell." The advice in the book is based on the author’s 15 years of experience as a freelance editor. Unputdownable gives you the chance to avoid the most common pitfalls among inexperienced writers. You’ll also find the key mechanisms that help us get a story up and running, along with plenty of examples, tips, and advice. Richly illustrated, the book also presents exercises that you can try out on your own project to increase awareness around the choices you make. This way, you can raise the quality of your work and get more out of your writing time!
"Unputdownable" is a book for authors who want to write fiction that's truly immersive and captivating. It helps you get the craft in place or sharpen the material you already have. Here, you’ll find tips on world-building, protagonist, goal, antagonism, genre, structure, character development, language, and "show, don’t tell." The advice in the book is based on the author’s 15 years of experience as a freelance editor. Unputdownable gives you the chance to avoid the most common pitfalls among inexperienced writers. You’ll also find the key mechanisms that help us get a story up and running, along with plenty of examples, tips, and advice. Richly illustrated, the book also presents exercises that you can try out on your own project to increase awareness around the choices you make. This way, you can raise the quality of your work and get more out of your writing time!
“Introduction
If you have a story to tell, this book is for you. Whether you’re a budding writer, have just finished your first draft with a triumphant full stop, have been labouring without getting anywhere, or if you’re a seasoned author facing a pile of rejection letters – this handbook will help you navigate the path to publication.
The traditional publishing landscape has changed. Gone are the days when manuscripts were condemned to gather dust in slush piles, with the world potentially cheated of brilliant work. Today, authors have the power to connect directly with readers, bypassing the traditional gatekeepers.
But with this freedom comes fierce competition for attention. As publishing gets easier, selling gets harder. Forget just competing with fellow writers; in today’s world, the real enemy is time. Social media, blogs, news, podcasts, streaming services… The list goes on. Consumers are bombarded with high-quality content, leaving them spoilt for choice.
Anyone who thinks banging out 65,000 words and hitting publish is enough to succeed is sorely mistaken. Editing – rigorously honing your manuscript – is essential. Maybe you’re one of the lucky few who ticks all a publisher’s boxes: producing high-quality, trendy, catalogue-friendly work, and sporting the
Excerpt From
Unputdownable
Nina Grove Hansen
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Nina Grove Hansen's Unputdownable: a Storytelling and Self-Editing Handbook is a stunning, special gift from a brilliant editor with years of experience and insight into writerly craft. Accessible, encouraging, and focused in its guidance, this book should be considered essential reading for both experienced and emerging creative writers (including folks exploring books and writerly opportunities here on the Reedsy platform).
From its outset, Unputdownable is obviously unlike other writing craft books. Hansen is dedicated to showing writers how to discover new things in their writing from a self-editing perspective, and her advice pairs beautifully with beginning or ongoing revision processes. Hansen, a Norwegian editor, describes herself as a "redaktør," one whose work it is "'to drive back' or 'bring back.'" And that's exactly how the book works. Unputdownable shows the writer-reader how to "rein in" their work through a series of concise, digestible chapters on the topics of plot, character, tension, dialogue, etc. In her prose, Hansen shows not only what to care about in our writing, but also how and why to care about making "conscious choices" in the long work of wrestling with a manuscript. As micro theories of intelligent, generative orientation to writing, the sections of this book form a refreshing philosophy that leads writers toward stories that are truly "immersive" experiences for readers.
Each section is paired with instructional elements of Hansen's own design that feel fresh and unique. She introduces us, in writing and exquisitely cartoony illustrations, to the "tensometer" and metrics for measuring and assessing the emotional tension of a scene. Hansen's sections on plot are peppered with elegant drawings of plot structure, intervening in the overly-simplistic narrative arcs many budding writers might be familiar with.
But Hansen's greatest achievement in this book is her invention of focused exercises for putting the ideas of each chapter into tangible practice. Hansen's prompts are powerful invitations into interrupting the draft in front us and discovering new possibilities by trying alternatives we haven't thought of. Most of these exercises also end with a list of reflective questions about the results of the exercise, prompting us to not only try new things, but also evaluate what these new things accomplish for a work-in-progress.
In reviewing Unputdownable, I found myself applying Hansen's exercises to my own current manuscript and found exciting new directions for revision going forward. Especially in a dynamic and growing self-publishing environment, Unputdownable is an indispensable guidebook to writing and editing our work with intention, bravery, and an openness to possibility.