Mastering Suspense, Structure, and Plot: How to Write Gripping Stories That Keep Readers on the Edge of Their Seats
This nonfiction title offers a practical guide to suspense, structure, and plotting for writers. Through case studies and exercises, it lays out concrete ways to make a story tighter and more compelling.
Work Information
A practical blueprint for making stories stronger.
The book explains suspense techniques that work across genres through concrete examples and exercises. From the writer’s side of the page, it shows how to keep readers’ attention fixed on the story.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Penguin Publishing Group
- Published
- 2016-04-28
- Pages
- 240 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 14 x 1.5 x 21.3 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781599639673
- ISBN-10
- 159963967X
- Price
- 3309 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Education & Reference/Writing, Research & Publishing Guides/Publishing & Books/Authorship
Enthrall Your Readers! Suspense is one of the most powerful tools a writer has for captivating readers--but it isn't just for thrillers. From mainstream fiction to memoir, suspense creates the emotional tension that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. Mastering Suspense, Structure, & Plot is your hands-on guide to weaving suspense into your narrative. Award-winning author Jane K. Cleland teaches you how to navigate genre conventions, write for your audience, and build gripping tension to craft an irresistible page-turner. Inside, Cleland will show you how to: • Implement thirteen no-fail techniques to construct an effective plot and structure for your story • Use Cleland's Plotting Road Map to add elements of suspense like twists, reversals, and moments of danger • Write subplots with purpose • Improve your descriptions, character development, sentence structure, and more Packed with case studies, exercises, and dozens of examples from best-selling authors, Mastering Suspense, Structure, & Plot is the key to writing suspenseful, engaging stories that leave your readers wanting more. ------ "Indispensable! For newbie authors and veterans alike, this terrific how-to is your new go-to. Don't write your book without it--it's a treasure." -- Hank Phillippi Ryan , Agatha, Anthony, Macavity and Mary Higgins Clark award-winning author
Reviews
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I’m working on a mystery and this book has been packed with useful ideas and helpful exercises. A must have for writers of crime fiction and suspense.
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I can't wait to edit my latest thriller after reading this! There's advice from everything to word choice to sentence structure to plotting methods and techniques for ramping up the tension. I especially like the list of distancing verbs! Practical advice with great exercises and examples in every chapter.
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Essential for everyone who wants to be a writer.
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great
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What can I say, this book is veeery helpful. Some of the advice wasn't too new to me, for I charged through countless blogs, Authortube channels and other books beforehand, but still, this book contains such useful information that I haven't read anywhere else and sometimes I sat there like "Ohhhh. Noice." It presents very useful frameworks like the Plotting Road Map and interesting "KPIs" like the average word count per sentence for pacing coordination. And a ton of good techniques on implementing suspense through various "channels". All in all, I really recommend it, if you are interested in the big and smaller bits of plot and suspense implementation as well as writing.
Related Literary Awards
- Agatha Awards Edition 29 (2016) ・Winner