How To Write a Page Turner: Craft a Story Your Readers Can't Put Down

by Jordan Rosenfeld

Infuse Your Fiction with the Powerful Tug of Tension!

Tension is the heart of conflict, the backbone of uncertainty, the hallmark of danger. It keeps readers guessing and characters on their toes. When you've got tension in place, stories leave readers breathless and wanting more. When it's missing, scenes feel inconsequential, plots drag, and characters meander.

Learning the craft of writing can sometimes feel like a paint by numbers approach--connect compelling character A to plot event B. To avoid writing that's formulaic, predictable, and slow, How to Write a Page Turner will help you sew the threads of tension tight for an unforgettable story. You'll learn how to:

   • Recognize the essential tension elements of danger, conflict, uncertainty, and withholding, and add them to your fiction
   • Create levels of tension in your characters through flaws, dialogue, power struggles, and more
   • Build tension at energetic markers throughout the plot
   • Use intimate imagery, strong sentences, and well-chosen words to build tension in exposition

While this book walks you through the key areas that need tension building, from character to plot, it also delves deeper, analyzing exceptional examples from contemporary fiction's most gripping page-turners. So as you dive into the inner conflicts of a character's deepest psyche, to the mechanics of how you reveal information to the reader, you'll also discover how to craft a story your readers can't put down!

• ISBN10: 1440354340
• ISBN13: 9781440354342
• Publish Date: 19 March 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: F&W Publications Inc
• Imprint: Writer's Digest Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 240
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781440354342

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

How To Write A Page-Turner is a style manual and tutorial guide for story crafting by Jordan Rosenfeld. Released 19th March 2019 by F + W Media, it's 240 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

Apart from workshops and classroom instruction, there's a dearth of good technical information for the aspiring author. This book looks at different types of tension, how to create and maintain dramatic tension (and how much is enough and not too much), and gives tips and written examples along with the tutorial text.

This -is- a technical writing manual, and will probably have limited interest for people who aren't writers or aspiring writers. The writing examples are clearly written and the sections encourage the reader to use the lessons on their own characters and plots. The author also cleverly uses actual excerpts from illustrative passages from other works of fiction (credited of course) to illustrate the points she's making. I was interested enough in some of the works she quotes with which I was previously unfamiliar to go and follow them up.

This is a useful guide. Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes