Spannung - der Unterleib der Literatur

Hans Peter Roentgen, a longtime writing coach and coordinator of the self-publishing working group within Germany's association of freelance editors and proofreaders (VFLL), distills the craft of narrative tension in "Spannung - der Unterleib der Literatur" ("Suspense - The Underbelly of Literature"). The book examines the tension techniques used by successful authors such as Zoé Beck, Rebecca Gablé, and Nika Lubitsch, offering concrete methods for building and sustaining suspense across a manuscript.

It includes checklists for reviewing a text's tension, interviews with bestselling authors including Andreas Eschbach, and a glossary of technical terms writers should know. True to its practice-oriented approach, the guide works through unpublished sample texts to show, concretely, what to improve and how.