Take Off Your Pants!

By: Libbie Hawker

Narrated by: Nathan Agin

Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

When it comes to writing books, are you a "plotter" or a "pantser"? Is one method really better than the other?

In this instructional book, author Libbie Hawker explains the benefits and technique of planning a story before you begin to write. She'll show you how to develop a foolproof character arc and plot, how to pace any book for a can't-put-down reading experience, and how to ensure that your stories are complete and satisfying without wasting any time or words. Hawker's outlining technique works no matter what genre you write, and no matter the age of your audience. If you want to improve writing speed, increase your backlist, and ensure a quality book before you even write the first word, this is the how-to book for you.

Take off your pants! It's time to start outlining.

©2016 Libbie Hawker (P)2017 Libbie Hawker

Love the Book. Hate the Narration

What did you like best about Take Off Your Pants!? What did you like least?

It is short, sweet, and to the point. It explains outlining in a clear and concise way. A very valuable instructional book on writing.

What other book might you compare Take Off Your Pants! to and why?

Write Your Book From the Middle, James Scott BellStory Genius, Lisa CronRock Your Plot, Cathy Yardley

How could the performance have been better?

I would have given the narration a 5 star review for the voice and reading style.The mispronounciations of the oft-repeated title, "Lolita," and the first name of the author of that title, "Vladimir," killed it for me. Can't listen.

Did Take Off Your Pants! inspire you to do anything?

Yes. It makes me want to be better at outlining.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Please re-record with someone who can pronounce Lolita!

He says it so many times. Does anyone listen back before these go out?
Content is good though. Might look for a paper copy.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Great Writing Book

Loved it. The audio though misread Lolita's name as Laatida. I had no clue the book she was writing about until I looked at my place in the Ebook. Low-li-ta. Cracked me up after I figured out what he was saying.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Narrator can't pronounce common words

The info in this book is fine. It's not groundbreaking, but it may provide you with a few new angles. However, the audio was clearly never edited. The narrator mispronounces the classic book "Lolita" over and over and over... He also mispronounces the author's first name. Who doesn't know how to say Vladimir? I think the narrator must be a robot. Not a single real human listened to the audio before publishing. Unbearable.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Loved it!

I love the narration although in previous comments and feedback the narrator did mispronounce "Lolita" but since I read the book and followed up with the audiobook I really didn't have an issue with it. although the mispronunciation of the name I found the narration to be quite helpful and helping me reinforce what I read. this was a great audiobook and the physical copy was great helping me reinforce how to outline my future novels.

Narration ruined this book

The narrator reads too slowly, and mispronounces several words. After the tenth time he butchered Lolita, I had to stop listening because it was too distracting. Wish I could have my money back so I could still support the author and purchase the printed version.

Great advice!

I had just finished reading Truby's book "The Anatomy of Story" when I purchased Libbie's book. I was very pleased to hear her mention it a few times, as it was definitely the best book I've read on story building. But "Take off your pants" complements it in a great way because it gives you the most important aspects to focus on in a nutshell. It's very actionable and inspiring as well.

So annoying!

It took a looooooooong and boring time to get to her outlining system. So much repetition in the first chapters, she repeated the same things, yes, she said the same thing in different ways many, many times. I want this book to be of some value to me, I really do. My outlining system doesn't work well and pantsing doesn't work at all when I get blocked. I didn't mind that Hawker says, maybe to be funny, that plotting is better than pantsing. That's just one of the early examples of things that annoyed me. I go through non-fiction books with no issues, but this time, it's the way the book is written that makes it difficult for me to keep listening. I get annoyed to her "witty" comments every few minutes.

I heard other books narrated by Agin, but his pronunciation of "Lolita" was distracting, and not in a good way.

Halfway through now. I'm gritting my teeth to go through it because it seems to be useful. If I find it useful, I'll come back to give it more stars. As things go, it might be one of the rare cases of DNF books.

Sloppy, Amateurish Writing

This is an excellent example of quantity over quality. The author claims to have written twenty novels, but if they’re written anything like this book, then she’s written twenty, awful collections of garbles.

What a mess.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Clear and fresh approach to writing and outlining

Libby does a great job of detailing how to write your first book. She is very thorough and takes you step-by-step through the process.The reader will find plenty of content in her writing and a great sense of humor with her delivery. I’m ready to take off my pants!

Brilliant for new and old writers

This is a v simple accessible unpretentious explanation of how to write a novel. I sometimes found the reading of it a bit stiff but he was amiable and it flowed very well

Great ideas

A step by step guide for plotting your novel. I read it at one sitting and took notes as we went. Can't wait to try it out - this will certainly become one of my go to author tools.

I was a little confused towards the end regarding plotting but plan to read it again.

A simple basic way to write

This is an adequate book for those who have not read other books on structure. Its simple outline is marred by the narrator's extremely strange pronunciation of words - particularly mutilating the author Vladimir Nabokov's name and rather infuriatingly insisting on pronouncing Loilta as Low-leee-taaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Very annoying! Especially as this reference is used throughout the book.

Terrible narration -

It's only a short audiobook, but even so, I couldn't even get half way through this due to the narration - the repeated pronunciation (as others have commented) of "Lolita" or "Lolly-tar" as pronounced by the narrator (among other things) was just too unbearable to continue!

I believe the book will be extremely useful, and so I am going to buy the hard copy version instead.