Novelist includes arresting incident in printed version (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
hard copy
'printed version' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'novelist includes arresting incident' is the wordplay.
'novelist' becomes 'Hardy' (Hardy is a novelist).
'includes' indicates putting letters inside.
'arresting incident' becomes 'cop' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'hardy' enclosing 'cop' is 'HARD COPY'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hard copy that I've seen before include "print" , "Text that is typed or printed on paper" , "Computer output printed on paper" , "PC paper?" , "Computerised data that's been printed out" .)