The Emotional Craft Of Fiction

Download or read book The Emotional Craft of Fiction written by Donald Maass and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-12-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engage Your Readers with Emotion While writers might disagree over showing versus telling or plotting versus pantsing, none would argue this: If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel. The reader's experience must be an emotional journey of its own, one as involving as your characters' struggles, discoveries, and triumphs are for you. That's where The Emotional Craft of Fiction comes in. Veteran literary agent and expert fiction instructor Donald Maass shows you how to use story to provoke a visceral and emotional experience in readers. Topics covered include: • emotional modes of writing • beyond showing versus telling • your story's emotional world • moral stakes • connecting the inner and outer journeys • plot as emotional opportunities • invoking higher emotions, symbols, and emotional language • cascading change • story as emotional mirror • positive spirit and magnanimous writing • the hidden current that makes stories move Readers can simply read a novel...or they can experience it. The Emotional Craft of Fiction shows you how to make that happen.

Download or read book The Fire in Fiction written by Donald Maass and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-05-06 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the Difference Between a So-So Manuscript and a Novel Readers Can't Forget We've all read them: novels by our favorite authors that disappoint. Uninspired and lifeless, we wonder what happened. Was the author in a hurry? Did she have a bad year? Has he lost interest altogether? Something similar is true of a great many unpublished manuscripts. They are okay stories that never take flight. They don't grip the imagination, let alone the heart. They merit only a shrug and a polite dismissal by agents and editors. It doesn't have to be that way. In The Fire in Fiction, successful literary agent and author Donald Maass shows you not only how to infuse your story with deep conviction and fiery passion, but how to do it over and over again. The book features: • Techniques for capturing a special time and place, creating characters whose lives matter, nailing multiple-impact plot turns, making the supernatural real, infusing issues into fiction, and more. • Story-enriching exercises at the end of every chapter to show you how to apply the practical tools just covered to your own work. • Rich examples drawn from contemporary novels as diverse as The Lake House, Water for Elephants, and Jennifer Government to illustrate how various techniques work in actual stories. Plus, Maass introduces an original technique that any novelist can use any time, in any scene, in any novel, even on the most uninspired day...to take the most powerful experiences from your personal life and turn those experiences directly into powerful fiction. Tap into The Fire in Fiction, and supercharge your story with originality and spark!

Download or read book Writing 21st Century Fiction written by Donald Maass and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capture the minds, hearts, and imaginations of 21st century readers! Whether you're a commercial storyteller or a literary novelist, whether your goal is to write a best-selling novel or captivate readers with a satisfying, beautifully written story, the key to success is the same: high-impact fiction. Writing 21st Century Fiction will help you write a novel for today's readers and market, filled with rich characters, compelling plots, and resonant themes. Author and literary agent Donald Maass shows you how to: • Create fiction that transcends genre, conjures characters who look and feel more "real" than real people, and shows readers the work around them in new ways. • Infuse every page with an electric current of emotional appeal and micro-tension. • Harness the power of parallels, symbols, metaphors, and more to illuminate your novel in a lasting way. • Develop a personalized method of writing that works for you. With an arsenal of thought-provoking prompts and questions, plus plenty of examples from best-selling titles, Writing 21st Century Fiction will strip away your preconceived notions about writing in today's world and give you the essential tools you need to create fiction that will leave both readers and critics in awe.

Download or read book Writing the Breakout Novel written by Donald Maass and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-08-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take your fiction to the next level! Maybe you're a first-time novelist looking for practical guidance. Maybe you've already been published, but your latest effort is stuck in mid-list limbo. Whatever the case may be, author and literary agent Donald Maass can show you how to take your prose to the next level and write a breakout novel - one that rises out of obscurity and hits the best-seller lists. Maass details the elements that all breakout novels share - regardless of genre - then shows you writing techniques that can make your own books stand out and succeed in a crowded marketplace. You'll learn to: • establish a powerful and sweeping sense of time and place • weave subplots into the main action for a complex, engrossing story • create larger-than-life characters that step right off the page • explore universal themes that will interest a broad audience of readers • sustain a high degree of narrative tension from start to finish • develop an inspired premise that sets your novel apart from the competition Then, using examples from the recent works of several best-selling authors - including novelist Anne Perry - Maass illustrates methods for upping the ante in every aspect of your novel writing. You'll capture the eye of an agent, generate publisher interest and lay the foundation for a promising career.

Download or read book By Cunning and Craft written by Peter Selgin and published by Writer's Digest Books. This book was released on 2007-02-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten Lessons for the Fiction Writer &break;&break;Writing successful fiction is a balance between trusting one's own instincts and making the right conscious choices. In By Cunning & Craft, award-winning novelist and short-story writer Peter Selgin shows you how to combine the instinctive process of creation with sound technical ingenuity. &break;&break;With precise instruction and examples from classic and best-selling works, this authoritative guide helps you master the ten essential fiction-writing elements: inspiration; character; point of view; structure and plot; theme; dialogue; description; scenes, summary, and flashback; voice and style; and revision. &break;&break;Whether you're facing the blank pages of a first draft or trying to revise a completed manuscript, By Cunning & Craft provides you with the guidance you need to outfox common writing pitfalls and make sure your work isn't wanting in wit - or perfection.

Download or read book Writing for Emotional Impact written by Karl Iglesias and published by WingSpan Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karl Iglesias breaks new ground by focusing on the psychology of the reader. Based on his acclaimed classes at UCLA Extension, Writing for Emotional Impact goes beyond the basics and argues that Hollywood is in the emotion-delivery business, selling emotional experiences packaged in movies and TV shows. Iglesias not only encourages you to deliver emotional impact on as many pages as possible, he shows you how, offering hundreds of dramatic techniques to take your writing to the professional level.

Download or read book Writing Fiction written by Janet Burroway and published by Little Brown. This book was released on 1987 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most widely used and respected book on writing fiction, Writing Fiction guides the writer from first inspiration to final revision. Supported by an abundance exercises, this guide/anthology explores and integrates the elements of fiction while offering practical techniques and concrete examples. A focus on the writing process in its entirety provides a comprehensive guide to writing fiction, approaching distinct elements in separate chapters while building on what has been covered earlier. Topics include free-writing to revision, plot, style, characterization, dialogue, atmosphere, imagery, and point of view. An anthology of diverse and contemporary short stories followed by suggestions for discussion and writing exercises, illustrates concepts while offering variety in pacing and exposure to this increasingly popular form. The book also discusses key issues including writing workshops, using autobiography as a basis for fiction, using action in stories, using dialogue, and maintaining point of view. The sixth edition also features more short short stories than any previous edition and includes quotation boxes that offer advice and inspirational words from established writers on a wide range of topics--such as writing from experience, story structure, openings and endings, and revision. For those interested in developing their creative writing skills.