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The Emotional Craft of Fiction

How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface

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Paperback
$19.99 US
5.43"W x 8.42"H x 0.55"D   | 8 oz | 40 per carton
On sale Dec 30, 2016 | 224 Pages | 978-1-4403-4837-2
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.
Donald Maass heads the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York City, which represents more than 150 novelists and sells more than 150 novels every year to publishers in America and overseas. He is a past president of the Association of Authors Representatives, Inc., and is the author of several books. View titles by Donald Maass

About

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.

Author

Donald Maass heads the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York City, which represents more than 150 novelists and sells more than 150 novels every year to publishers in America and overseas. He is a past president of the Association of Authors Representatives, Inc., and is the author of several books. View titles by Donald Maass