The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass

The Emotional Craft of Fiction

How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface

Donald Maass

Penguin Publishing Group · Print & ebook · December 30, 2016

The essential guide to evoking emotional experiences in your readers Writers might disagree over showing versus telling or plotting versus pantsing, but none would argue this: If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel.

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Who it’s for
Explore how craft choices can turn fiction from something readers follow into something they feel.
Themes
Emotional storytelling, Fiction-writing craft, Moral stakes in stories
Genres
Fiction Writing, Writing as a Career, Unlocking Creativity

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About this book

The essential guide to evoking emotional experiences in your readers Writers might disagree over showing versus telling or plotting versus pantsing, but none would argue this: If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel. Veteran literary agent and expert fiction instructor Donald Maass shows you how to use story to provoke a visceral and emotional experience in readers.

Continue reading

You'll learn: • 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.

Make Stories Felt

Explore how craft choices can turn fiction from something readers follow into something they feel.

Come here for

  • A closer look at emotional stakes, story worlds, and inner journeys
  • Ways to think beyond the show-versus-tell divide

Expect

  • A focused guide to the emotional craft of fiction
  • Attention to symbols, change, and the hidden current that moves a story

Where it sits

Fiction Writing99%
Unlocking Creativity43%
Writing as a Career26%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Writing as a Career
  • Creative Writing
  • Writing Composition
Authors
Donald Maass
Publisher
Penguin Publishing Group
Published
December 30, 2016
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
Emotional storytelling · Fiction-writing craft · Moral stakes in stories
Reading lane
Writing as a Career