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.
This book takes writers through a series of exercises designed to encourage you to go deeper into your stories and creating emotionally engaging writing.
Goodreads Review:
The JLM Book Club reviewed this book in October 2022. We found the book filled with useful details and good examples, but this book is not one for newer writers.
The material presented in this book is intensive, and the layout is not designed for you to dip in and out. Take notes as you read, creating your own crib sheet for the information you've gleaned from the book.
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.