The Emotional Craft of Fiction

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.