The Emotional Craft of Fiction cover art

The Emotional Craft of Fiction

How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface

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The Emotional Craft of Fiction

By: Donald Maass
Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
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About this listen

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

● Connecting the inner and outer journeys and much more

Readers can simply read a novel...or they can experience it. The Emotional Craft of Fiction shows you how to make that happen.

©2016 Donald Maass (P)2020 Tantor Words, Language & Grammar Writing & Publishing Fiction Funny Emotional Craft

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All stars
Most relevant  
Enriched me with few new (to me) facts about book writing. Examples might be boring and excerpts too long, but I guess that is the way of explanation.

Clear explanation

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Thank you for writing this book it is inspiring and gives helpfull and practical insight you have changed my way of writing novels

Amazing book

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A very helpful book on how to write stories and characters that readers care about.

Excellent advice

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I bought this as a paperback, then used the audiobook as a refresher. It seems to flow better as an audiobook although that may be just because I had already had the benefit of the written version.
Still, a good listen and let's face it, who wouldn't take the advice of such a respected agent as Donald Maass

better than the print version

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This book was so helpful. A little long-winded sometimes but am really glad I got it. I have a much better understanding of how to write emotions well now!

Great purchase!

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strong points, sometimes lenghty but never overwrought. narration a bit quiet, but on point.

a deeper pevel of engagement

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I was very close to returning this at the beginning - it felt like one of those annoying self-help type novels with its checklists at the end of every chapter and almost too-positive tone (think, 'this is a tool that will help you write a book to sell millions of copies with a movie deal!'). At first, a lot of the advice also seems pretty obvious - create likeable characters, brilliant. However, I was patient with it and my mind has been changed. I do think this is a really useful book for anyone looking to write fiction.

A few chapters in I realised that the advice and examples were actually really really useful. Although the over-emphasis on emotion as this 'silver bullet of fiction' is cheesy and over-the-top, after listening to the whole thing and thinking about it when I read other fiction I've realised that there are some really key insights here. There were a lot of things I had never considered (when should you 'show' versus 'tell' your reader your character's emotion?) but even some of the seemingly obvious tips (give characters emotional stakes) were really helpful. You think about them in a more deeply. There are a LOT of examples from other fiction used here, I found these the most helpful. I went back and actually read books from a lot of the examples cited here and find that they were good inspiration to draw from. These insights are not only really important for writing good fiction (I agree with this author that without incorporating good emotion it's impossible to write a story people will care about) but also the kinds of things I haven't really read in other books about writing.

In summary, if you think it's sounding a little cheesy and silly - I'm with you here. However, I genuinely think there are some really helpful insights in chapters throughout this book that you can take away from this and I do recommend it for anyone looking to write good fiction.

Very useful for fiction writers

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The tips were pretty good, but sometimes too many and too long examples were quoted.
A good chunk of the could have been cut in my oppinion.

Pretty good, but has some unnecessary weight

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A fantastic exploration of what moves readers and why simply describing feels does not provoke them. Full of wonderful examples of well written prose and examination of why they work. Your writing cannot fail to improve after listening to this book. Read in a soothing and easy to listen voice.

Pearls of wisdom

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