About

The emotional effect of fiction on readers is a craft.  Based on psychological research and study of what makes novels emotionally gripping, this intensive workshop takes participants beyond showing or telling to create an emotional journey for readers—one unseen but nevertheless deeply felt and ultimately unforgettable.  

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. In his book, 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
  

This is an intensive, hands-on workshop for fiction writers.  Participants should bring a Work In Progress and writing materials.

Presenter bio: A literary agent in New York, Donald Maass’s agency sells more than 150 novels every year to major publishers in the U.S. and overseas.  He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook(2004) and The Fire in Fiction (2009), Writing 21^stCentury Fiction (2012) and The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2016).  He is a past president of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc.