4.0
The Fire in Fiction
ByPublisher Description
Discover the Difference Between a So-So Manuscript and a Novel Readers Can't Forget
We've all read them: novels by our favorite authors that disappoint. Uninspired and lifeless, we wonder what happened. Was the author in a hurry? Did she have a bad year? Has he lost interest altogether?
Something similar is true of a great many unpublished manuscripts. They are okay stories that never take flight. They don't grip the imagination, let alone the heart. They merit only a shrug and a polite dismissal by agents and editors.
It doesn't have to be that way. In The Fire in Fiction, successful literary agent and author Donald Maass shows you not only how to infuse your story with deep conviction and fiery passion, but how to do it over and over again. The book features:
• Techniques for capturing a special time and place, creating characters whose lives matter, nailing multiple-impact plot turns, making the supernatural real, infusing issues into fiction, and more.
• Story-enriching exercises at the end of every chapter to show you how to apply the practical tools just covered to your own work.
• Rich examples drawn from contemporary novels as diverse as The Lake House, Water for Elephants, and Jennifer Government to illustrate how various techniques work in actual stories.
Plus, Maass introduces an original technique that any novelist can use any time, in any scene, in any novel, even on the most uninspired day...to take the most powerful experiences from your personal life and turn those experiences directly into powerful fiction.
Tap into The Fire in Fiction, and supercharge your story with originality and spark!
We've all read them: novels by our favorite authors that disappoint. Uninspired and lifeless, we wonder what happened. Was the author in a hurry? Did she have a bad year? Has he lost interest altogether?
Something similar is true of a great many unpublished manuscripts. They are okay stories that never take flight. They don't grip the imagination, let alone the heart. They merit only a shrug and a polite dismissal by agents and editors.
It doesn't have to be that way. In The Fire in Fiction, successful literary agent and author Donald Maass shows you not only how to infuse your story with deep conviction and fiery passion, but how to do it over and over again. The book features:
• Techniques for capturing a special time and place, creating characters whose lives matter, nailing multiple-impact plot turns, making the supernatural real, infusing issues into fiction, and more.
• Story-enriching exercises at the end of every chapter to show you how to apply the practical tools just covered to your own work.
• Rich examples drawn from contemporary novels as diverse as The Lake House, Water for Elephants, and Jennifer Government to illustrate how various techniques work in actual stories.
Plus, Maass introduces an original technique that any novelist can use any time, in any scene, in any novel, even on the most uninspired day...to take the most powerful experiences from your personal life and turn those experiences directly into powerful fiction.
Tap into The Fire in Fiction, and supercharge your story with originality and spark!
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities20 Reviews
4.0
Lindsay McDaniels
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Samantha Post
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mackreadsalot
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Chrisanne
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Angela Boord
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“I gave this book 3 stars the first time I read it, way back in 2015 when I was still just trying to finish a book from rough draft through revision to publication. I had made it through the rough draft stage, but I had still not figured out how to revise a book. Back then, I liked his Donald Maass's other books better: Writing the Breakout Novel, and later--his other newer book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction.
Fast forward to today, after I've published a couple of books and am in the process of getting another one ready to go. I was stuck on a thorny problem about a POV that has nettled me throughout the process of writing this book. The book I'm writing is getting closer to the final stages of edits and revisions, and yet I'm still wrestling with this particular character. For what feels like the millionth time, I considered just cutting her out and doing the hard work of revising the draft to account for her absence. And for the millionth time, I couldn't pull the trigger. At a loss of how to decide, I pulled The Fire in Fiction off my shelf.
It turned out to be exactly what I needed to use as a troubleshooting guide. There are probably better books out there if you're getting started drafting a novel, but if you're thick in the trenches of revision, this book is a godsend. It's easy to read, its chapters are broken up according to trouble spots, and it offers exercises you can use on already written manuscripts to break them down and build them up again, better. The book really hammers home the point that compelling fiction comes down to filtering plot and setting *through* the interior emotional life of the characters and building up internal conflict in order to make external action exciting. Maass relies heavily on thrillers and mysteries for his examples, but a few fantasy novels make an appearance, too.
If you, like me, find yourself with a story that needs whipped into shape but you're not exactly sure how... this book is well worth having around.”
About Donald Maass
Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York, which he founded in 1980. He represents more than 100 fiction writers and sells more than 100 novels per year to top publishers in America and overseas. He is himself the author of fourteen pseudonymous novels and of the books The Career Novelist (Heineman, 1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (Writer's Digest Books, 2001) and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (Writer's Digest Books, 2004). He is a past president of the Association of Authors' Representatives, Inc. (AAR). Don tours the country giving one-day workshops based on his popular book, Writing the Breakout Novel.
www.maassagency.com
www.maassagency.com
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