The Fire in Fiction
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Something similar is true of a great many unpublished manuscripts.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 are unoriginal. They don’t grip the imagination, let alone the heart. They merit only a shrug and a polite dismissal by agents and editors. It’s almost as if the author is afraid to truly commit to the story.
It doesn’t have to be that way. In The Fire in the 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.
The author also includes story-enriching exercises at the end of each chapter in the book to show you how apply the practical tools just covered to your own work. He even uses examples from contemporary novels such as A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Lake House, Water for Elephants, and Jennifer Government to illustrate how various techniques work in actual stories.
Plus, he 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!
