The Emotional Craft of Fiction and Why It's Important.

Donald Maass, who has in the past authored a number of widely praised how-to-write-fiction books, in his newest work says that writing novels isn't about showing or telling per se; also that it's about much more than simply describing what your characters are going through.

Rather, he writes in his book The Emotional Craft of Fiction that it's about asking, "How can I encourage my readers to go on emotional journeys of their own?" That's Maass's thesis, that if as an author you encourage readers to go on these emotional journeys of their own, you will connect with them at a deeper emotional level; the novels you write will be more readable, memorable, accessible and important to them.

In this blog issue I review The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface by Donald Maass, Writer's Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2016.

Donald Maass states, and I believe he's correct, most readers believe that when they read an engrossing novel, they are living out the story at the same time as the characters in the novel are. But, observes Maass, what is actually going on is this: As readers become engrossed in a novel, they may be weaving their own personal experience into a story that, as they read on farther, becomes more and more personally meaningful to them. Although what they experience is extremely involving to them, he writes that what they get out of it may have little to do with the novel they're reading.

If you accept Maass's view of how great novels work, you might come around to his belief that writing a best-selling novel may not be about writing stories readers want to read, per se; instead, it may be about writing the stories in such a way that they open a floodgate of emotions for readers which, in turn, makes it exceedingly easy for them to embark on their own personal journeys as they're reading. And again, it's important to note Maass's belief that the personal journey the reader goes on may not have that much to do with the book that prompted them to go on that emotional journey.

As Maass expresses it: "The purpose of this book is to delve into the ways and means of creating a powerful emotional experience for readers as they read."

Maass mentions the enduring power of classic novels to involve readers and cause them to gain potentially life-changing experiences and wisdom: "When a plot [of a classic novel] resolves, readers are satisfied, but what they remember is what they felt while reading it. Hooks may hook, twists may intrigue, tension may turn pages, and prose may dazzle, but all of those effects fade as quickly as fireworks in a night sky. Ask readers what they [most vividly] remember about novels; most will say the characters, but is that accurate? It's true that characters become real to us but that is [only] because of what they cause us to feel. Characters aren't actually real; only our feelings are.

According to Maass, "Emotional impact is not an extra. It's as fundamental to a novel's purpose and structure as its plot. The emotional craft of fiction underlies the creation of character arcs, plot turns, beginnings, midpoints, endings, and strong scenes. It is the basis of voice." It's everything, in other words.

He continues, "Mastering the emotional craft of fiction starts with understanding how emotional impact is produced and then applying that in practice. It isn't magic, but the results will feel magical."

Maass realized that there was a need for his book when he "realized that in reading many manuscripts and also published novels, I was feeling little. The high action of best-selling thrillers often left me cold. Romance and women's fiction wallowed in feelings but frequently left me feeling indifferent. Literary fiction can be the driest reading experience of all. Beautiful writing may sparkle like a diamond necklace, but sparkling isn't a feeling. The greatest wish of editors today is a strong voice, and that's fine but even strong voices can fail to reach my heart. Strong writing doesn't automatically produce strong feelings. Paradoxically, poorly written novels can sometimes unsettle me, stir me to anger or send me reaching for a tissue. I want to feel more as I read. Don't you? That's why this book and the methods [described] herein matter."

In addition to this introductory essay, I'll be writing individual essays about each aspect Maass focuses on in this landmark work:

How to stir more meaningful emotions and elevate the moral stakes of any story;

How to create story arcs that impress readers as more authentic and meaningful because they illicit stronger emotions;

How to infuse the plots of your stories with additional emotional power;

How to think about the emotional journey your reader is on to increase the overall impact of your works.

And how to think more effectively about the emotional journey that you as the author of the work are inevitably on as you write your novel.

Unpacking this single book over the next six months: That is how important I believe Maass's book is.

Together, let's explore The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface.

How to Make Readers Fall in Love with your Novel.

Everything about Donna Tart's wonderfully readable novel, The Goldfinch, is designed to rivet your attention and break your heart. Early on in the story, Theo a 13-year old boy loses his mother in a terrorist bombing. Even before the start of the story, Theo's father, an uncaring alcoholic, has abandoned his family. Theo's mother was his only rock and heroine until she died. Now Theo is adrift, an orphan temporarily living with a wealthy, successful family because one of their children was a school friend of Theo's years earlier.

Theo is suddenly outside looking in at a privileged childhood that once was his before his father left; he's in a state of grief over that but, of course, primarily over losing his mother.

Theo's school friends in their blundering, haphazard, 13-year-old ways (our adult ways are not that much more sensitive) express their sorrow for his loss, but that only makes the pain more excruciating for Theo and, frankly, for us, the readers of this fine novel.

In the following passage, tell me if you don't agree that the subtext crackles with emotion. Here, Andy, one of Theo's friends, in trying to sympathize with his plight; but it only causes we readers to care about Theo and what will become of him all the more. (And don't you agree that this dialogue sounds true to how 13-year-olds talk to each other?)

"She was awfully nice," he said without looking at me.

"Yeah, well," I muttered, not anxious to continue the conversation.

"I mean, I miss her," Andy said, meeting my eye with a sort of half-terrified look.

I said nothing. Young, playful, fun loving, affectionate, she had been everything [that] Andy's own mother wasn't. [A passage follows here filled with wonderful, loving things Theo's mother did to help draw out the shy boy Andy was. And then Andy himself adds another.]

"Do you remember when she took us on the bus to that horror-fan convention way out in New Jersey."

He meant well, I knew. But it was almost unbearable for me to talk about anything to do with my mother, or Before, and I turned my head away.

  Let's unpack this passage: The nicer Andy makes Theo's mom out to be, the more Andy misses her, and the more poignantly and directly we feel Theo's loss; at the same time the more hooked we are on reading The Goldfinch and rapidly turning the pages of this fine novel. That's how page-turners work.

[Note: This blog entry continues my review of The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface by Donald Maass, Writer's Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2016.]

And that's the whole point Donald Maass is making in his book about how to get emotions flowing in works of fiction. When it's done well, novelists and their works are ascendant, rising to the top of the best-seller charts. When it's not done well, books wind up on the remainder table.

In Maass's own words: "Emotional impact is not an extra. It's as fundamental to a novel's purpose and structure as its plot. The emotional craft of fiction underlies the creation of character arcs, plot turns, beginnings, midpoints endings, and strong scenes. It is the basis of voice."

It's everything, in other words.

And yet at the same time Maass is the first to say that in his opinion most novels are devoid of real emotion.

Maass starts out by explaining that there are three ways an author can handle emotions: 1) by telling (letting characters talk about the emotions they're feeling); 2) by showing (letting the reader intuit the emotions that must be going on inside the character's head based on his or her actions); or 3) by employing "another" mode that includes a conversation that goes on between the reader and the author about what emotions a character is feeling.

Then he posits his main theses by asking, "What is actually happening inside readers as they read? Each reader has a unique emotional response to a story. It's unpredictable," but he adds, "research shows us that consumers of entertainment are seeking more than anything to have an experience." "Research shows this: Readers expect their experience to be a positive one."

He goes on to write, "Entertainment works best when it presents consumers with novelty, challenge." This is central to Maass's thesis: "The emotional wallop of a story is created by its totality. Readers experience that wallop when they must not just form an opinion about the story, but when they must study, question and form an opinion about themselves. Simply put, they want, they must take an emotional journey."

In talking about the emotional world readers enter as they begin reading any novel, Maass insists, "We experience everything in our lives as feelings. It's funny then that so much fiction is written to minimize feelings or leave them out altogether. It's as if emotions are not a fit subject or writing about them is too simplistic. Even fiction that celebrates feelings can sometimes work with only a limited and familiar palette. We can wallow in emotional content yet feel curiously empty. It doesn't have to be that way," writes Maass. "The emotional experience of a story both for characters and readers can be far richer than it often is. When the mandate is to keep things visual, exciting, external and changing, how are you supposed to spend page-time on what is amorphous internal, reflective and static. Emotions aren't story. (My emphasis.)

Maass goes on to write inspiringly: "Despite that, great storytellers are able to make emotions as compelling as anything else on the page. They make the emotional life of characters the focus rather than the sideshow. They make familiar emotions fresh and small feelings large. They immerse us in the emotional worlds of characters. They stir the high human emotions that make stories memorable."

Some ways to accomplish that, writes Maass, is to write what he calls "Me-Centered Narration," that allows a first-person character to declare what he or she is all about with the edgy notion that this opinion may later turn out to be unreliable. An example of this technique: Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl.

Another approach is to purposely write about small, off-beat emotions instead of focusing on large, mainstream and standard emotions one usually runs across in most fiction. 

For example, in my novel, Charging the Jaguar, one of my adult characters determines he must climb a tree in order to save his life. There are many typical emotions I could have had my character feel, for example that he'll fall out of the tree and injure himself or die. But I take it in another direction: This character realizes that he hasn't climbed a tree since he was eleven years old. So first he must deal with the notion that although climbing trees might be childish, in this case, as an adult, he's climbing this tree to save his life, and, in a strange way, to grow up. As Maass contends, "small emotions equal a large experience."

A third way of magnifying the emotions and getting the reader to identify with the character is to have the character perform small but important good deeds that set him apart. Maass calls this "raising the moral stakes."

On page one of my novel, I let the reader discover that my principal character has taken in a feral cat to save the cat from large-cat predators, Jaguars and Mountain Lions, that live in the mountains above a small Colombian village. It's a minor thing, right? It hardly deserves mention. Only because it's the very first thing you learn about my character on page one of the novel it takes on added importance and subtly tilts the entire novel in the direction of always asking, "What is the right thing to do?"

Next month: How create a character so that his or her personality shines through, allowing the reader to feel he or she knows the character intimately.