Literary agent and novel guru Donald Maas spent time with writers in San Antonio last week (May 2015) counseling, critiquing and instructing for the Writers’ Retreat Workshop. It’s a fun, but intense week, for Fictionistas. Since video is what I do when I’m not involved in literary malfeasance, I decided to put together this clip about the retreat with the one, overriding take-away from Donald’s workshop.
It’s all about making your readers feel.
The thought about how the art of fiction is all about what you make your readers feel struck a chord with me. And Donald wrote about it as the key to creating The Great American Novel that truly is great, in his book Writing 21st Century Fiction.
As for writing Bad Fiction, at least that one bad opening sentence for the Bulwer-Lytton Contest:
With her interest in dime-store novels finally fading and Christmas just days away, little LIzzy Borden sat quietly in the corner and crossed “tomahawk” off her Christmas list, writing instead the word AXE, carefully in her best penmanship, which made her mother and father so proud.