Writing 21st Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling Kindle Edition

I’m only one-fifth of the way into this book but I’m not going to finish reading it. I understand that Maas is a big-deal literary agent and I have no doubt he knows what he is talking about. But the books he describes as examples of great 21st century writing sound terrible to me. Maas would have me write the type of book I would never want to read and certainly never want to write. I would rather toil in obscurity and self-publish novels than turn myself into a hack who writes what Maas describes as the future of the publishing industry.For the uninitiated, let me explain what the term “literary fiction” means. It refers to a type of pretentious, self-indulgent fiction that can only be written by someone holding an MFA. That’s right. The literary agents who are the gatekeepers of this twaddle actually require the authors who write it to have an MFA degree, or their fiction won’t be considered for publication. No matter how good it is. Why would I want to turn my work into a literary fiction hybrid?There are some useful takeaways here. Give your characters more emotional depth. Thank you, Donald, I will. But I’m not buying into this 21st century nonsense. This is a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Donald Maass’ book Writing 21st Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling is my favorite how-to book for writers.Maass take both a common sense and analytical approach to evaluating 21st century fiction. He points out that novels have also evolved to meet the needs and wants of readers, and successful writers understand this.“High-impact comes from a combination of two factors: great stories and beautiful writing . . . The publishing industry has a convenient term for these wonder books: literary/commercial fiction.” (2-3)Maass argues that successful 21st century novels are high-impact novels. They appeal to the masses and cross over from genre or literary fiction to the bestseller lists.What they have in common is that like genre fiction, they tell great stories, and like literary fiction, they are beautifully written and explore character.He also says, “[High-impact] panders to no one. It speaks to everyone.” Sounds like good news for writers!“Commercial and literary successes are the result of hard work, instinct, study, and the honing of craft. They are not mutually exclusive . . . strong storytelling and beautiful writing are the twin elements that make a big lasting impression on readers.” (208-09)His chapters give writers the tools for hard work, study, and honing your craft.Here’s a breakdown of the chapters:Chapters 1 & 2: Current trends and rising above a category.Chapters 3 & 4: The writer’s inner and outer journeys.Chapter 5: Standout Character; this is an excellent chapter.Chapter 6: Three levels of story; his breakdown of scene writing is impressive.Chapter 7: Beautiful Prose; this chapter highlights high-impact novels by showing the relationship between great plots and beautiful writing.Chapter 8: The writer and the process; he comes full circle and turns to earlier discussions to bring his points together.Chapter 9: Element of Awe; he inspires the reader “to make good art” as Neil Gaiman would say.Each chapter ends with “21st Century Tools,” sets of questions related to the chapter and designed to guide a writer through the creative process. As I read, I worked my way through most of the questions, which is the primary reason this book took so long to finish.If you’re the kind of person who is inclined to dismiss the questions and be satisfied with reading the chapter, I would advise against that strategy.I found the questions invaluable. As I explored the questions, I felt as if I were in a workshop. I’m in the middle of revising a novel and took the time to apply the questions to my project. The questions and suggestions were helpful as I revised scenes.Because of my background in teaching, I realize the work and refining that goes into creating questions, which are helpful and practical. Maass’ questions are not busy work. If the results I’ve had working through these questions is any indication, I’d say they are a valuable part of the book.

I had read Donald Maass's previous book Writing the Breakout Novel and expected this to be more of the same. It took things in a new direction and to a new depth. In fact, the thrust of this is that the books that touch us do so by getting us to tap into something deep within us. It is the emotional connection that we remember in a great book long after we've forgotten those with merely quirky characters, funny lines or breathtaking plots. Such writing is not for the timid or rushed.It is poetic that I have finished this book while in the middle of a week long writing workshop taught by Maass. In person, he is even more impressive and his insight more profound while being remarkably approachable and unpretentious.A must read for any serious author. It deserves a re-read.

This volume is a follow-on to Maas's previous works on the requirements of modern fiction. Well written, highly specific, and filled with examples from currently successful authors, this is a useful addition to any writer's 'how-to' library.Maas runs a successful literary agency. He is admittedly sick to death of wading through dull, derivative and badly written manuscripts. The text of each of his chapters are highly useful and will benefit writers of varying experience levels. The thrust of his argument is that modern writers need to break out of the conventions of the fiction of the last twenty years. He feels that these conventions have become straitjackets, particularly for aspiring novelists who think they have to follow rules to be published. In my view, he is entirely correct.The difficulty comes at the end of each chapter. Maas posits '21st Century Tools' to help writers overcome the problems he sees. These tools are good at making the writer think about what he/she is writing, but they are difficult to actually make use of when writing a novel. Example: 'Find a quiet, emotional moment. Is it artfully written, delicate, subtle, nuanced, and precise? Congrats. Make it enormous: a tidal wave, an attack, a life-altering earthquake.' Easy to see what he wants you to consider, but if you do what he says, your writing will no longer be quiet, nuanced, subtle or anything else you intended.Maas makes several good points. In all of his guidelines he emphasizes the need for tension, not just the huge moments when the detective confronts the killer, but throughout the writing. In the past there was a lot of emphasis on detailed description, evocative setting, deep psychological characterization. Maas contends, correctly, that all of these slow the novel's pace unacceptably, and are not actually read by most readers, but are instead skimmed over. If they are not going to read it, why write it?He also encourages writers to take on bigger themes, not to be put off by the idea that you might sound 'preachy' or overly literary. If you have an issue that really gets you going, put it in your story.I think this book might be a bit too advanced for many beginning writers, but for everyone else, it's worthwhile.

I must have read a dozen books on writing and the ones by Donald Maass stand out as being the most inspirational and influential. The author is a literary agent in the US and seems to have his finger on the pulse of what sells and why. It's a unique standpoint, as others in the trade seem unable to define why some novels `break out' and others don't. By `breakout', he means novels by unknown or small-time authors that hit the bestseller lists based largely on word-of-mouth. He has a passion for dissecting the appeal of recent breakout bestsellers and how the rest of us can bring out similar qualities in our own writing.Because he's American, it's based on his experience of the US market but what resonates with fiction readers in the US often follows for the UK. And some of his examples of good writing are from UK authors such as Chris Cleve. If it sounds like the book is just about producing commercial fiction, it's not, it's about making your writing as good as it can be whatever your genre, partly through emotional resonance, which should be relevant to even the most literary of writers. Each chapter finishes with an extensive list of questions and prompts to challenge you to improve your own writing.If you haven't read any of his books, I'd suggest starting with Writing the Breakout Novel, followed by the Breakout Novel Workbook. After that, the law of diminishing returns kicks in but I still found this one very useful to keep the inspiration going. I was going to read The Fire in Fiction but it wasn't available on Kindle so I went for this one instead. As this is his most recent book, it covers more recent examples of breakout novels.Don't read this book if you're looking for a conventional how-to-write guide. But if you have an open mind and are prepared to be challenged to take your writing to the next level, you might want to read everything of his you can get your hands on.

You can tell this man writes with a ton of experience and a deep awareness of what works in the modern world of writing fiction. Tremendously useful for a total newbie like me.

great book - promptly delivered

Auf den Namen des New Yorker Literaturagenten Donald Maass stieß ich vor einiger Zeit bei Twitter. Seine Gastartikel in einem amerikanischen Autoren-Blog machten mich neugierig genug, um in sein Buch reinzuschnuppern – und es hat mich auf Anhieb überzeugt.Was heißt überzeugt, es hat mich fast umgehauen. Das war genau das Buch, das ich seit Jahren gesucht hatte! Endlich ein Schreibratgeber, der sich nicht mit Plattitüden für Anfänger aufhält. Fast höre ich das Aufjaulen im Off: “Geh mir weg mit Schreibratgebern!” – aber das ist in diesem Fall nicht gerechtfertigt.Writing 21st Century Fiction richtet sich an Autoren, die schon lange genug schreiben, um all die üblichen Standardsprüche rückwärts aufsagen zu können, wenn man sie nachts um halb drei wachrüttelt. Und was noch besser ist: Es liefert konkrete, sofort anwendbare Vorschläge, mit denen ein guter Text das besondere Etwas erhält.Donald Maass redet keinem Sicherheitsdenken das Wort, sondern fordert auf, sich mutig über Genre-Grenzen hinwegzusetzen und etwas Neues, Besonderes, Aufsehenerregendes zu schreiben. Ein Buch, das neue Trends setzt, statt ihnen hinterher zu hecheln.Nun ist der Autor kein Verfechter des Self Publishing. Im Gegenteil, für ihn sind Verlage die Torwächter, die das Publikum vor Schund und Schrott bewahren. Diese Meinung muss man nicht teilen, und das tue ich auch nicht. Dennoch haben seine Anwendungsbeispiele und Übungen absoluten Mehrwert für Autoren, die schon alles gelesen zu haben glaubten, was es zum Thema Schreibhandwerk gibt.Einziger Wermutstropfen: Mit 11,07 Euro ist das Kindle-eBook nicht gerade billig. Da lohnt es sich fast schon, stattdessen die Printversion für zurzeit 12,30 Euro zu kaufen (Normalpreis: 16,09 Euro). Ich hatte überlegt, dafür einen Punkt abzuziehen, aber die Vorzüge überwiegen den Nachteil, und Papier macht sich im Buchregal ja auch ganz hübsch.