Back from a loooong holiday break and finding things to share!
This post from Writer Unboxed plugs Donald Maass’s latest book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction: Writing the Story beneath the Surface. But: a) you may want to know about this book, and b) the included interview is worth reading in itself. I’ve been sharing with some of my Internet Writing Worship cronies some thoughts about that “story beneath the surface” that strokes in depths beyond simply solving a problem, depths that help us think about what the real problems are. This concept is similar to what M.Dellert calls the “plight,” the question behind the plot that the character and the reader must struggle to define together—and often cannot rationally answer. The plight, the story beneath surface, are the forces that shape our human understanding, not just our ability to string cause-and-effect together. It’s been a while since I bought a book on craft, but I just may buy this one. I thought you might like this news.
Just Can't Help Writing 
“Psychological research into that question has surprising answers. For instance, fiction writers assume that readers will feel what their characters do. They don’t. Readers instead react: weighing, judging, comparing and creating, moment by moment, their own emotional journey.”
Interesting comment. As you know, I hold similar beliefs about how a reader experiences environment in a novel. Characters, however well described, tend,to reflect something familiar in the readers mind, Same with environment. Unless a particular scene is so out of the ordinary, or an exacting mind picture is required for the story (exhausting work) it seems to me best to just let the reader do what the reader will do anyway, which is to make the scene conform to the readers own personal experiences.
Fiction writer and neuroscientist Liva Blackburne has a fascinating blog dedicated to the questions of why and how readers react. http://blog.liviablackburne.com/
T Francis Sharp
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Hi! Welcome. Check out Maass’s definition of literary fiction. https://justcanthelpwriting.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/what-is-literary-fiction-donald-maass-has-a-definition/
I return to my favorite quote from Alberto Manguel: “All writing depends on the generosity of the reader.” I would resist the claim that a piece of text can mean ANYTHING a reader wants it to. But the writer can’t even control that extreme reaction. Once a piece of writing is out there, it’s gone.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately, though, about the line between familiar and relevatory. I struggled with that here, for example: https://justcanthelpwriting.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/world-buiding-not-just-for-fantasy-or-scifi/ As you can see, the topic didn’t trigger much response.
Seems too many writers settle for offering me the familiar, when what I want is the familiar tinged with the strange. Delicate mix.
I haven’t been doing a lot of original posts recently, but I’ve also not been finding a lot that seems worth reblogging. Lot of same-old out there. I’ve been too caught up in my own futile efforts to control readers to do much of the meta stuff of the blog, I guess.
Thanks for stopping by!
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Oh, and I found Liva Blackburne a while back, but haven’t followed her closely enough since. Need to check back in.
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