Having typed them up for rasfc, I'm going to also put my summary of Chapter 3 of Donald Maass's book Writing the Breakout Novel here. I've put my own comments in italics.

Maass begins by saying, "If there is one single principle that is central to making any story more powerful, it is simply this: Raise the stakes."

He admits this is a hoary old chestnut of a piece of advice but then says:

"Why, then, do so few fiction writers put this principle into effective practice?" ( More behind the cut tag... )

Tags: breaking out, writing reflection
Current Mood: reflective

A thread on rasfc prompted me to post some notes on Donald Maass's book Writing the Breakout Novel. I thought I might as well copy them here too so I have them as a handy reference.

Maass defines a breakout novel as one that suddenly leaps up in sales, compared to the author's previous books. In fact he says that the first novel a writer sells is very rarely a breakout novel, though it can happen. I would define anghara's Secrets of Jin Shei as an excellent example of a breakout novel. ( Notes behind the cut tag... )

Tags: breaking out
Current Mood: explanatory