24th August 2016 | for Creatives | characters, novel writing, writing, reaching your audience, Donald Maass |
"Ask readers what they love about great novels and most often they mention great characters."
"To infuse a novel with a significance that speaks to many requires, paradoxically, that you ignore what the public wants and focus instead on what matters to you."
"Male writers with female readers also feature strong female characters in their novels."
What is success in the 21st century? It's novels that invent their own unique form, spring from a personal place, enact a passionate intent, and prove it by reaching a broad readership. It's both great reviews and great sales. It's moving hearts and changing minds. It's winning accolades and winning the devotion of readers. It's finding a way through your fiction to convey what you alone see, yet we all come to accept as the truth.
"I believe in sending characters down fearful paths. Stories pushed beyond the limits of comfort stick in readers' imaginations."
"Give them a character they love. You have to have a character that people empathize with. And then you have to have one of those moments of universal emotion." (on the key to great story that gets people talking)
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