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April 27, 2011

Donald Maass; How Good Writers Can Write Better

By Rob Kall

Don Maass heads a literary agency and is, in the world of fiction, a rock star among writers, for his books on Breakout Novels and Breakout Novellists. We talk about writing better stories, better characters, how that can be used for change, for reporting non-fiction, for energizing op-eds.

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Donald Maass directs the Maass Literary Agency 
He's also written a series of books on the Breakout novel that have made him a rock star among fiction writers. 

After encountering and being wowed by his first book in 2002, I attended one of his workshops earlier this year and realized he'd be a great guest. He lived up to my expectations.


rough notes from the interview:

Fiction's influence is disproportionately large, compared to video games, tv, etc.

Novels have a responsibility to " have an impact on people, even successful fiction. They are the most successful when the author has a point to make, something driving the author to tell a particular story.
Examples:
Like Water for Elephants-- took us deep, deep inside a wo rld of travelling circuses, but it's really a story about human struggle, identity, about animals...

compelling conflicted characters,
constant tension, keeping the reader reading everything on the page.

The thing that makes a book a page turner is an element called microtension-- keeps us wondering...

Create a tension, a narrative, an apprehension that causes us to go forward to find out what...

Good newscasting

Raise the stakes for character-- make the problem matter more.

Bottom up. Fiction is powerful when it comes from a place deep inside...

Novels are built out of scenes-- discrete units of time. Most scenes have settings... Many beginning novelists describe the scene-- old writing advice--describe with five senses. But flat description doesn't do much.  Readers report the stuff the SKIM first is description.

Another way-- how does character FEEL about the scene, the room, how the feelings change through the scene-- work through the psychology of place.

finding the conflicting or contrasting emotion. It's the cognitive dissonance that you create in the reader.

Working with contrasting conflicting emotions creates the tension in reader.

Portray the high and also the moment of panic...

Contrasting

Three levels of story:
Plot: main problem, conflict, need, yearning or goal that drives character from beginning to end of the story. Central problem or conflict.

2=Goal or need that drives a character through a particular moment or scene.  What a character wants to do or avoid.

3- microtension-- friction beteween people, apprehension inside that makes every moment a mini-story.

a certain kind of dis-ease, apprehension or uncertainty. Can be the way words are put together.
it's the interiority of the characters.

Two words that don't go together-- like hysterical peace. That creates cognitive dissonance.

A Reliable Wife  Robert Ulrich  

Politicians are often the go-to villains in thrillers. 50% of the time the villain is a senator.

Bill Clinton as politician when he was governor.

What will make you successul is your stories, nothing else. Make them strong and you can do anything.

What is a strong story?

storytelling is evolving. We have to look at how people are receiving stories--
What works very wellnow is close third person. There is more first person than ever before.

Pace of story is becoming faster. Scenes shorter, events move forward more quickly, less time with each character. Leisurely paced, Thomas Hardy way, is not....

High impact, high emotion while doing so quickly and efficiently.

Our subconscious minds understand and leap forward so much faster than we can express.

Heroes literary agents, storytellers,
British novelist, Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time

What is hero?
Someone who lifts us out of ourselves and shows us a new way of being. Someone who inspires us.

Editing. Some people say that writing is revision and I would agree with that.
Editing is not the same as revision. Revision is pushing your story to new depths and new heights.




Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.


Check out his platform at RobKall.com


He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity


He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com


more detailed bio:


Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.


Rob Kall Wikipedia Page


Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel


Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel


Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.


Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.


To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.


For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.


Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..


To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.


Follow Rob on Twitter & Facebook.


His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.


Join the conversation:


On facebook at Rob Kall's Bottom-up The Connection Revolution


and at Google Groups listserve Bottom-up Top-down conversation





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