WDB AUTHOR Q&A
Donald Maass
Writing 21st Century Fiction
What are your five favorite books and why?
Here are five favorites that I analyzed in Writing 21st Century Fiction, all of which are great stories that are beautifully written:
Little Bee, Chris Cleave
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jaime Ford
Mystic River, Dennis Lehane
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
What piece of advice have you received over the course of your career that has had the biggest impact on your success?
I had a big revelation when I discovered and named the technique of “micro-tension”, the line-by-line tension that keeps readers turning pages. I hadn’t heard that taught or seen it in how-to-write books, but if there’s any “secret” of success in fiction writing that’s it.
What message do you find yourself repeating over and over to writers?
There are two things that are almost always lacking in manuscripts, even ones we read by published authors: 1) Insufficient reason to immediately care about the main character; 2) lack of micro-tension (see above).
What's the worst kind of mistake that new writers, freelancers, or book authors can make?
Fiction writers rush to query, usually years before their work is truly ready. Why do they do that? A need for validation: I have to know I’m not wasting my time! The learning curve for fiction is long. The journey goes much better when the object is not getting published but rather telling a great story.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Pre-published authors imagine my day is spent reading submissions—I wish! As a literary agent, I’m pitching, marketing, negotiating contracts, selling rights and doing follow up. Not to mention running a busy agency employing five other agents, teaching workshops and writing craft books like Writing 21st Century Fiction.
What’s the one thing in your writing life you can’t live without?
Three things: Coffee bars, my laptop and thesaurus.com.
Name one thing you’d like to see change about the publishing industry.
I’d like to see more excellent bookstores opening.
In what way (if any) has your writing/publishing life changed in the past 5 years?
The arrival of e-books is a huge benefit for book publishing, but it also has created a distracting side show: self-publishing. The fact is that there’s a symbiotic relationship between print book and e-books. “Traditional” publishing is far from dead. Think of it this way: Print editions are vast and highly effective ads for your e-book editions—and someone else is paying for them!
Do you have any advice for new writers on building an audience?
“Platform” is the last thing that fiction writers should be thinking about. First comes writing great novels. They are the best platform of all.
What about advice for writers seeking agents?
Relax, research, query appropriately, keep it short, regard rejection simply as information, work with agents who are members of AAR (Association of Authors Representatives, Inc.).
Any final thoughts?
Writing 21st Century Fiction means writing great stories and writing them beautifully. “Commercial” and “literary” are labels that serve only to polarize writers and put their fiction in boxes. To write powerfully you’ve got to break out of your box. My book shows how it’s done.