What about a novel sweeps us up into its world? What carries us along even when the imperatives of plot are on hold or absent? What makes us ache for something without knowing what it is? What makes us impatient for a story’s resolution at the same time that we want the tale to go on forever? What is it that causes us to feel that a story has touched our souls?
It’s not plot, scene dynamics or micro-tension. It’s not the inner journey. It’s not setting, voice or theme, although those things undeniably affect us. What I’m talking about is a deeper, seemingly mystical force that engages readers in a way they can’t explain and holds them rapt. It’s nothing overtly stated in your pages.
That irresistible, invisible current is a feeling. It’s a feeling that springs from what you wrote (how could it be otherwise) but which readers can only sense. It’s a feeling to which readers do not assign a name. What causes them to feel this feeling is not so much anything that you put into your story as the spirit that underlies it.
That spirit is hope.
Hope is not something easily contained in one story moment. It’s a difficult feeling to deliberately stir in readers, and one that does not lead characters into action. In fact, it’s not really part of the story at all. Rather it’s a longing, an ache, for something unnamed and unobtainable which you, somehow, cause readers to believe is both real and possible.
Hope is anticipation in readers, but it is often mistaken for something else. For example, consider a classic low-grade horror movie scene. You know the one. It’s the scene in which a teenaged boy and girl are walking up to a derelict cabin in the woods at night. The boy is saying, “Come on, Susie, let’s go inside!” Susie says, “Oh, I don’t know, Johnny. That place looks creepy. Can’t we go back to town?”
Johnny talks Susie into going inside, at which point we know these two are too stupid to live and richly deserve what will be done to them by the monster in the leather mask. It’s the expectation of the gore to come that causes us anxiety, right? Well, maybe. But there’s another emotional force at work on us, one which is as strong, or stronger, than our fear.
What’s triggering our feelings isn’t only Johnny saying, “Let’s go inside!” It’s Susie saying, “Can’t we go back to town?” Susie is the voice of hope. We hope, just for a second, that Johnny is not as stupid as he looks, that he’ll make a good decision, and that he’ll save Susie from a horrible torture and evisceration. Our feeling is, “Look out, you’re going to die!”, that’s true enough, yet it is also, “Please, please don’t die!” (Unless the movie is really bad.)
An absence of hope explains some puzzles about fiction; for instance, why thriller writers can sometimes pile on more and more danger, raise the stakes higher and higher, yet give us barely an ounce more thrill. It explains why beautifully rendered literary fiction can feel ice cold, even when its endings are redemptive. It’s why certain dark mysteries depress us while others nearly identical in plot have us cheering.
Hope is the current running through fiction that we love. So, as we read a novel what do we hope for? Happy endings? Certainly, but that wish is temporary and limited. Characters who find happiness will not remain happy forever. How can they when they’re human? Perhaps we wish to learn something about ourselves and grow? That’s a noble intention and may happen, but is it a pleasure profound enough to explain why we turn to fiction over and over again, searching for the great reads?
I don’t think so.
Hope can be found in every dimension of stories that we love. Take a story’s world. Hope is found in settings not when they threaten but when they present characters with a destiny. A story world that gives us hope is a place where peace is not a last minute outcome but a possibility always. In such a place we find ourselves not weary with waiting but energized by expectation.
When hope brims in novels it’s found in characters who look inward with interest and regard others with curiosity. It’s experienced through a need not to avoid what’s bad but to seek what’s good. It’s felt not in a series of setbacks but in a rising curve of yearning. It’s evident in characters we love not because they’re like us but because their hearts are more generous than ours can ever be.
When we want stories to go on forever they’re not grinding us down but lifting our eyes up. Plots that stir hope make us care not what happens to characters’ circumstances but to their souls. To infuse a story with hope requires that its author be overcome with love.
If hope is tangible as we read but nowhere in the words, how does it get across? When there’s no technique to apply, what tools do you use? Luckily, the tool you need is one you already have: you, since you are the embodiment of hope.
Here are some practical ways to tap the hope that dwells in you and spread that spirit in your story:
- Is your story meant to evoke fear? In addition to making circumstances worse, find three ways to raise the hope that the worst won’t happen, then an addition three ways to make survival matter more. Make those reasons personal.
- Is your story meant to be romantic? In addition to erecting obstacles to keep two people apart, find three ways to make it matter even more that they join together. Make those reasons personal.
- Is your story meant to uphold a principle such as justice? What does your protagonist hope for that cannot be obtained by any means available to him or her? Find three ways to elevate that hope over the plot goal.
- Is your story one of journey, healing or seeking wholeness? Find three new ways to manifest the warmth that remains in a wounded heart.
- Whatever your type of story, find people in your story who can: deliver a gift, have insight into someone else, turn a corner, forgive the unforgivable, humble themselves, see ahead, know the exact right thing to say, back off, be overjoyed, do a favor, change a life, alter a destiny, find the humor, see the irony, grasp the greater meaning, or die with grace. Whatever you find, add it.
When fiction feels effortless it is in part because tremendous talent and skill have been brought to bear. It is perhaps also because of multiple drafts, beta readers and editorial assistance. It might be that a certain security comes with writing a series, or with experience. Word craft may make a novel sing but none of that is the same thing as giving it heart.
Heart is a quality inherent not in a manuscript but in its author. It is not a skill but a spirit. Spirit may seem mystical but it’s not an accident. It can be cultivated and practiced. Every writing day it can seep into the story choices you make. The spirit you bring is the spirit we’ll feel as we read, and of all the feelings you can excite in your readers the most gripping and beautiful is the spirit of hope.
Happy Holidays everyone. Tis the season of hope. How are you bringing it to your pages today?
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About Donald Maass
Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. He has written several highly acclaimed craft books for novelists including The Breakout Novelist, The Fire in Fiction, Writing the Breakout Novel and The Career Novelist.
Oh, wow, it’s the Yearning Curve. I love it! Intuitively, I sensed the things you share in this post, Donald, but it’s wonderful to see you lay it out for us so clearly. Thanks and Happy Holidays to you, too!
The Yearning Curve. I love that!
Such a great post, I am deeply grateful for bringing this idea to the surface. That feeling you describe, of wanting it to go on forever, is exactly what I’ve felt when reading the greats, and just what I would die of happiness to hear a reader say of my own work.
I must say, since I write epic fantasy set in the Lands of Hope, this was especially meaningful to me! On the other hand, there are works in my genre which thrilled me with their mastery, but drained me of the will to continue reading. I shall name no names! (I admit, it could be the jealousy talking.) Still, I want readers to feel just as you’ve described.
Wow. You have once again managed to describe the indescribable. And given me insight into how to proceed with my current project. Thank you.
This is so helpful. Thank you.
Don, what a beautiful reflection of hope. It *is* the season of waiting and longing. Hope, one of the theological virtues, is what allows us to do this. It is a gift, stamped onto our hearts, and stories without hope are dead. This is one of the reasons I love children’s literature. No matter how difficult the journey, no matter the losses along the way, children’s fiction is never nihilistic, rather filled with hope.
A blessed Advent to you and yours, Don.
“Heart is a quality inherent not in a manuscript but in its author. It is not a skill but a spirit.”
You write what you are. All of writing is an attempt to show what you believe is true about the world, and how things must go.
This is the feeling Margaret Mitchell infused in Scarlett: that we would hope against all indications that she would somehow find a way to undo the fate she had wrought. It took Mitchell ten years to write; it has taken me longer.
Writers are in a funny position: they consciously strive to achieve the result of a beautifully entrapping book, and then have to oscillate between modesty and self-promotion. And then hope that others will read and review and love.
“Spirit may seem mystical but it’s not an accident.” This post is a delicious start for hump day. And crystal clear too. Thanks for the lift, Don. I couldn’t help but notice your suggestions in the bullet points to “find three ways to make … to elevate… to manifest …” You advise to use three ways 4 times. I’m curious, are you invoking the power of three here as a writing principle? Or is three just your favorite number?
Thank you, thank you. A treatise on Hope was just what I needed this morning. Hope is what we all need to get through the day, and literature is the perfect place to find it.
I believe in signs.
I don’t often pay attention to them beyond the nod, but that in itself is often enough. Enough for warning, enough for comfort. This one I’ll take to heart. Print it up large and hang it on the wall.
Now, I know you didn’t get up this morning and bang this post out. Blogs don’t work that way. It’s too well considered.
I wonder if you knew how much this generous gesture would mean to so many at a time when most of the gestures writers encounter in the world consist of middle fingers.
Yesterday, midday sometime, I was working on a scene from a manuscript that I’ve been writing since late winter, 2013. Giving it as much time as life would allow. You know the scene. The one you were avoiding. I wrote a sentence and realized that I, and the story, was done. It’s been a long time since the sixties, but I know high when I feel it. I tempered my response to knowing that “done” is a long way from “finished”. I have five hundred thousand words of clay to work with now. One of my characters, and you’ll meet her on the first page, is a spirit and I named her Hope.
As I went through your list of things that make me want to read anything in the first place, I went back into my own work and found myself whispering “yes”. Even though life is bearing down and the likelihood of ever being published is up there with getting killed by a falling star, I will continue to bask in the buzz of coming this far, knowing that this big, fat lump of coal can be compressed, cut and polished. And that my yard is filled with lumps of coal, thank you, Santa!
Hope stands under the sign and idly files her nails, waiting for me to get back to work.
Sincerely,
Deb Lacativa
lordy!! make that 500 pages which is bad enough!
Don, what’s your take on the Hunger Games trilogy? Pretty bleak on the hope meter. My anecdotal evidence was that middle-aged readers didn’t like the last two books, but Millennial readers stuck with them.
Oh, Mr. Bell, I must respectfully disagree.
I realize I’m the novice writer here, but I’m not a novice reader. The Hunger Games stories are all about hope, that’s what makes them so compelling. It’s the main characters hope for a better, fairer world that keeps them fighting against nearly impossible odds. In the beginning, hope is exploited to ensure the tributes will fight to the death as they know one of them will survive, and each hopes to be that one survivor. Katniss upends the games when she refuses to kill Peeta and she and Peeta opt for suicide rather than continue to be puppets, and in doing so regains a measure of control over her life–even if its just choosing to die rather than be a victor to be paraded around–an act of defiance that is the very essence of hope. If this was a story without hope, she would have ignored her feelings and simply killed Peeta, and been declared the winner.
Obviously, I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Hope is not a rosy
world free of obstacles, but the human determination to find something beautiful and worthwhile, no matter how small, in the bleakest and cruelest of worlds, and fight for it. I have my own criticisms of The Hunger Games (for one thing, I don’t think it needed three books–but that’s a publishing issue), but a sense of hopelessness is not one of them.
“Fear does not work as long as they have hope.” I believe that’s a direct line of President Snow’s. As for the whole concept of The Hunger Games, it’s about a savior rising from the masses. Can’t get much more hopeful than that.
Jim, I didn’t care for the Hunger Games (it was too violent, but sadly not untrue in many places where kids have had to murder kids). I thought one book was enough. However, my kids read the trilogy, so of course, I did too, and we had some excellent discussions about the nature of sacrifice, of a society devoid of God. But hope is written upon the human heart. Though I view Katniss and all the other survivors as a victims of PTSD it is hope that allows her to dream of a future, to have children.
Jim-
Katniss’s acts of self-sacrifice and goodness have us hoping like mad that she will live. I could go on but I think that’s the essence of it.
“…it’s felt not in a series of setbacks but in a rising curve of yearning.” Yes, yes, and yes. This explains why I go back to certain books over and over again. Thank you, Don, for bringing this invisible essence down to earth!
Is that why I couldn’t finish the second of the Hunger Games Trilogy and never opened the third? I’m not in the middle-aged category, I’m o-o-old. I’m part of history. I remember World War Two.
As I was reading the blog on ‘hope’, my mind was going through my own historical novels, and I found myself nodding, yup… yup…
I think of just this thing every time I sit down to write, but in different terms. I want to give the reader an occasional glimmer of light at the end of a dark tunnel.
Hope is a fine word.
So I just looked at the last page of each of the Schellendorf series, and there I find… in three out of four…
Hope.
The second of the series ends in the realisation that the cloud hanging over the protagonist cannot be killed and will not go away. I might look at that again.
Excellent, Don. In one of my workshops I talk about hope as one factor in increasing need-to-read tension in readers. You have now given me new ways to talk about it. Thanks.
Thank you for this. It feels like an evocative combination of a big hug and a gentle shove from the universe today. I’m in tears, but they’re tears of relief, and, well, hope. Happy holidays, Mr. Maass.
Took a break from revisions just now to read this post. You, Don, have long taught me to infuse my story with heart. Hope sits on heart’s shoulder. Thanks for reminding me.
You nailed it.
That is exactly why I get consumed with a book and can’t… stop… reading… It’s funny how the overused words, “make us care about your character” are meaningless in comparison to your post. Even though I’ve polished my debut novel, I’ll reread it again today to find places where I can heighten the tension through the protagonist’s relationships.
And by the way, this Susie would be stoked to go inside a creepy cabin in the woods. I would ruin my own story…if I lived to tell the tale. Ha!
Thanks for your insight!
Don – I consider this post my first gift of the season, and it’s truly a blessing. Why do I feel (as I have before with your essays) that this was written just for me? I have a hunch that no few of us feel this way. I think it starts with the way you always pull us into your current. You never preach; your offerings are always wholehearted, and that’s a start, but I think it’s more than that. You offer the best of us – something you trust is already there – back to us. So thank you. Wishing you and yours a wonder and joy filled holiday season.
Thank you so much, Vaughn. Happiest of holidays to you too.
Thank you all for reading and commenting. Am in the middle of a busy-busy work day and can’t respond to all, but I have read your comments and am gladdened to see this post has hit home for you. It gives me–hope.
There are a couple of people out there writing for writers, and who bring focus to what works best – without creating ‘rules’ about it. I probably need not say this – we all know them. Donald Maass is one, Another is James Scott Bell who distills brilliance into very few fighting words that work little miracles of understanding.
Thank you both, gentlemen.
You always get to the heart of things. Thank you!
I couldn’t agree more. When Hope burns nothing can conquer her. Not death, not fear, not cynicism even if they come in huge amounts and hope come in the tiniest of sparks. She is the most powerful energy in the universe.
You know, Don as I was walking off after reading this post and commenting, a though struck me and I had to come back. There is a reason Dante described the sign which read ” Abandon All Hope…” over the gates of Hell. I guess it can then be argued if one abandons Hope but Hope exists without as well as within…. then Hell is not eternal… or cannot possibly exist unless one refuses to hope…sorry… thinking aloud… your posts tend to set the wheels in motion… that burning smell is not hell fire it’s my brain igniting …. thanks for the hope this morning.
Thank you for this burst of sunshine on a gloomy day. I had not thought before in terms of hope as such, but I have always thought in terms of what this action/scene/story means for the future of my characters, which is not so different a concept. How will this new insight or accomplishment change the way they approach things (and people) in the future? What, after all, does make people change? How can we do better in this life?
Your posts always give me a new way of looking at my work, and your practial prompts result in good revisions to my WIP. Most of all, though, I love the encouragement and credit you give to us as writers, that we can and will bring the best of ourselves to our work.
All the best to you and your family during this holiday season.
“Is your story one of journey, healing or seeking wholeness? Find three new ways to manifest the warmth that remains in a wounded heart.” Yes. This.
Thanks for the tip, Don, and may you and yours have a wonderful and safe holiday season. :D
Hi, Don:
I so want to chime in on this, but unfortunately I have to rush off to jury duty.
Hopefully (notice how deftly I slipped that in?) I won’t be picked (I never am, given my background) and can return soon enough to join in.
Thanks as always for providing not just inspirational guidance but practical advice.
“The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is … to help man endure by lifting his heart.” William Faulkner
Thank you for a wonderful post!
“Man shall not merely endure, he shall prevail” (or words to that effect) –Same Dude.
YA and middle grade novels are often dark, with little hope. Difficult reading, though the authors would consider them “realistic.”
Last year I read two novels about middle school boys in tough family situations, tough social/school problems. These were not pollyanna books. Yet both books gave me that “ping” of hope every chapter or two–a glimpse that things could be better, might be better. Pings that rang the bell of hope. They were Gary Schmidt’s Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now. If you want an example of the hope Don’s talking about, pick up one of those excellent books.
Thank you, Don, for getting to the heart and soul of writing, past technique and wordcraft. An encouraging start to my writing today, one that gives a boost of hope that I might strike gold in my muddlings.
Thanks for the great book recs! Even the bleakest of children’s books end with hope.
Beautiful post…and as many have echoed, I felt it was for me personally. my WIP feels to me like an uncompelling mess, my MC not believable to anyone but me. forget drafting…I’ve been contemplating re-working the whole thing from scratch. But I will say this…hope is a major theme within it that I want to portray, so it may not be a lost cause after all. thanks for the lift!
Don, what a wonderful post. You’ve given me a whole new perspective on how to create reader engagement and appreciation for how my personal journey of writing with spirit and love has transformed how I write. I’m 2 weeks away from finishing a draft I’ve poured my soul into, for 63 unbroken weeks now, and about to head into intensive revisions through the new year. I’ll do so with hope, that I intend to (continue to) cultivate in my life and in the new pages as the narrative deepens through rewrites. Best of the holiday season!
Don, good counsel, per usual. I’m working with a protagonist who has a light within, but he keeps quashing it with selfishness and blunder. The light abides—but the question remains whether the cellar door hiding it will be thrown fully open.
Your post makes me want to work deeper with that sense of hope, not the hope of sentimentality or blind faith, but hope tested and earned.
I’m reminded of an old phrase from an old book: “Hope that is seen isn’t hope. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
The anticipation of a coming, non-present, potential reality. Man, what a powerful thing. In counseling they call this “building a model” — asking people what it would look like if they woke up tomorrow and their problems were miraculously solved or in asking them when it’s better, all in the name of helping them build an alternate future where they’re no longer stuck.
I’ll have to think on this as I finish my last pass of my WIP. What would a realistic hope look like in the worst of times?
Thanks man.
Donald – Your insightful observations are always wonderful gifts for those of us in the trenches!
Now I understand why I was so disappointed in a well-known mystery author’s recent long-winded (and over-sub-plotted) book. None of the characters were hopeful about anything. And when I finally reached the end, I was reminded of Gertrude Stein’s observation on returning to Oakland California during her U.S. tour in the 30’s. There wasn’t any there there.
I’ll stick with P.D. James!
What better gift for this season than to read this, Don, contemplate it and then infuse one’s writing with it. Maybe literature full of hope could create some global change. The gift of hope is the road to sanity.
Don, thank you for your eloquent series of articles that describe those elusive emotions. I’ve learned many precious things about writing from you over the years.
Hi, Don:
I noticed how, near the end, you switched from “hope” to “heart.” As I’ve noted in our earlier back-and-forth on this issue, I think a deep compassion for the human condition is what draws a reader in — a voice that says, “I care.” Even in stories that seem relentlessly bleak — MacBeth, 1984 — we hear in Shakespeare’s and Orwell’s voice a cry of heartbreak over the cruel brutality they feel obliged to portray.
But what inspires the obligation? Is it hope? Or heart. I’m not sure it matters. I think your recitation of things to make your characters do — all of which express caring for someone else or reaching for something better — is the real point. And underneath all of that is the conviction: it matters. Our behavior matters. Even if existence is pointless we’re still responsible for our lives.
BTW: What makes both Macbeth and 1984 work is, indeed, hope: Hope that Winston will succeed in his defiance of Big Brother, hope that Macbeth will see the error of his ways, or, barring that, be stopped. But I almost think of that as a mechanical kind of hope, not as important to the proceedings as the deep understanding of humanity that informs both works.
Thanks again for stirring up the little gray cells, as Poirot would say. Now there’s a hopeful fella.
‘Hoping’ to make this a wonderful Christmas for my family has made me a day late and a dollar short here.
Before this insightful post, I was thinking that a need to find out “Is he/she going to be okay?” was the motivation that kept a reader reading. But now I see, deeper than that, the motivation to read on is the HOPE that the character will be okay. Which ties into your teaching on making a character likable. A reader won’t hope the character will be okay unless he likes that character. Thank you, Don, and Merry Christmas!
Hi Don,
The promise intrigued me and then I realized why … it made me feel hopeful. Then skepticism kicked in and logic … none of which made a difference. I remain hopeful. Is hope synonymous with courage? Courage is contextual and at the mercy of changing values and dominant memes, but hope defies context … so maybe not. Thanks for the insight. I enjoyed reading this.
When you speak of hope, you’re talking my language, Don. Stories are meant to impart survival lessons, yes, but also to tend to the heart. We are wired to seek meaning, purpose and hope in our struggles. It’s only natural that stories would reflect that desire and feel incomplete unless it’s included. You’re talking about storyteller as healer, IMHO.
Happily, this is one element I think I’ve covered in my WIP, because it’s intrinsically important to me. Fingers crossed, anyway.
If we don’t cross paths before then, merry Christmas and happy New Year to you and yours.
I’ve been reading and studying Slaughterhouse 5 and although I don’t love the book (yet) as much as I hoped to, there is some magic to Vonnegut’s advice. He said that every character must want something, and that there should always be one character readers can root for. I agree more than anything else: readers need to have hope in something to get them through the book. Just like how we need hope for something in real life. Hope is part of humanity.
We’re hosting a writing competition! https://thesewriterly.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/writing-competition-open-submit-a-chapter/
Hi Don
Have enjoyed your conferences and hearing you speak on several occasions. Spent almost a week with Lorin recently on “plotting-planning” a new adventure.
Just have to say you guys are awesome, and inspiring on levels not only associated with
writing but in living as well.
Its a gentle hand guided tour- look over here, did you see that- I wish to personally thank you for.
Your empathy and caring for all is evident in a way that has always given me hope, not just for my work, but for the way in which you touch people and make them think, as evidenced above.
Sharing in the “hope” for a brighter future for all of us this season.
Priscilla Woods
I loved this! Thank you. This is what I aspire to do with my fiction. It’s not the only thing, of course, but it’s a big part of it. Thanks, also, for your concrete suggestions at the end.