the mysterious art that keeps your reader glued to every page

Few people know the ins and outs of fiction — and have a knack for explaining them — so well as uberagent Donald Maass. In his book "The Fire in Fiction" he dedicates a chapter to what he calls microtension.

A writer who masters the art of microtension keeps a reader glued to every page.

Very few writers, Maass points out, can actually do this.

Conflict is story, as every writer knows (and to those who say character is story, I say conflict reveals and deepens character and character drives...