Writing for Emotional Impact

Advanced Dramatic Techniques to Attract, Engage, and Fascinate the Reader from Beginning to End

By: Karl Iglesias

Narrated by: Karl Iglesias

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

There are three kinds of feelings when reading a story: boredom, interest, and wow! To become a successful writer, you must create the wow feeling on as many pages as possible, and this requires writing that engages the reader emotionally.

In his best-selling book, screenwriter Karl Iglesias explored the working habits of A-list Hollywood scribes. Now, he breaks new ground by focusing on the psychology of the reader.

Based on his acclaimed classes at UCLA Extension, Writing for Emotional Impact goes beyond the basics and argues that Hollywood is in the emotion-delivery business, selling emotional experiences packaged in movies and TV shows.

Karl not only encourages you to deliver emotional impact on as many pages as possible, he shows you how, offering you hundreds of dramatic techniques to take your writing to the professional level.

In this audiobook, you will learn:

• Over 40 techniques to humanize a character for instant empathy
• The seven essential storytelling emotions
• Over 70 techniques to create them
• Over 50 ways to craft powerful scenes, including the emotional palette
• Over 30 techniques to shape your words and energize your narrative description
• The most common dialogue flaws and fixes for each
• Over 60 techniques to craft dynamic dialogue that snaps, crackles, and pops off the page

Not only does Karl Iglesias "get" emotion, but he also shares insider secrets for moving the reader from tears to laughter and everywhere in between. 

Praise for the book:

"This is a must-have book for every screenwriter, director, and producer." (Rosa Graham, president of Find the Funny)

"Reading Writing for Emotional Impact will shake up your world. This is the book that tears through the clutter so that you can write from the heart." (Michael Lent, author of Breakfast with Sharks and co-producer of Hard Scrambled)

©2011 Karl Iglesias (P)2020 IFH Books

Best audiobook by far for writing screenplays

If I were stranded on a desert island with a typewriter and paper, this is the book I'd want to help me in my writing. This book is for screenwriting, but I found most of it applied to write novels as well. Now, this is the live seminar that inspired the book but it is remarkable. It goes deeper than the book does. So good.

Iglesias takes the challenge of making you a better writer head-on. He starts out with that promise and delivers. His intent is to help you write scene by scene, paragraph by paragraph in such a way that no one could set your book down. He shows you how to ensure the reader cares about your characters and feels the character's emotions. He also points out how to make sure the reader has a takeaway that will make them talk about your story to other people.

He shows how to build tension, write snappy dialog, and deliver emotional scenes. He does this by examining movies like case studies and does it in a way that really hooks you. There are other books that examine movie plots and dialog, but this book is an order of magnitude better than the rest.

This is the most influential book on writing I can think of. I re-wrote my manuscript after reading this book. If you get mired down in chapter one, skip it, but this book is a must-read.

For any writer out there, I RECOMMEND THIS AUDIOBOOK ABOVE ALL OTHERS on the subject of writing.

Do I know the Author? No. Did I get the book for free? No. Is this an impartial review? Yes. This book will full on make you a better writer, and I look forward to a world filled with more intriguing, engrossing books!

The audiobook is actually a series of (AWESOME) workshops!

Wow. Because this is not a script I will write on the nose: these workshops are f*cking awesome!! What a great value.

This isn’t actually a reading of the book, but several seminars that cover the same concepts. They are memorable and helpful and presented in a way that’s imho easier to digest than if this were a reading of the book. The seminars include: scene writing, dialogue, subtext, pitching, writing vivid descriptions, engaging reader emotions, and others. It’s like full day of 8 or 9 workshops for less than $20!

What was also great was getting actual techniques to use. Going to listen again with a notebook for notes!

I have LOTS of craft books but this is by far one of the best. (I’ve also been to a few seminars, which is why I’m blown away by this being less than 20 bucks! ) Great surprise to be actually getting a seminar rather than the reading.

(I’d buy the actual reading, too, Mr. Iglesias, so may be worth publishing that too!)

Excellent material

Excellent material for a screen writer or a novelist. Much of the Audible version is from lectures. At first I had a problem the lack of polish in the speaking (um’s, dead space, etc.) but the content is so useful that I quickly got over it. Highly recommend this one.

Thank you Karl

As a songwriter I benefited hugely from Karl Inglesias’ lectures. He’s easy to follow along with and gives great analogies and examples

In depth stuff

This book is actually a great collection of Carl Iglesias’s seminars on these topics but regardless of the format, it’s an incredible collection of knowledge and useful for screenwriters to learn from.

Excellent resource for budding novelists too!

I am on my second listen of this title as I type and just ordered the paperback. Of all of the books I've listened to, and there are many in my collection, this has the most applicable tips. He doesn't offer recipes, he provides ingredients and places to start. The recordings are from a series of workshops so there is some repetition in the introductions of some of the chapters.

Listen

It's good and he goes on about the details behind what I took for granted

I am still listening to this powerful book.

I want this book to 've in my heart. I look at the Author as one of my professors. I can't see not listening to this book. This is a book filled with powerful words, concepts and. direction. I look forward to hearing and reading more books by this Author.

Best Screenwriting Audiobook on Audible!

Brilliant audiobook. Very thorough explanation of several technical aspects of screenwriting in a seminar format. The dialogue section is quite extensive and very eye-opening. Excellent and informative. A great technical guide to the craft. I would highly recommend this audiobook to screenwriters.

Misleading as it isn't his actual book.

I was a little confused for the first few chapters. Not because they weren't informative - they were. This is a lecture. Although I have not yet listened to it all, I have found it useful so far.

I still feel I've missed out on what I was actually paying for.

Does this mean I have to purchase a tangible form. I must say I feel a little cheated.

Great listen - but misleading.

Its a great listen. However it is not the audio version of the book. Its an audio of some workshops.

That has it all - Amazing Karl Iglesias

I have read the top screen wring books. Found Karl via a podcast - amazing seminars!!!

A must have!

Priceless for screenwriters

Everythin promised in the title and a lot more. Great for beginners and mid range practiced writers

Best £6 ever spent

I first heard a chapter of this on YouTube and was very keen to hear more. I’m only half way through (in one sitting) and I couldn’t wait to tell how good it is. There is some confusion because I was expecting to hear the book and I think the author would benefit from explaining what is going on. Is the book the same as this?
As it’s a seminar, there are some bits that don’t make sense without seeing the slides but it doesn’t take away how good this is.

The delivery is well paced and genuine. I am happy to listen to him speak for hours. I’ll probably buy the book anyway as I think I would refer to it often.

If only this was the book

Some writing advice will tell you to be as invisible as possible in the scenes you write. Iglesias would have done well to take this advice. But no. He was all 'My book' and 'When I told you before' and 'I wrote about this in Screen Writing Habits 101...the book I wrote.'

I bought this thinking it would be an audio book. it is not. It's audio for a series of lectures by Iglesias who's obviously using PowerPoint as he refers often to what we cannot see. There's a lot of repetition, too, as his audience changes from lecture to lecture. All in all, this is a bad idea.

The book does sound good, though.

I will listen before I buy from now on.