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There's a problem with narratives. Most that spring to mind are fictional.

My sister-in-law believes that few narratives are so tightly constructed that you can't skip boring bits and still keep abreast of what's going on.

Fiction is optimistic or unrealistic enough to demand that there should be a meaningful narrative.

Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.

I think people are always saying things are 'over.' Fiction has been regularly 'over' since the 19th century.

One reason we love fiction is because stories have a comforting shape. They provide a resolution that's lacking in our regular lives.

I generally find fiction without some move to the weird, less imaginative, dull, prosaic. Not all of it, of course, but a lot of it. I suppose it's just a question of taste.

While I love to read contemporary fiction, I'm not drawn to writing it. Perhaps it's because the former journalist in me is too inhibited by the press of reality; when I think about writing of my own time I always think about nonfiction narratives. Or perhaps it's just that I find the present too confounding.

I have realised just how important it is to readers to feel that fictional stories are based on reality.

Let's say I find a lot of current American fiction too overwritten for my tastes, too self-conscious; I like something that's simpler and more direct. The story is what matters to me. I hope to make it seem real to readers, as if it happened just like this - so I don't want fancy descriptions getting in the way.