Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.
Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.
Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.
The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention.
Too much contemporary fiction seems purposefully to address small things in small ways. And yet why not try for the all-inclusive, the gripping, for the audacious?
Fiction is able to do one thing better than any other art form: it is able to convey a convincing sense of what is going on in someone else's head. To me, that is the great mystery of life: what is everyone else thinking?
It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.
One reason we love fiction is because stories have a comforting shape. They provide a resolution that's lacking in our regular lives.
No matter how hard we strive for objectivity, writers are biased toward tension - those moments in which character is forged and revealed.
So much emotion goes into writing fiction.
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