In fiction, the reader will make jumps with you. If you can make the reader make that leap with you, it's a thrilling moment for everyone.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Some people like just sitting down and being taken for a ride. That's a beautiful thing that fiction can do. But it's not the only thing. In television and film, people are ready to accept any kind of jump cut, but the slightest disturbance on the page ruffles their feathers.
When I see things in the world that leap out at me, I want to make use of them in fiction. Maybe every writer does that. It just depends on what you claim or appropriate as yours.
Part of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's going to happen. You have a broad sense, maybe, but it's this rash leap.
Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.
My main problem with fiction is that once my characters get moving, you just have to follow them along and get out of the way of the story, but sometimes they pull me in too many directions, and I need to focus.
It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.
Leaping away from my mistakes has propelled me forward. It has great force behind it. It makes for great storytelling.
And the nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply at a situation, unlike in real life when we just kind of snap something out.
Part of being a fiction writer is being able to imagine how someone else is thinking and feeling. I think I've always been good at that.
Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.
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