George Saunders on REVISION and CAUSALITY
We understand a story’s meaning, in part, by tracking its causality, and a story’s power stems from our sense that its causality is truthful, which is to say, that its internal logic is solid.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Causality is to the writer what melody is to the songwriter: a superpower that the audience feels as the crux of the matter; the thing the audience actually shows up for; the hardest thing to do; that which distinguishes the competent practitioner from the extraordinary one.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
