Writing

Over the years I’ve had some very talented students who wrote these big novels in which the water never boiled. They were, essentially, entire books of exposition.

everything starts to matter because a context has arisen; expectations arise.

Have you ever read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud? He talks about how the magic of comics is in the space between panels—“the gutters.” What the reader puts together in the gutters, the narrative leap they make between frames, is the most powerful part of the medium. I thought a bit about how what I didn’t show between chapters could sustain... See more

I think what gets stronger for writers is an instinct for when something is or isn’t working and over time you acquire more techniques to fix it. And a lot of that is actually development as a reader.

I think a scrupulous avoidance of cliche and unnecessary words and a consistent desire to surprise are a good starting point for anyone, eventually taste, disposition, and commitment to character and situation take care of the rest.

Literature, to me, is about adding as much complicating information as possible, since this kind of storytelling gets closer and closer to “the real truth” – that is, to the actuality of things just as they are.

Now, on the other hand: since that idea occurred to you, it might be exactly what you should do. Art is weird like that. It could be that you are, in that question, creating a hand that will scratch a certain itch, so to speak.

Reading and writing require time yes, but if we’re only able to think of the time in a day as already belonging to someone else, we’re essentially screwed.