When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice.

We have to give our poor, innocent, and undeserving-of-our-badness characters trouble in order to make them characters in a story.

Being part of a community of writers is huge. I really think that's why people go to MFA programs.

Sometimes people want to know how to write a story from the point of view of a murderer and make her sympathetic. I think the answer is that you start by having her look for her car keys, because everybody knows what it's like.

You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.

If you have a character stand up and put on her shoes and open the door, in order to do that, you're imagining her shoes and her clothes and her house and her door. The character becomes more real. But once you've done that, you can probably just get it all across with a couple of details.

There is a lot of censorship about writing that's exerted from all directions, from families or governments and society, even the fear of being offensive in some way.