I'm pretty good at fleshing out characters. I like to crawl inside their minds and imaginations and sort of loll about. Sticking to a clean narrative arc gives me some troubles. I've been told that I'm digressive and I'd have to agree. The odd anecdote that in no way relates to the "big idea" is just as illuminating and fascinating to me as anything else pertaining to the through-line.
Gina OchsnerThe word "nice" makes me break out in hives. When someone tells me that they think my work is nice I want to take knitting needles and shove them in my ear canals. I have the same almost physical reaction to the word "interesting." The word is vague enough to mean anything and nothing. Like nice, interesting means the reader had zero connection and zero emotional response to anything in the work.
Gina Ochsner