What is the pattern of change?

If character is the foreground of fiction, setting is the background, and as in a painting's composition, the foreground may be in harmony or in conflict with the background.

In Literature, only trouble is interesting.

Part of the trouble is that I've never properly understood that some disasters accumulate, that they don't all land like a child out of an apple tree.

Most writing is done between the mind and the hand, not between the hand and the page.

Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing.

The only justification for writing a novel is that it should be wonderful. Adequate is inadequate.