There's something about a parenthesis in fiction that puts one off, saying, "It's me, moi, jumping in now."

A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth.

There's something about a parenthesis in fiction that puts one off, saying, "It's me, moi, jumping in now."

Uninvited criticism is insult.

You must get beyond divertissement, sketch, anecdote, the interesting moment. You must get to the mystery of human personality. What is the line of the story that leads us to a point where we see or intuit something we haven't before?

Obscenities are too often used for shock value, as a kind of shorthand for real expression of emotion. You've got to scale down your monstrosities. A scream is not a discovery.

Plot does not simply move with time, but spreads out conceptually in metaphorical space.