One of the ready advantages of writing a road or quest story is that it mirrors the experience of writing a novel.

Part of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's going to happen. You have a broad sense, maybe, but it's this rash leap.

It's hard to write a war story without thinking about the 'Iliad.' Because the 'Iliad' knows everything about war.

What's fun about a dystopian novel is that we can enjoy and be entertained. But that world is only slightly different, right? It's familiar enough to be recognizable, and skewed enough to give us pause.

I often think that the prime directive for me as a teacher of writing is akin to that for a physician, which is this: do no harm.

A novel, even a social realist one, can't simply be a comprehensive rendering of what is. A novel requires a special angle or approach, whether in structure or language or theme, to justify itself.