[a Writer] Should Try Not

The Most Striking Fault In Work By Young Or Beginning Novelists, Submitted For Criticism, Is Irrelevance--due Either To Infatuation Or Indecision. To Direct Such An Author's Attention To The Imperative Of Relevance Is Certainly The Most Useful--and Possibly The Only--help That Can Be Given.

Story Involves Action. Action Towards An End Not To Be Foreseen (by The Reader) But Also Towards An End Which, Having Been Reached, Must Be Seen To Have Been From The Start Inevitable.

I Became, And Remain, My Characters' Close And Intent Watcher: Their Director, Never. Their Creator I Cannot Feel That I Was, Or Am.

Some Ideas, Like Dandelions In Lawns, Strike Tenaciously: You May Pull Off The Top But The Root Remains, Drives Down Suckers And May Even Sprout Again.

Illusions Are Art, For The Feeling Person, And It Is By Art That We Live, If We Do.