Writing Great Fiction

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nature of your own inner life. Then, consider how impossible it
would be to express that inner life to another person. Remember,
too, that every other person in the world is experiencing the same
kind of inner life, all the time. You quickly realize that each of us
is alone in the universe inside our heads, surrounded by many
other universes with which we can communicate only indirectly.

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characters and real people is that the author can, if he or she
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the consciousness of other human beings in a way we cannot
in real life.

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illusion. It’s not real intimacy because the character sharing his or her
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that what feels like direct access to another consciousness isn’t direct at all
but is mediated through the
talent, craft, and imagination
of the writer.


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characters only by report, yet
through the genius of certain
authors, we feel as if we
know some characters even
better than we know those
with whom we have intimate
relationships.


Through the special relationship that
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readers can have the sort of intimacy with
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have only with ourselves.

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