"Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe

Gerry Quinn · 30 Apr 2011, 11:17 · from 2011-April.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 12:17:07 +0100
Subject: (urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe
References: <4DBB1060.1020105 at gmail.com><794632.94323.qm at web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com><BANLkTinVfFohh9fu7VwbgjSKKOfv2Bg-0Q at mail.gmail.com><4DBB3F16.4000500 at gmail.com>
	<BANLkTikERbP9OsLJArNvPEp1PScccdP1SA at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <AB372516CB964C02B56669F684EAA7F9@jill>

  From: Bruce Hayles 
  GW: I've read that book before; I've read it as realism many a time. It's a John Updike kind of book. I've read that story so many times ... now I read a book until I can recognize the story, and say, "This is what it is," and that's as far as it goes, since I have no urge to finish it. I'm long past feeling so guilty that I have to finish everything I start. I don't finish ninety percent of what I start.

I have to wonder whether it can be problematic for a writer to feel like that - does it lead to an obsessive concern with *concealing* the story, lest any reader recognise it before the last page?

- Gerry Quinn

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