'The point of writing and reading fiction is not to stay with the first thought or idea, nor the third or the fourth, but to push further…'
Yiyun Li on Tolstoy's Nikolai Rostov and what a minor character can tell us about the majority of experience:
https://harpers.org/archive/2024/11/the-seventy-percent-yiyun-li/
#books #reading #writing #fiction #translation #classics #USPol #bookstodon @bookstodon
'Sometimes a student is advised by his or her peers to give characters “higher stakes” or “more agency.” This tends to lead me to groan internally. Isn’t living from day to day enough of a stake? Isn’t living itself the most important action, if you really pay close attention to the world?'
Yiyun Li on what a minor character can tell us ⬆️
A thought provoking essay
#YiyunLi #amWritingFiction #minorCharacters #the70percent #literaryCriticism #life #living #agency
Fictionable is moving
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