Suspense, time as a concept and more | #81

The best books are suspense in nature

Nov 17

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This letter is up one week later. It is the same reason but Anxious People has been further motivating me to write stories with suspense. As I enjoy reading them so much, I don’t even mind reading stories with murder accidents included. You can say that I am anti-violence but I guess it is different when it comes to writing.

How to Feel Like You Have More Time

It is not surprising that feeling in awe makes you feel you have more time. I am experiencing this as I write while listening to Hania Rani live. Needless to say, I have listened to her live quite a lot in the past week.

Awe is most easily felt in solitude, such as when hiking in the mountains or viewing a work of art. Edmund Burke wrote that awe — which he called “the sublime — is also more likely to arise from something obscure and surprising, rather than something clear and expected.

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Understanding the Reader Without Pandering to the Reader

I remember hearing a favorite writer give a craft talk and mention how in their first draft of a novel they had a line from chapter 1 repeated near the end of the book. “Aha, everyone will snap their fingers at the connection and realize the true identify of this character!” they thought. But then their editor, they said, quite rightly pointing out no one was going to remember that line 250 pages later. The novel needed to repeat that line four, five, or more times spaced out across the text for the reader to notice.