Fifth-Column Characters

Fiction writers who toss up their arms helplessly because their characters “take over” — powerful rascals, what is a god to do? — refer, I think, to…structural mysteries that seize any serious work, whether or not it possesses fifth-column characters who wreak havoc from within. Sometimes part of a book simply gets up and walks away. The writer cannot force it back into place. It wanders off to die.

ANNIE DILLARD