Usually I work (to an extent that’s hard to communicate adequately) from instinct. A certain thing will just…seem good. Or won’t suck as much. And if I follow that feeling, obsessively and iteratively, the story will head off in a direction that I couldn’t have predicted, that will be more alive and weird than anything I could have planned. So, in this model of fiction, the writer is asking, “What would you like to say, story?” rather than ordering, “O.K., story, here’s what I need you to do.”

GEORGE SAUNDERS