“People like me write because otherwise we are pretty inarticulate. Our articulation is our writing.” ~ William Trevor, from “The Art of Fiction No. 108”

Reblogged from theparisreview (click on link for full interview):

“Writers of fiction are collectors of useless information. They are the opposite of good, solid, wise citizens who collect good information and put it to good use. Fiction writers remember tiny little details, some of them almost malicious, but very telling. It’s a way of endlessly remembering. A face comes back after years and years and years, as though you’ve taken a photograph. It’s as though you have, for the moment, thought: I know that person very well. You could argue that you have some extraordinary insight, but actually it’s just a very hard-working imagination. It’s almost like a stress in you that goes on, nibbling and nibbling, gnawing away at you, in a very inquisitive way, wanting to know. And of course while all that’s happening you’re stroking in the colors, putting a line here and a line there, creating something that moves further and further away from the original. The truth emerges, the person who is created is a different person altogether—a person in their own right.”

~ William Trevor, The Art of Fiction No. 108

 

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