Ursula K. Le Guin wrote “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” This is a marvellous way to sum up my writing style.
Any good story of course needs all the ingredients of challenges, uncertainties, change; and although a novel should be written so that the reader wants to know what is ultimately going to happen, I am not writing a whodunit or a crime story. I write general fiction which means, to me, that it is just as much about what happens along the way – more so – than it is for where my characters end up.
This is of course true of any genre, but if you aren’t trying to hide a secret or open up the ‘big reveal’ at the end, then I think it is even more important for my style of writing to ensure that ‘the journey matters.’
That said, in the words of Jodi Picoult, “This isn’t just social commentary. This is also about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.”
Absolutely. First and foremost, it’s a story. It has to be. If it isn’t a good story, then it’s not for me.