If ever I write a book half as thorough, compassionate, and precise as Beloved , I will feel my mission as a writer is complete. Other authors whose work I admire include Dostoyevsky, Thomas Wolfe, and Joyce. Their stories are unusually episodic, almost epic, and so have the relatively unique ability to encompass larger spans of time and greater numbers of characters than a more traditional narrative. In Wolfe's work particularly, the resolution isn't as important as the people you meet along the way. The depth is in the asides, the glimpses into lives that initially seem unimportant.
Real people make poor characters.
I may start with the odd fellow who is sitting across from me in the library, hiding the cover of his entertainment magazine so others won't see and judge too harshly. I'll note how awkwardly he stands, how straight and narrow he holds his back, almost as though he fears that at any moment someone will reveal him as a hypocrite. But I end with a man who is waiting for his lover, who scans the room every few seconds in search of a face he knows and who reads every entertainment article he can find in search of her name. She went to Hollywood a few weeks ago, you know. She'll make it.