Withholding Information

Daniel Zalewski recently wrote a profile (not available online for non-subscribers) for The New Yorker about the great novelist Ian McEwan. I found some of the thoughts on writing really useful:

*"McEwan said that one of his goals was to 'incite a naked hunger in readers.'"

*"Narrative tension is primarily about withholding information," he said.

*"McEwan is a connoisseur of dread, performing the literary equivalent of turning on the tub faucet and leaving the room; the flood is forseeable, but it still shocks when the water rushes over the edge."

*"At moments of peak intensity, McEwan slows time down — a form of torture that readers enjoy despite themselves."

*"He went on, 'When I'm writing, I don't really think about themes.' Instead, he keeps in mind a phrase of Nabokov's: 'fondle details.'"

*When McEwan is describing something technically complex, he gathers about ten times as much material as he will actually use. This gives him room to navigate.