The biggest challenge – and I think sometimes we fall so in love with our words and we forget this – is that people are busy, and they are dying to put down your article. They are dying to put it down. If you’re introducing a new character, they don’t really want a new character; they want to find out what happened to the other character. They don’t want to turn the page; they’re dying to go do something else. So I put enormous energy into devising ways to trick them into staying with me.
