“The biggest experiment there - and I was convinced for a really long time that it was going to fail horribly - had to do with this weird thing I do every now and then. Like everyone else, as a reader there are certain things that really rub me the wrong way in fiction - pet bugbears, let's call them.” WayLongCertainFictionFailingReaderLong TimeConvincedExperimentsPetNow And ThenWrong WayWeird ThingsReally Long Author:Roy Kesey
“Very often, or perhaps more often, and even in very good collections - even in some of the best collections ever written, I would argue - it's because our "voicier" writers hew so closely to one given set of dictional tics that we as readers can't read the books all the way through in a single sitting, because if we did, the stories and their narrators would all start to bleed together.” IfsWayBookStoriesTogetherGivenWrittenReaderSittingVery GoodArguingCollectionsNarratorsTics Author:Roy Kesey
“For whatever reason, thus far it's been important to me not to write that kind of collection. Which means that I've spent months playing tic-tac-notecard, trying to get the stories in an order whereby stories that are similar in any given way (diction, narrative stance, setting, plot) are separated by others that aren't.” WayWritingTryingKindMeanImportantReasonStoriesOrderGivenMonthsSettingSettingsNarrativeCollectionsPlotStanceDictionTicsTic Tacs Author:Roy Kesey
“What I like about organizing things that way is that each story gets nearly full reign over its own space, but all of them are hung on a single string - the loosely-reined voice mentioned above. Thus the collection jogs away from suzerainty and past federation toward, I guess, alliance. Or maybe call each story a separate house on a single street? Or it's all a line of dive bars on some wharf front? What the hell, let's call reading the collection a pub crawl, but with words.” WayStoriesPastReadingHouseVoiceLinesSpaceHellStreetsFrontsBarsCollectionsOver ItStringsHungReignAlliancesPubsFederationOrganizing Things Author:Roy Kesey
“I didn't intentionally emplace the raw material needed for political/allegorical readings into any of the first drafts, but sooner or later I saw it coming, and I did intentionally not cut it from some of the final drafts. In other words, I'm not particularly interested in encouraging readers to read certain stories that way, but I want to make sure that route's accessible should anyone be so inclined.” WayWantShouldFirstsStoriesPoliticalCertainReadingSawsCuttingMaterialsReaderNeededFinalsSooner Or LaterRoutesRaw Materials Author:Roy Kesey
