Authors:
  • I wouldn't have thought that the techniques of story-telling, which is what the novel is after all, can vary much because there are two things involved.There's a story and there's a listener, whose attention you have to keep. Now the only way in which you can keep a reader's attention to a story is in his wanting to know what is going to happen next. This puts a fairly close restriction on the method you must use.

    "William Golding: Universal Pessimist, Cosmic Optimist". Interview with MaryLynn Scott, aurora.icaap.org. 1990.