It’s the journey that matters

Ursula K. Le Guin wrote “It is good to have anend to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” This is a marvellousway to sum up my writing style.

Any good story of course needs all the ingredients of challenges, uncertainties, change; and although a novel should be written so that the reader wants to know what is ultimately going to happen, I am not writing a whodunit or a crime story. I write general fiction which means, to me, that it is just as much about what happens along the way – more so – than it is for where my characters end up.

Thisis of course true of any genre, but if you aren’t trying to hide a secret oropen up the ‘big reveal’ at the end, then I think it is even more important formy style of writing to ensure that ‘the journey matters.’

Thatsaid, in the words of Jodi Picoult, “This isn’t just social commentary. This isalso about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.”

Absolutely.First and foremost, it’s a story. It has to be. If it isn’t a good story, thenit’s not for me.