Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different

by Chuck Palahniuk

She thought for a moment. “That’s easy. You say her favorite ice cream is butter brickle.” She shook her head at my stupidity. “That’s an old-man flavor.” I asked what Penny’s favorite flavor should’ve been. “Chocolate,” she said. “Anything chocolate.” Case closed. The smallest mistake can destroy all believability.

Case not closed. We're seriously meant to adhere to stereotypes like this? Zero women ever would like that flavor? Or does her love of that unusual flavor speak directly to what kind of woman she is?

The linguistic anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath has said that readers value surprise above all else in a story.

I think of myself as a conduit. I am the disposable thing trying to identify the eternal thing. Experience enters and product exits.

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