To provide background and physical description and all the rest is of course vital to fiction, but vital only insofar as such detail is in the service of a richly imagined story, rather than in the service of good botany or good philosophy or good geography.
Tags: only, rest, service, good

Other Quotes by "Tim O'Brien"

That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.
Tags: writing, truth, stories, on-fiction, fiction
In fiction workshops, we tend to focus on matters of verisimilitude largely because such issues are so much easier to talk about than the failure of imagination.
Tags: talk, focus, imagination, failure
Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain.
Tags: does, like, laughter, pain
I know what it is to feel unloved, to want revenge, to make mistakes, to suffer disappointment, yet also to find the courage to go forward in life.
Tags: disappointment, revenge, courage, life
The people in 'July, July' do find themselves looking backward, talking to others and to themselves about those over-the-cliff, fork-in-the-road moments in their lives. I imagine this is what must happen at a 30th college reunion.
Tags: college, others, looking, people
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