I like his reasoning about feedback, but found his rejection of this funny:
> I was afraid then that I had consigned myself to writing stories about children in jeopardy. But in fact I was writing character stories rather than idea stories. And THAT was how I built a career, not by self-imitation ...
From my perspective, having read about a dozen of his books and enjoyed his writing, I couldn't help but feel that the protagonists and the adversity facing them get really repetitive - almost all of them really are about unusually smart children in various forms of jeopardy, all achieving almost impossible to believe control over their situation. They're great power fantasies for a kid, but when trying to revisit his writing when I was older, I found myself really disappointed with the lack of range.
falcor84•2d ago
> I was afraid then that I had consigned myself to writing stories about children in jeopardy. But in fact I was writing character stories rather than idea stories. And THAT was how I built a career, not by self-imitation ...
From my perspective, having read about a dozen of his books and enjoyed his writing, I couldn't help but feel that the protagonists and the adversity facing them get really repetitive - almost all of them really are about unusually smart children in various forms of jeopardy, all achieving almost impossible to believe control over their situation. They're great power fantasies for a kid, but when trying to revisit his writing when I was older, I found myself really disappointed with the lack of range.