How does a new work begin for you?

86 answers answered between 1932 and 2026 one of 3 in The Art of Fiction

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The Paris Review, to novelists and poets, The Art of Fiction

A recurrent craft question in The Paris Review's Art of Fiction interviews; wording varies between character, theme, first sentence, image, and idea.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

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Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 6 Arts and letters 71 Politics and public life 2 Business and finance 3 Technology 3 Sport 1

Read by age Any age Before thirty 1 In their thirties 6 In their forties 11 In their fifties 9 In their sixties 7 Seventy and beyond 9

Richard Feynman Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965

Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing—it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with.

Recorded Excerpt from “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”, Engineering and Science / Caltech Magazine, 1985 source ↗

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How does a new work begin for you?

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