About Scarlett Thomas: Scarlett Thomas is an English postmodernist author. She has written eight novels, including The End of Mr. Y and PopCo, and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Kent.
One of the biggest problems for beginning writers is this need to over-explain.
What folly takes light through ether to each eye from every horizon.
Patrick opens his arms about three feet wide and, with one finger pointing up on each hand, tries to show the scope of this thing. I notice that he doesn’t look at his hands as he does this, but at the wall behind me. It suddenly occurs to me that ...
...'being published’ is not the same as being a real writer.
I'm a great believer in gathering together all your obsessions and seeing if you can make a novel out of them.
I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense...
My novels are high concept. I guess big ideas interest me more than, say, the minutiae of domestic life.
You can't do science in a novel, but you can do philosophy. Or, if you're really lucky, you can manage to pose a question in such a way that other people will take it on.
