'Categories can really obscure good writers'

‘It's wonderful to be read by more and more people. At the same time I worry about people being forced to read me...

Categories can really obscure good writers. There was a wonderful novel called Tony and Susan by Austin Wright. Hardly anyone reads it because it gets stuck in the thriller section when it could easily have been a major literary novel...

If I've written the screenplay, I get a lot of say, or I make myself an executive producer and at least pitch in with it. I always think of the novel as a visual form. I think of people as visual creatures. It's our strongest sense. The key to an important scene is to get the visual details correct...

There comes a moment when you just have to back off. Once it goes into pre-production, all the big decisions are made and you really don't want to be lurking around saying ‘it's not like this in my novel!'

Ian McEwan, author of The Children Act and sixteen other novels and books of stories in Concrete Online http://www.concrete-online.co.uk/adam-dawson-interviews-ian-mcewan/