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'The essential component of fiction is plot'

7 December 2009

'I know that what I do is not literature. For me, the essential component of fiction is plot. My objective is to get the reader to feel impelled to turn the pages as quickly as possible. If I want to achieve that, I can't allow myself the luxury of distracting him. I have to keep him hanging on and the only way to do it is by using the weapon of suspense. If I try to understand the complexities of the human soul, people's character defects and those types of things, the reader gets distracted.

Of course, I've read literature in the classic sense. We've all got those type of books on the shelves. They made me read them at school and I admit that I didn't like them much. I couldn't understand why they were said to be so good.'

John Grisham in the Sunday Telegraph