“I want to write a short story where the protagonist is a globe, and all the secondary, or “flat” characters, are all maps. It’ll be a story about boundaries.”

“I’m not beholden to the confirmation of your prejudices; to be perfectly frank, the prospect of confining the female characters in my story to placid, helpless secondary places in the narrative is so goddamn boring that I would rather not write at all.”

“the glory of the protagonist is always paid for by a lot of secondary characters”

“Respect your characters, even the ­minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's.”

“Miss Lea, it doesn't do to get attached to these secondary characters. It's not their story.”

“Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”