Architectural Secrets

This is a very interesting interview with the Booker-nominated author David Mitchell after his novels. This is the sort of interview that I like to read, a serious discussion by an author about their craft, about the process of writing and composing, and their intentions when it comes to what they want the reader to take away from their books. For example, here Mitchell discusses what he believes the essence of good story-telling is:

Fiction, I think, is all about people. In a way, it's very, very simple. You have someone that the reader is empathising with and doesn't want bad things to happen to, and then you either make bad things happen or let the reader think bad things are going to happen to them, and constantly make the reader ask 'Is he going to be ok?', 'Is she going to be alright?' When people talk about being glued to a book, each time I think that is what is happening.

And in this section, he talks about he calls the "secret architure" of his novels:

I mean the thematic architectural blue-print underlying the novel that not all readers will spot, but nonetheless keeps the whole book up. It's easier to explain through the books.

'Ghostwritten' is about causality and each of the stories is a sort of essay by example on a different theory or angle of causality.
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In 'number9dream', the secret architecture is that each of the different sections are in a 'state of the mind' form.
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In 'Cloud Atlas', the secret architecture is about different methods of transmitting a narrative.

An interview like this is rare and very welcome. It is much more enlightening and interesting than the usual puff pieces that newspapers and magazines publish.