In an interview published in the Spring-Summer 1957 issue of the Paris Review, Truman Capote, referring to the short stories he began writing as a child, said that “whatever control and technique I may have I owe entirely to my training in this medium.”
“What do you mean exactly by ‘control’?” asked the interviewer.
“I mean maintaining a stylistic and emotional upper hand over your material,” Capote answered. “Call it precious and go to hell, but I believe a story can be wrecked by a faulty rhythm in a sentence—especially if it occurs toward the end—or a mistake in paragraphing, even punctuation. Henry James is the maestro of the semicolon. Hemingway is a first-rate paragrapher. From the point of view of ear, Virginia Woolf never wrote a bad sentence. I don’t mean to imply that I successfully practice what I preach. I try, that’s all.”
The entire interview can be found here.
