Boundary Poles

From The New Yorker:

"If there were a sole, reliable route to successful fiction, I’d be very keen to know about it. For me, finished drafts emerge from anxious obedience to a bunch of (often) contradictory commandments: the story should be deeply felt, yet shouldn’t hold 'feelings' dear. There should be pleasure in the language alone, yet not so much indulgent glee in the sentence work that it robs the characters of their oxygen. The story ought to make the reader laugh, yet if it tap-dances for yuks you’re lost. Etc., etc. With luck, after worriedly tacking to and fro between these sorts of boundary poles, plus a bunch of others, I arrive at work that works." - Wells Tower