So that there is, at once, an inevitability to what these characters will say and do, and a complete absence of inevitability, insofar as the characters will not do that which they are fated to do until I ordain that they will do it. And yet they are, somehow, always going to do that particular thing, and not something else, so long as the novel finds itself on sure footing, by which I mean is written with an artistry that does not force language to do the bidding of the imagination, but to lead the imagination, almost as if it were a trusted and beloved guide that knew the imagination better than the imagination knew itself, so that the two of them will move forward hand in hand, with the former advancing slightly before the latter, though not without heeding the latter’s moods and predilections, and allowing them to affect its articulations.